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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#361

Post by dosethree »

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…

Why do companies choose contractors over FTE? Sometimes it’s just because it’s temporarily addition to the work force. If they are vetted and trained like FTE, great. Sometimes the difference is just how you get paid and it doesn’t matter

Sometimes though companies can’t hire FTE so they bring in a of contractors (or outsource), vet and manage them poorly, or give them controversial projects and then they have to lean on the FTE. Also they are often not on call.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#362

Post by saghm »

sailfast wrote: post #323
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!"

If the Samaritan had tweeted about how he felt the person really was deserving of help, he would have been signaling. Maybe they scheduled a seminar for their company on how best to help people after having walked by? But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing. Action is not signaling. Action is action. Maybe it helps one’s reputation doing it for the Gram, but you are actually helping another person and th…

> But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing.

> Action is not signaling. Action is action.

I don't really understand why those would have to be exclusive. I think taking action to help people is important, and if suddenly everyone became aware every time someone helped someone else to the point where it became an expectation, I guess I don't really see why this would be a problem. At the end of the day, if more people are genuinely being helped due to being charitable becoming table stakes, I don't really care whether the help only happened due to ego or due to actual benevolence. I can see it becoming a problem if people weren't actually helping people and only signalling, but I don't really see how that would apply to companies giving people time and space to grieve and then also setting the example for the rest of industry.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#363

Post by fragmede »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #208
darkwater wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest issue comes from thinking that since it's in the mind and not in the body, you can just cure it by yourself: be happy, not depressed! Which is obviously wrong and comes from ignorance.

As someone who has experienced a lot depression myself and with family, I think the chemical/body mechanism is grossly overstated. It is a mind problem, but that makes it harder, not easier to address. The only real solution IS "happy, not depressed", but it is terribly difficult to do if you have poor tools and learned patterns. Medicine can help break up patterns.

Right. The phrase "it's all in your head" takes on new connotations because hey, guess what, I live in my head 24/7. Yes it is in my head. It's inescapable. Medicine is tools and technology, and it's a wheelchair for the mind's broken legs.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#364

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

GGfpc wrote: post #161
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.

if I hear the expression "it takes a village" on more fucking time I will quit my job and become a baker

The only thing I know about you is that you said this. I'm fully convinced that you'd make an excellent baker.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#365

Post by cphoover »

gkop wrote: post #235
cphoover wrote: post #219

While I do not always put my camera on... (sometimes I like wearing a raggedy old t shirt and taking a call from my sofa chair) I think this shows one major advantage to face to face communication which is human connection.

Would you spell out please why you don’t put the camera on when joining from your sofa chair? I feel self-conscious joining from my couch occasionally, but am pushing through it, there’s no reason why we can’t normalize harmless alternatives to desk locations. So just want to check that I’m not missing some material consequence of this behavior.

I don't know I work for an old-school very corporate-feeling company. I feel like I would be presenting as too casual. I work in finance and while we (software developers) don't have to wear suits or traditional business-ware like traders, fund managers or other associates, sitting in my sofa couch in a t-shirt just feels like it would come off ass to casual.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#366

Post by ngngngng »

Angostura wrote: post #86
jddil wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR has 1 job. Protect the company, they aren't your friends at all. If announcing a teammates passing helps the company they would do it, if they don't think it would they wouldn't. No emotions come into this. (this is not to say you can't have friends at work, but the company is not your family and will drop you the day you aren't productive any longer)

> HR has 1 job. Protect the company I see this from time to time and it irritates me. I'm not in HR. I know some people who are and people who go into that line of work often do care about making people's lives better. Certainly if that conflicts somehow with a a requirement to protect the company, they may have to prioritise the latter. But that doesn't mean that they have 'one job'.

> people who go into that line of work often do care about making people's lives better.

That's a fine motive, but it's similar to joining Facebook in order to help people improve their attention span

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#367

Post by sgt »

oportunityastro wrote: post #278
sgt wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there is a private health sector as well?

Yes, but it is prohibitively expensive for most people (ironically because the market is quite small...everyone tries to go through the NHS). The level of underfunding is, however, such that mental health providers are a huge part of the private health sector: Priory Group is a very big one. Another factor is that a lot of training for psychologists is paid by the NHS, and funding for training has been going down eve…

If the NHS can't keep up, the private sector needs to be partially subsidized, in my opinion.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#368

Post by knorker »

Graffur wrote: post #130
knorker wrote: post #19

How people can feel connected as a team without even video I'll never understand. It's hard enough to get a social "fix' over video. Audio only? No way. And I say this as an introvert who just knows that sometimes I have to take my "social medicine", because it's good for me. Maybe you feel connected with only audio. I can pretty much guarantee there's someone on your team for whom you're just some voice with a label…

So if you ring your parents you don't feel connected with them? You don't feel connected with your friends playing online games? Video doesn't provide any additional connection to me. I find I just look at myself more because you can't hide your own video in MS Teams. And then when someone shares their screen and includes a video of yourself, you see yourself mirrored which is definitely a distraction. Video calls ar…

I video call my parents.

I'm not convinced by "natural, therefore better". The "can see everyone" is the one thing that's better with video than in person. But yes in person as a whole is better.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#369

Post by knorker »

trentnix wrote: post #29
knorker wrote: post #19

How people can feel connected as a team without even video I'll never understand. It's hard enough to get a social "fix' over video. Audio only? No way. And I say this as an introvert who just knows that sometimes I have to take my "social medicine", because it's good for me. Maybe you feel connected with only audio. I can pretty much guarantee there's someone on your team for whom you're just some voice with a label…

I can remember being on IRC in the mid-90s and hearing that a channel regular had passed away. I'd never met them, heard them, seen their picture, and never even talked to them privately. But somehow there was a real sense of loss and sadness, anyway.

I'm still on IRC, and find it better than audio only.

Because IRC is an all day background conversation.

Audio meetings? They are an objective focused limited time thing.

Nobody has time to sit in a video meeting with their friends all day (especially since it's multiple groups of people at the same time). But it'd be a better connection.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#370

Post by Scarblac »

anonporridge wrote: post #334
dahfizz wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not necessarily, no. Why would it?
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