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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#331

Post by SamBam »

Aeolun wrote: post #310
pizza wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once heard this in response to a discussion of an org's virtue signalling. What do you make of it, in this context? A man had been injured on a journey and was lying on the road, wounded. A good Samaritan saw him and helped him get up. Onlookers then retorted, "Well, the good Samaritan only helped him get up to signal their virtue!"

They say that, but what actually bothers them is that it makes them look bad. They might have wanted to help the man, but they all invented reasons not to, because they knew the majority would respond exactly as they did…

Precisely. These are the kinds of people who say that buying a more energy-efficient car/biking/eating less meat/volunteering/donating to charity etc is "virtue signaling," because they're just pissed off that it makes them look bad.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#332

Post by bckr »

geocrasher wrote: post #313
bckr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t say we’re “a family” My favorite way of framing this discussion is use the term "village". A village is a close-knit group of people with aligned interests (economic and otherwise), activities, rituals, beliefs, and ties of friendship.

No, not a family. A Team. Being a member of a team requires hard work and that everyone pulls their weight. Bad players often get traded, and sometimes another team snags a good player. I don't like "Family" because families are (ideally) a place where you are unconditionally loved. Nope. At work, I hope to like my coworers. But we're not family. We are a Team. And no matter how much I like somebody, if they aren't p…

> No, not a family.

I agree.

Team is probably the best way to describe it (indeed, it's the most used).

Village is a bit more of a personal wish, for me.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#333

Post by samstave »

sailfast wrote: post #326
samstave wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a colleague die in his cubical at Lockheed... I was IT director and I had to do a post mortem (no pun intended) about his activities in the facility by checking his badge-ing in and out of various doors to determine the time of death... that was super fn weird. We were able to determine he went to the break room at ~1am or something, made himself a cup of tea, went back to his cube and died before he even drank…

Whoa. This sounds really tough and I’m sorry you had to go through that.

I had another colleague at Lockheed that forgot that when he was on VPN, his default printer was an MFP in the office... he *printed* (2AM) out a bunch of gay porn not realizing he was on VPN... yeah that was also super FN weird when HR came to me in the morning and handed me a manila envelope containing said printed out gay porn... and demanded "I NEED TO KNOW WHO PRINTED THIS OUT NOW!"

it was an EVP... married with kids....

He may be dead now but he left lockheed to become a park ranger.

---

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#334

Post by anonporridge »

dahfizz wrote: post #308
anonporridge wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An evolutionary psychologist might argue something like that. Another way to put it, is that while the individual might act selflessly with pure and honest empathy, with no conscious expectation of something in return, this kind of behavior wouldn't have survived in our gene pool if there wasn't some evolutionary advantage to behaving that way. So, the onlookers would really have to specify whether they're talking ab…

It's not self evident that virtue _signals_ are evolutionarily advantageous. Actually being virtuous is what provides a benefit to your society / tribe / species.

Once a behavior has been socially locked in as "virtuous", then doesn't it create an incentive for individuals to signal that virtue?

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#335

Post by tomp »

haswell wrote: post #138
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental health isn’t underdiscussed, it’s just not discussed seriously enough.

I would argue that it’s both. It’s not seriously discussed because it’s under-discussed. I think most people understand the seriousness of cancer, or a heart attack, or other life threatening ailments. They accept that those things are often outside of one’s control, and so there is never any hesitation to take it seriously. When someone in a work setting is diagnosed with something serious, everyone pays attention.…

> it’s easy to downplay it or believe that the person struggling can change just by thinking hard enough.

The reason some of us downplay mental health issues is because we hear stats like "97% kids are ADHD" or "74% of university students are on Ritalin" or "108% of Americans are on anti-depressants and visiting psychiatrists"

"Mental health" (without further qualifications) is closer to herpes than to cancer.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#336

Post by icecap12 »

paledot wrote: post #248
icecap12 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment REALLY resonates with me. When I was fresh out of school, I joined an enterprise software team as a junior engineer. The team was mostly FTEs, but there were 2 or 3 contractors as well - one of whom was extremely talented. It was the talented one that everybody ganged up on. He was ridiculed (it was supposed to be in good fun but I think it went too far), and he was abused and given all the hard problems…

This reads like a LinkedIn parable. I hope you're also providing them with avenues to become full-time contributors if they want to, and ensuring they're fairly compensated and have access to the resources as discussed in this thread.

Well, I’m not a preacher, and LinkedIn is brutal. Regarding providing the avenues to full time, that’s sort of the plan. I hope to convert them - if they want to. Some people enjoy being contractors I’ve found, others are just there looking for the next full time gig.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#337

Post by icecap12 »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #318
icecap12 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment REALLY resonates with me. When I was fresh out of school, I joined an enterprise software team as a junior engineer. The team was mostly FTEs, but there were 2 or 3 contractors as well - one of whom was extremely talented. It was the talented one that everybody ganged up on. He was ridiculed (it was supposed to be in good fun but I think it went too far), and he was abused and given all the hard problems…

> Similarly, it has a few contractors, and every single one of those guys is treated like an FTE, with regular 1x1s, objectives, and personal development. If you work in a large company, HR is going to have a shit fit when they find out. And if you don't, why not just hire them full time?

I would rather have a team of all-FTEs than a mix. But the company wants more contractors because when cost-pressures arise, they can dump them without any thought. In fact this happened during COVID, hundreds of contractors at my firm were let go in one fell-swoop. Some FTEs were also cut, but it was like a 4-1 margin of contractors to FTEs, maybe more.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#338

Post by nomdep »

samstave wrote: post #333
sailfast wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. This sounds really tough and I’m sorry you had to go through that.

I had another colleague at Lockheed that forgot that when he was on VPN, his default printer was an MFP in the office... he *printed* (2AM) out a bunch of gay porn not realizing he was on VPN... yeah that was also super FN weird when HR came to me in the morning and handed me a manila envelope containing said printed out gay porn... and demanded "I NEED TO KNOW WHO PRINTED THIS OUT NOW!" it was an EVP... married with…

That’s just gossip and has nothing to do with the theme of the thread

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#339

Post by usui »

dhosek wrote: post #261

It's somewhat surprising to think that in the course of 30+ years of work life, I've only had two co-workers die. I wasn't especially close with either of them, but the contrast is noteworthy. The first, was a suicide of a teammate who was in his 20s. The company's reaction was kind of shitty. They didn't point the other team members to things like the EAP. They didn't offer bereavement time to the team members. They…

Regardless of company or team, suicide is far more stigmatized than cancer and carries with it associations, implications for people who hear it as a cause of death. There's a reason why liberal perspectives are pushing for "dies by suicide" as a replacement for "commits suicide".

Compare https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... versus https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#340

Post by samstave »

sailfast wrote: post #326
samstave wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a colleague die in his cubical at Lockheed... I was IT director and I had to do a post mortem (no pun intended) about his activities in the facility by checking his badge-ing in and out of various doors to determine the time of death... that was super fn weird. We were able to determine he went to the break room at ~1am or something, made himself a cup of tea, went back to his cube and died before he even drank…

Whoa. This sounds really tough and I’m sorry you had to go through that.

oooh I have another lockheed story:

head of HR comes to me with sme issue with her blackberry.. I have her unlock it, and my phone guy is right there as she was claiming some issue...

We open her phone, and the first thing that pops up is a video of her giving the evp of sales a BJ...

my phone guy NOPED THE FUCK OUT ASAP...

that was fun trajectory to manage...

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