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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#341

Post by samstave »

nomdep wrote: post #338
samstave wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

its not gossip. this literally happened.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#342

Post by refurb »

pc86 wrote: post #201
refurb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean “said nothing” as in they stopped showing up and management pretended nothing happened? Or the person died and they didn’t say it was a suicide. Because if it’s the 2nd, that seems pretty normal. My right to know doesnt trump the family’s right to privacy.

Framing discussions around cause of death as privacy is a double standard. If you say someone died in a car crash, nobody gasps and tells you to respect the deceased's or their family's privacy. It's so extreme that is anyone even brings up privacy with regard to a death or cause of death everyone assumes they committed suicide, or did something criminal that ended in their death, or something else negative. Cause of…

No offense, but when a coworker dies it’s not about you.

When a coworker died at work we usually understood the family was the one that needed support, not us. And if the family asked for privacy, then they got it.

And if any of us needed support, we helped each other. We didn’t need HR to pencil in a meeting.

And no, when someone dies their cause of death is not automatically public and most people (including employers) respect that.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#343

Post by refurb »

VariableStar wrote: post #172
refurb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean “said nothing” as in they stopped showing up and management pretended nothing happened? Or the person died and they didn’t say it was a suicide. Because if it’s the 2nd, that seems pretty normal. My right to know doesnt trump the family’s right to privacy.

Colleagues knew it was suicide and wanted to talk about it. Leadership did not want to discuss the issue. Normal, as you write.

But coworkers could discuss among themselves?

This just seems bizarre to me to expect a special “all hands” session or something to discuss this.

Provide counseling services? Sure.

Put a “how Jimmy died” meeting on everyone’s calendar? That’s odd.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#345

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

dvtrn wrote: post #88

Pete would ask to work more hours. He claimed he could use the money. He was a contractor remember Amidst the loss here, this line stood out to me and brings to mind all the terrible ways contractors are taken advantage of, or at least, treated and compensated vastly different than their "staff"/"full-time" peers who are often doing the exact same work . For fun, google the phrase "permatemp". E.g. I had a past job a…

This happens at my BigCo job too. We literally are not allowed to give any official recognition of the incredibly hard work and immense talent of our contractors. "Contractors" - the human beings we work with day in and out, that build amazing products, that we joke with, share holiday photos with, wish well when they're sick, urge to take a break every once in a while, who seem to work well into what should be their kids' dinner time or bedtime. But because they get paid differently, they're treated like surfs. They always are forgotten in company e-mails, they always have a harder time accessing services, since they don't get a company laptop they're left to go through some RDP interface to use a machine on our network, they don't get the same vacation days we do. I really hate how they're treated.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#347

Post by larrywright »

At every funeral I've ever attended, save for a few where the deceased was tragically young, many of the attendees are coworkers - current and former. It's always nice for the families to hear about the impact that their loved one had on people they worked with. I've heard all kinds of stories, from people who gave someone encouragement to try for a promotion, or picked up some of their work so they could be out of the office tending to a sick family member, etc.

I've spent the last decade working at a large company on fully remote teams. Nobody I have worked with during that time has lived within 120 miles of me. Most aren't even in the US. They're in London, Dublin, Rome, India. I've occasionally had the fleeting thought: who is going to come to my funeral? I have family and friends, people I know in the community through various things. But there will be a big demographic left out.

I turned 50 a few weeks ago (and just today attended a memorial service of someone I'd known since middle school), so perhaps this is just hitting me at the right time. But it does bother me a bit, and I don't really see an obvious solution for it.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#348

Post by BoorishBears »

maleldil wrote: post #282
BoorishBears wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it fine? Causes of death are not fungible, dying in a freak accident and dying from suicide in a high pressure setting should not be treated the same. Especially since we know that suicide can act like a contagion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207262/#_sec_0078_ and the demands of the program they were in were almost certainly a factor

If it's specifically with suicide, then the company has a stigma with mental health, which is not okay. However, if it's always "teammate died" with no extra information, I can respect it. Your teammates are not entitled to know your cause of death. That's a personal thing, but you aren't there any more to choose if it's okay to share.

If there's whispers the cat is out of the bag... the most respectful move is to simply address it and extend counseling

Your cause of death isn't a personal thing either by the way, it's a matter of public record in most states (and of course word tends to get out with something as emotional as a death)

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#349

Post by BoorishBears »

philwelch wrote: post #330
BoorishBears wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it fine? Causes of death are not fungible, dying in a freak accident and dying from suicide in a high pressure setting should not be treated the same. Especially since we know that suicide can act like a contagion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207262/#_sec_0078_ and the demands of the program they were in were almost certainly a factor

It’s exactly because suicide is socially contagious that it makes sense to stigmatize it and not openly discuss it.

That makes zero sense at all.

People learned this person committed suicide and the organization decided not to address it. That is strictly worse than addressing it no matter how you slice it.

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