[HN Gopher] Mourning loss as a remote team ___________________________________________________________________ Mourning loss as a remote team Author : asyncscrum Score : 909 points Date : 2022-03-26 12:13 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sofuckingagile.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sofuckingagile.com) | jll29 wrote: | We once hired a new colleague, and a week later I had a WebEx | call to say 'hi' and we chatted about graph algorithms. It was a | good-vibes call, and we closed saying we both looked forward to | collaborating on research topics of mutual interests. | | The next day the news came that he had died from a hard attack. | It was very sad, and also strange to have someone pass so soon | after joining, and even more strange to know that, perhaps apart | from his wife, I was the last person he may have talked to. Like | in the poster's case there was a time zone difference, and we | never met in real life. | | I was sorry for the family. I also reflected on the situation: I | had (virtually) crossed roads with yet another nice person, he | conveyed his passion for knowledge in one of the last acts in his | life, then passed in his sleep; the premature time of death | aside, that is actually a positive ending in a way. Recalling | that memory from years ago, I do not remember his name, but I | clearly envisage the shared excitement about the beauty of | graphs; that is the impression that stayed with me until today. | May he R.I.P. | | As a suggestion, I propose to those teams affected to hold a | remembrance event for a lost colleague, where stories and images | can be shared, ideally in person and in commection with a meal, | but if not possible at least as a virtual shared meal. | BubbleRings wrote: | Managers, one solution here is pretty easy. For instance, if your | team has a daily status meeting, just tell them "every other | Friday, cameras are encouraged". That's it. Don't make it | mandatory, don't make jokes about "Joe never turns his camera on, | what does his place look like?" In a world that is getting more | and more lonely for a lot of people, this can be a life saver. | | And to HR, I have a similar message. Do your job. Just because | someone is a contractor, doesn't mean you can't put in a little | effort when bad things happen. One of my co-workers died of covid | early in the pandemic. The place I was contracting at basically | disappeared him, it was disgusting. Part of the reason I was laid | off may have been because I started contacting managers up the | chain saying basically "do _something_ to acknowledge that a | member of the team has died for Pete's sake!" | brassattax wrote: | The moment you realize HR is there to serve the company's | interests, not the employee's, your expectation of them | changes. | misslibby wrote: | Taking good care of employees and contractors can be in the | company's interest, though. It's costly to lose them and | having to hire new ones, and ex employees talking badly about | a company also is not good. | | (I'd think, I don't work in HR, so no idea what actual | directives they have). | Beldin wrote: | You'd be amazed at how often those coincide if there's not a | culture of omerta. | | It's almost as if happy employees are in a company's | interest. Not paramount, but not neglected either. | alexashka wrote: | Culture of omerta - I had to look it up. | | There'll _always_ be culture of omerta when you don 't give | someone a piece of the company. | | If I'm an hourly employee, our interests are not aligned. | You don't value me enough to share the wins but I know I'll | be sharing in the losses by getting fired. | | To everyone pretending otherwise - wake the fuck up. | devmunchies wrote: | Are there any orgs that don't serve the company? | tonyarkles wrote: | I say this both being a non-unionized often-contractor, but | in some other industries that would be the union. Ignoring | all the politics sounds that, growing up I certainly got to | witness my dad's coworkers and union come together to help | out their members _personally_ when tragedy struck, as well | as planning social events and fundraisers. Some parts of | union can be really bad, but they're not exclusively bad. | KuhlMensch wrote: | In a HR org that is damaging to the company, they always | side with the company; What is unique to HR, is that can | often turn them AGAINST an individual worker. | owl57 wrote: | I could see the difference with "commodity" employees, and | that sucks, but what's the big difference if we are talking | about programmers? The company is obviously very interested | to make us not want to leave, and also probably interested | that we feel like caring about the product. | brassattax wrote: | Possibly true when the programmers are building the | company's product. I happen to work for a company where all | of IT is a cost center. | wonderwonder wrote: | I think if that was true then large raises would be the | norm as they know programmers often leave every couple | years for a 20+ % raise. | avgcorrection wrote: | Such mandatory face-time--and mandatory social interaction in | general--can make things better or worse. It can make things | better because someone might need more social interaction. On | the other hand it can make things worse because some people are | more lonely in a crowd rather than when they are by themselves. | jddil wrote: | Had 2 panic attacks from a well being manager forcing social | interaction to keep up team moral. So yeah there is no easy | solution, we're all different. | civilized wrote: | I would like to gently caution and remind everyone that seeing | coworker faces once a week may not have been the make-or-break | in why Pete took his own life. And for all we know it may have | made him feel worse. | | A relatively solitary and cognitively intense discipline like | software engineering could be _one_ place in society (one!) | where genuine introverts are understood and appreciated. | | (I certainly agree that we should acknowledge when a team | member dies and give people space to be sad!) | wombat-man wrote: | I wouldn't expect HR to do anything, nor would I expect them to | send out a mail if someone quit or were fired. | | I do think the right thing is for the manager to acknowledge | the situation and maybe hold some kind of gathering in | remembrance. Possibly even pull together something to send to | the family of the deceased. But I don't think this means | anything coming from HR, it's gotta come from people who knew | the person. | Graffur wrote: | What is your easy solution for exactly? A manager suggesting a | team to turn on their cameras means "turn on your camera.". It | will cause stress. | | It sounds like they developed a good working relationship and | that camera/no camera didn't make a difference at all. | BubbleRings wrote: | I was thinking mostly about my experience working fully | remotely for the last two years at more than one contracting | job. And saying that if I was a manager, I would definitely | tell people on Fridays or every other Friday "we turn on | cameras if you are comfortable with it." | jddil wrote: | 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) | georgebarnett wrote: | I see this often and it is a ridiculous over simplification. | | This entire thread has stories of broken corporate culture | causing people to leave the company and somehow you're | translating that as win for HR? | | In most cases, HR aren't the ones "dropping" you (it's your | manager). They're the ones ensuring it gets done in a way | that least disruptive to the rest of the org. | Angostura wrote: | > 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'. | jddil wrote: | I think it does. At the end of the day they will (and | should) choose to protect the company above all else. | That's their only job. | | They can also want to help people, have a ton of empathy | and be literal saints. But that's their personal motivation | and not what the job actually is. | Angostura wrote: | I'd be interested to see the logic applied to other jobs. | What's your job using this kind of reductionist logic? | Are there _any_ jobs that aren 't "protect the company" | in some way? | jddil wrote: | If you're working for a for-profit company .... uhh no? | | And I'm a software engineer, I solve business problems | with code. If I decide to to write some code that doesn't | help the company I would probably be fired or at least | put on a PIP | styren wrote: | If there's one thing I've learned from mgmt it's that | happy teams make for performant teams. The employees | trust that I'll support them in creating a fulfilling | work environment and look out for them. If I'd take all | decisions with the companies profits in mind I'd break | that trust which wouldn't lead anywhere good. When an | issue arises I'll sometimes be on the side with sr mgmt, | sometimes with the team, sometimes it will be more | complex than choosing sides. Not all decisions can (or | should) be boiled down to dollars and cents. | | Perhaps you should ask someone in your HR department to | tell you more about their mission as I doubt they'd share | these views. | gh0std3v wrote: | > Pay attention to your team. Build closeness. Get to know about | everyone's family and private life. Take mental health seriously | and talk openly about it. It may seem like prying, but you might | catch a wobbler with a team member that you can address early. | | While I think it's important for workplaces to take care of their | employees, I feel like Pete's issue was that he was _too_ close | to work. And on top of that, he wasn 't even an employee, just a | contractor with no benefits, PTO, etc. | | The real problem here is that Pete was not integrated as an | employee. If he were, he could have taken PTO, accessed health | benefits, and gotten help. I don't know the complete story, so I | won't extrapolate further, but I feel sad thinking that this team | almost feels "responsible" for his suicide. It wasn't the remote | team's fault for not catching on, it was the company's fault for | not acknowledging the health and security of their contractors | (who, I reiterate, should have been employees). | | Don't mean to offend anyone, I just felt the way contractors are | treated is sometimes unjust. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > I feel like Pete's issue was that he was too close to work | | The article is about a _coworker_. This isn't about the | company, it's about the people you work with. | | Building relationships with your peers is a healthy activity. | Mourning the loss of a coworker is normal and expected. | | If anything, going out of your way to avoid building | relationships with peers would be a toxic behavior. Working at | such a place where everyone avoided caring about each other | beyond the minimum necessary transactions to get their job done | would be miserable. | dhosek wrote: | 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 even docked time from | PTO allotments for those who missed a half-day of work to attend | the funeral. | | The second, was a teammate in his 30s who died from cancer. I've | been remote with the team since the beginning and never met | anyone in person. He'd been struggling with health issues for the | few months he was with us (he'd come back from a 6-month medical | leave of absence before joining our team). The level of empathy | and support from management at all levels was superlative. They | made sure that we were aware of all the support that was | available, let us know we were able to take off time if we needed | it to process his death (including a member of the team who's a | contractor), etc. Suffice it to say that I'm very happy with my | current employer and know that they have my back if I need | support. | nkrisc wrote: | I had a coworker who passed from cancer some years ago. He never | acknowledged it but he knew it was coming. When his time finally | came his wife talked to the team leadership and invited all of us | to the wake. I thought it was incredibly thoughtful of her to do | so. We were all given a paid day off work and went to the wake | and met people from his family and personal life. It seemed a | little strange that even though many of us weren't really part of | his personal life, we were still part of at least some small part | of his life nonetheless. I thought it was a really nice way of | dealing with it. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | Why isn't there a video required policy? | joshuahutt wrote: | We lost a coworker to COVID-19, early on during the pandemic. It | was surreal to go from seeing his smiling face in the hall to | reading the company-wide email about his passing. We had a | virtual memorial service, and his friends, parents, and | colleagues were all invited to share their stories about him. It | was an emotional experience. For all the things I could complain | about at that company, how they handled this situation was | probably the most comforting and humane thing they could have | been done. | | It still makes me tear up to think about. He was so young and so | cheerful. So full of life. Having faced loss like the article | describes, I can't say that the nature of the loss makes much of | a difference. Death affects everyone close to it, pretty | universally. Questions about whether it was preventable or not, | fair or unfair, etc., only serve to color our painful rumination. | | Every so often, I'll remember him, and I'll repeat one of his | catch-phrases to a friend who was on his team. Inconsequential as | this might be, I like to keep the good memories of him alive. | thenerdhead wrote: | One thing I cannot understand in the traditional workplace is why | certain leaves & sudden departures are never disclosed to a close | team whether by the person or their manager. I've had many | teammates come and go in the blink of an eye and I'm curious to | this day of "what happened to X?". Were they PIPed? Are they | fighting something? Did they win the lottery and decide to | retire? | | It's as if the relationships between the team are much different | than with direct management and the disclosure happens privately | between middle management and by the time they're gone, the team | is left clueless. | | I think we need to bring more empathy into the workplace. | Especially the remote workplace. I operate on the premise that | everyone is battling problems that you don't know about, but even | knowing a generalized detail can help in the long term. It takes | courage to be vulnerable which not many are willing to do in the | workplace, but helps teams become closer and more caring in the | long run. It's hard to give bad news, but it's even harder on | everyone to say nothing at all. | throwmeariver1 wrote: | Sometimes there is just nothing to say not everything is | nefarious it could also mean that even if you think you had a | close relationship to your colleague it really wasn't so close | at all because otherwise they would give you a heads-up | afterwards. | thenerdhead wrote: | Is it reasonable to say "X is no longer with us, we'll figure | out their responsibilities with hiring a replacement, | dividing areas of ownership, etc" shortly after they depart | (for any reason)? Or should the team have to put two and two | together after realizing they aren't coming back? I feel like | the latter is too common. | wombat-man wrote: | When I left my last job I pinged everyone I was friendly with. | Then I sent out an email to everyone I knew just so people knew | I was leaving and how they could contact me. Not everyone feels | a connection to their coworkers and if they want to just leave | the job without fanfare that's fine with me. | | I do think that due to legal reasons, companies will say as | little as possible to employees. We had an exec suddenly leave | and we had a large meeting about it where the VP told us, but | you could tell that there were a few talking points he had to | stick to. Basically that the director was no longer with the | company and that there wouldn't be a discussion as to why. | Nearly two years later I learned it was because he said some | rude shit on social media and got canned. | | If someone is leaving voluntarily and on good terms, I'd expect | an email or announcement. Maybe even a farewell party. But if | you hear nothing, I'd assume it's because they declined to have | one or they did not leave voluntarily. Either way, best to | leave sleeping dogs lie, unless you really felt a connection to | that person. | thenerdhead wrote: | Why is it so taboo to talk about people leaving, quitting, or | even dealing with their own battles? Shouldn't we keep people | in the loop with common sense disclosures? You don't have to | say much and it makes people understand the situation and | take on the responsibilities. | | So while it's hearing nothing, an irish exit, or even greener | pastures, I do believe it's up to someone to communicate it | in a common sense way so people aren't surprised months down | the line. | wombat-man wrote: | Yeah I agree, otherwise people can imagine all kinds of | things. I just think it's up to the person leaving or | someone they report to. HR is focused on completely | different tasks. | atribecalledqst wrote: | Sorry to hear for their loss. It's tough losing coworkers. Feels | like we've lost more than our fair share over the past several | years. | | My old boss died suddenly in an accident a number of years ago. | Well-liked guy, been there for years, most everybody in | engineering knew him. For some reason our leadership decided that | they needed to have an all-hands -- the entire company -- where | they announced that (these exact words) he "had been found | deceased". Completely blindsided. | | Sudden all-hands meetings still make me nervous years later. | | In the context of this thread, I suppose what I'm trying to say | is -- fully remote can create too much distance and that's not | good. But at the same, you need to let people handle mourning in | their own way. And maybe break the news gently. | jdavis703 wrote: | > I honestly don't know if HR does help in these situations, but | I like to think they could schedule grief counseling | | This sounds cheesy, but EAP (employee assistance programs) are | one benefit. Me and my partner recently did hospice care for my | mother-in-law. | | Hospice care is physiologically and emotionally draining. After | she passed I was in a bad mental health state (I have bipolar | that's well-managed, but long-term, high-stress situations can | still trigger problems). | | I wound up phoning the EAP hotline and trauma dumping on a random | therapist for an hour. Sometimes just having someone to talk to | is the difference between spiraling out of control and being able | to take care of a mental health situation. | hogrider wrote: | It's funny in a sad way how bow he wishes he could have turned | him into an employee. You are abusing contractors and you know | it, tech industry. | dcatx wrote: | Thank you for sharing this piece. Navigating a loss like this in | a purely remote environment must have been incredibly challenging | -- grieving feels like an exercise that we do best together in | the same physical space. Sometimes you just need someone to give | you a hug. | | The hardest thing I have ever done as a manager was gather my | team into a room and let them know that one of our team members, | a young woman just beginning her career, died in a car accident. | The accident happened the night before my wedding. I came back to | work 36 hours after my wedding, and a few days before leaving for | my honeymoon. The first email in my inbox was from a friend of | hers telling me what had happened. I walked into work to an | office full of people wanting to hear about my wedding and | instead I had to tell them that someone they knew and cared about | was gone. | | She sent me an email sharing her joy about my wedding that I | didn't read until after I had already learned of her death. | | Six years later and the memories are still painful. | asyncscrum wrote: | Breaking the news is so hard. Sorry about your colleague. This | sounds pretty rough. | lostlogin wrote: | > He was a contractor remember, so more hours means more money, | and I could reconcile this without thinking twice. | | In a very depressing topic, this caught my eye. It's a shame that | it's normalised for so many that extra work doesn't mean extra | pay. Salaried work seems a bit evil like. | noirbot wrote: | See, I feel like it's almost the opposite - I like salaried | because I work my 40 and then feel no guilt for slacking off | after that unless it's an incident/emergency. If I had a | contract that paid me for overtime/hourly, I'd have days where | I didn't have anything going on in the evening and it would be | harder to not just put in an extra couple hours of work for | some extra money. | | It feels like a similar debate to the "unlimited vacation" | discussions. It really depends on what your natural | proclivities are to determine which option of the options is "a | bit evil" and which is "natural" | ryanmarsh wrote: | In my 40's now and watching my father (boomer gen) go to funerals | of people he worked with for years (in some cases decades). It | makes me wonder who from work would bother going to mine, not out | of guilt or obligation. The previous generation, for all their | faults, seems to have a closer connection with their colleagues. | Granted we connect differently these days, the bonds seem so | temporary, fleeting even. They're often anonymous. | | Sad really. | flybrand wrote: | We lost a valued team member in late '19 and two others through | the past two years. I choked up talking about him on several | calls. | | Your note is very thoughtful. All we can do is our best. Grieving | is very personal - from a colleague / employer standpoint we just | support each other as best we can, if we can. | asyncscrum wrote: | Thanks for this. Sorry to hear about your losses. HN has been | very kind today and it's been cathartic to read all of these | stories. | dschulz wrote: | Back in 2020 I could very well have been the Pete in this story. | I was struggling so bad with mental health issues, financial | issues. On top of that, my father was giving the figh to | prostatic cancer. I was just starting working remotely for the | first time for a Canadian company. My employers were the nicest | guys I have ever meet online and I was thrilled to have been | asked to work for them as a software developer. At first I felt | relieved because I finally landed in a job to do things I like | using the tools I like with great people. Even though I | desperately needed money, I was willing to work on a dime just to | prove myself that I was sufficiently skilled to be "one of them". | | But as exciting as it felt, there was an impedance that made | things so difficult for me and my brain. It rapidly started to | erode my self-confidence, I began pushing so hard trying to solve | every task and every little detail in the most perfect way | possible and felt like I was failing at everything. I certainly | was failing at one thing and it was communication. The language | was a barrier (English is not my native language), and I think | there might have been some kind of <<cultural mismatch>> at play | too. In hindsight, I think my employers were also failing to read | what I was writing on the wall. I let them know I was struggling | with mental health issues and I think I made sufficiently clear | what my struggles were. They tried to help me the best they could | but kept insisting on things that were irrelevant to me. | Apparently they thought maybe I was doing "just a theatre" | because I was afraid of asking to renegotiate my compensation (I | wasn't). That was particularly frustrating to me. | | At some point, feeling like a lightning rod in the middle of a | thunderstorm, I was on the brink of doing what can't be undone. I | had it all planned. | | Lucky me, my wife was wakeful enough to notice what was going on | and helped me get out of the pit. | Reggie_Walls wrote: | We had an outside facilitator oversee and guide a remote memorial | service for a fellow engineer lost to COVID. I would suggest this | approach. Their job seemed very difficult, but it was very | important and useful to recognize the person lost and share our | experiences. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | > It's easy to think that we could have prevented Pete's death | | This sounds like guilt, one of the stages of grieving. I hope you | get counseling. | vertis wrote: | Second this. | | This is the second time I've written this in the course of a | week, over two different items. Seems it the time for it. | | Getting therapy is not a weakness. They're professionals there | to help you get the best outcome. | gkop wrote: | How do you find a good therapist? It seems like a market for | lemons. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | In my experience, you definitely have to shop. You have to | find someone who is a fit for you personally. Don't settle | until you find someone who truly helps you; someone you | anticipate seeing each week. It takes time and is an | investment in yourself. Have patience and expect to spend a | lot. | | A therapist will never say to you, "You know what? I don't | think we're a good fit" or "I don't think I can help you as | effectively as someone else." It's up to you to figure that | out, unfortunately. Personally, I have found that the more | decades a therapist has in the field, the more helpful they | are to me. | | A lot of the best therapists do not take insurance and are | not part of a group practice. Why? Because they do not want | the enormous paperwork hassle. And if they are good, they | get enough referrals to fill their schedule with people who | can afford to pay out of pocket. | | Also: this is one of those fields where credentials aren't | as important as raw experience. Masters-level social | workers can sometimes be more helpful than PhD- or PsyD- | level clinicians. | gkop wrote: | Thanks. I could benefit from therapy to address trauma I | experienced with a previous (awful) therapist. And I get | a sinking feeling considering the shopping I would need | to do. | | > A therapist will never say to you, "You know what? I | don't think we're a good fit" or "I don't think I can | help you as effectively as someone else." | | Would you say more about this? If I were a self- | respecting therapist and I read this I would feel | defensive on behalf of my field. The therapist is the | professional in this situation- it's _obvious_ they have | an ethical responsibility to catch bad therapist /client | fits. I honestly have so many questions here! | | - Why should we _not_ expect the therapist to catch | scenarios of bad fit? | | - Do therapist professional associations make any attempt | to set an expectation in this regard? | | - Tactically, could therapists be required to set an auto | survey to go out, say every three months asking "Is our | work helpful?", to make it easy for the patient to speak | up, and once the patient has spoken up, the therapist has | some limited timeframe to remediate the relationship or | it's terminated by default? | | - Is the reason that I perceive a market for lemons | simply that therapists' profit motive is a moral hazard? | IE the worse the therapist, the less likely they will | catch (admit to?) a bad fit, so due to probability, over | time, we patients will converge on the bad therapists? | How could we systematically mitigate this "externality"? | | - If therapists could collectively improve the therapist | shopping experience, could they grow the market for | therapy? IE how many people like me are out there, that | need therapy but don't seek it, because of distrust for | the the industry. Is anybody working on this? | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | > Would you say more about this? If I were a self- | respecting therapist and I read this I would feel | defensive | | My background: for 8 years, I was married to a doctoral- | level clinical psychologist with an active practice. I | learned a lot about the industry from her. I've also seen | many different therapists over my lifetime. Finally, I've | the great fortune to have discovered a wonderful | therapist almost a year ago. This was not my first | wonderful therapist. But I've also had a number of poor | matches over the years. | | > it's obvious they have an ethical responsibility to | catch bad therapist/client fits | | I can't really answer why they never come out and say, "I | don't think I can help you as effectively as someone | else." I don't really know. They just don't. I'm sure if | you ask enough therapists, you'll get the odd exception | here and there, like a therapist not comfortable with a | client's erotic transference who then lets the client go. | I don't know. | | > Why should we not expect the therapist to catch | scenarios of bad fit? | | Perhaps they don't have the perspective. Perhaps they are | trained to think they can help everyone, to some degree | or another, and perhaps that's generally true. I don't | know. But like finding a teacher who resonates with you, | you won't learn the material as well or progress as fast | unless the two of your resonate. | | > Is the reason that I perceive a market for lemons | simply that therapists' profit motive is a moral hazard? | | I don't think the majority of therapists go into their | field for the money. I think there are lemons because of | lack of experience and the highly-personalized | experience; one person's lemon is another person's | diamond. | | I can't answer your other questions. I just want to | emphasize that you need to advocate for yourself. If you | don't feel like the therapist is helping you after 3 | sessions, move on. Yes, you should have some progress | after 3 sessions in my opinion. Doesn't have to be earth- | shattering but should be something. | | Re-read my above comment because I edited it several | times after your post, adding more info (e.g. info about | insurance) | | Try not to Zoom your appointments. Go in-person! | gkop wrote: | Thanks, and thanks for the practical tips in this and | above comment. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | You're welcome. Good luck. Don't give up. Keep trying. | golemotron wrote: | The article has a lot of reflection about how impersonal their | workplace is but it stops short of discussing the impersonal | nature of working with people you don't even see or share the | same physical space with. The neglected mental health aspects of | that sort of environment are obvious for anyone who cares to | look. | patientplatypus wrote: | hahaitsfunny wrote: | Another shining example of the ills of neo-liberalism, | capitalism, and wage labor as well as how we adapt our humanity | to the system rather than building up one around it. | draw_down wrote: | sergiomattei wrote: | Wow. What an incredible read. | trentnix wrote: | Thank you for sharing such an honest piece. Suicide is a tragedy | without peer, the result of pain, illness, and some part | selfishness. I feel compassion for Pete and his fight with mental | illness, sadness for the friends and coworkers left behind, and | anger on behalf of his wife and children who will now carry an | incredible burden. | | Suicide is infectious (as strange as that sounds) and I've found | it tough to reconcile that showing compassion for the suicidal | can actually encourage more suicide. It's an act I'm not able to | comprehend and that paralyzes my response. | | I was dismayed to read the section _Did We Ignore the Signs?_ , | but I understand. Similarly, I feel a sense of personal | responsibility for the well-being of those I've hired. It's | common for those left behind due to suicide to carry guilt, but | it's neither healthy nor constructive to think that way. Please | take the opportunity to be responsible for your own mental | health, and that requires you not to feel responsible for the | mental health of those around you. | | May Pete rest in peace and sincere condolences to the friends and | family left behind. | avgcorrection wrote: | > Suicide is a tragedy without peer, the result of pain, | illness, and some part selfishness. | | Well at least they won't have to deal with your judging looks. | [deleted] | starkd wrote: | Sadly, it is infectious. That may be why traditions have tended | to marginalize it when it happens. The evolutionary | psychologist Steven Pinker discussed it in one of his books by | noting that when a prominent suicide happens and is televised, | there is a corresponding slight uptick of accidents in the | area. He suggests that merely the suggestion of suicide can tip | the balance in favor of reactionary recklessness for a tiny | percentage in response to a bad event. | | It's important to have empathy for all those left behind, and | it is sad for those who take their own life, but there is a | danger in elevating their actions to being virtuous or somehow | noble. The consequences are indeed quite selfish for all those | left behind. | ralmidani wrote: | I interviewed with my current company (where we work mostly- | remote) last year. One of my interviewers was a very sharp, | experienced, and nice developer. After I learned they were going | to make me an offer, I emailed my interviewers, and this | developer emailed me back saying he was looking forward to | working together. | | The week before I started, he passed away in a car accident. I | was really looking forward to working with him, but I never got | the opportunity. | | As soon as I found out, I again emailed everyone I knew at the | company to express my condolences. | | When on-boarding I said "I know I'm joining at a rough time for | the team". It turned out it was the day after his funeral (which | I found out my manager and at least some devs attended). They | didn't seem to be expecting empathy from a brand new hire, but | some folks were obviously still mourning. I'm glad I acknowledged | their loss. We didn't dwell on it, but it might have been really | awkward if I had just charged like a bull into a China shop | saying "I'm so psyched to be joining your team!!!" as if nothing | had happened. | | In my inbox, I also found an email from our CEO to the whole | company (about 100 employees) from the week of his passing. | | There is also an archived Slack channel to memorialize him where | different folks who knew him shared their fond memories. The | company established an annual teamwork award in his name. And a | lot of folks contributed to a GoFundMe for his son's education. | | All of these things are strong indicators that I'm at an awesome | company. We don't say we're "a family" (don't believe it if your | company or prospective company claims that - often it's an | outright lie and otherwise it's code for a toxic culture with no | boundaries), but we do care about each other. | | No matter your position, if empathy doesn't come naturally, learn | it. It will serve you in so many situations in life. | bckr wrote: | > 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. | GGfpc wrote: | if I hear the expression "it takes a village" on more fucking | time I will quit my job and become a baker | bckr wrote: | Well, I didn't say "it takes a village". I merely used the | word "village". | no_butterscotch wrote: | Yea but I agree with the sentiment of the commenter | you're replying to. | | It's unfortunately a loaded word now. | hoten wrote: | It takes a village to support a successful bakery. | bicx wrote: | It takes a village to bake a cake! Farmers gotta harvest | the wheat, millers grind it to flower, Aunt Mae's chickens | gotta provide the eggs, etc.... | dougmwne wrote: | My partner sat in the same cube pod as someone who took their | life. One day they were just gone and a crying family member came | by to take away a box of things. There was no official | acknowledgement of what happened, no service or memorializing, | only hushed whispers. It was terrible. | | Thank you for your humane response to Pete's death, for creating | room for the team to grieve and official acknowledgement that it | was no longer business as usual. This is one of those moments | that leadership really matters. There's more to being a leader | than shipping a volume of features, you are also an important | figure in the lives of your team and they need you in a time of | crisis. | HeyLaughingBoy wrote: | That is the worst! I remember when a long-time team member died | unexpectedly one weekend. We all learned about it at the Monday | standup meeting and we luckily had the common sense to cancel | the standup because no one wanted to talk. | | A number of us went to the funeral and his wife told me (I had | met her once before) that she was _so_ happy that his co- | workers came to pay their respects. It made her feel that he | had a larger impact than she knew of and it was comforting to | her. | | I hate, hate, hate the way corps try to brush away any | unpleasantness like ignoring it means it didn't happen! | synergy20 wrote: | Job places are never your family, it's just a place to make | money to keep life going, my take is, don't expect too much | from the company you are working at other than paychecks. | | instead, building friendship outside of work(if you have | friends at work, that's good too), and spending more time | with your family,etc. I think this is also called work-life | balance. | | This does not work for people that needs extra help though, | e.g. those who experiences mental illness, depression, down- | cycles in life etc. HR and benefit package should have a | humane way to do it better, at least, providing free hotline | as a medical insurance add-on for all employees. | | A good manager should stay aware of personal concerns | cautiously in the team other than just checking their agile | sprint schedule, it's part of your work. For years that a | direct manager never met a key team member, never video chat | with him/her, still keeping him as a contractor after 7 | years, sorry, I put quite some blame on the manager. | | A good manager takes great care of his team, which in the | end, will benefit his own boss/company too. Blaming the | corporate for your team members' lack of benefit is barking | the wrong tree, it's you who did not fight hard enough for | your key team members, you're the one should be blamed. | anonporridge wrote: | > I hate, hate, hate the way corps try to brush away any | unpleasantness like ignoring it means it didn't happen! | | I personally don't mind it. It's a good reminder that we as | individuals are just replaceable cogs in the machine, that | all of us are only as valuable as the productivity we can | contribute in the future, and that our sense of loyalty to it | should be adjusted accordingly. | | Don't ever expect a corporation of any kind to act like a | human or a family, because it's not, even if they try to put | on a humanoid face. | | Having said that, I expect more corporations will start | trying to act more humanely in the face of this kind of | trauma, precisely because those that don't will engender a | sense of deep distrust and disloyalty from their employees, | which will make them weaker in the long run. The more | generations of people go through the machine and see how it | really works, and teach their children the truth, the less | they'll be able to take advantage of naivety. This also tends | to be a reason that the powers that be want tighter control | on social media, so people can't as easily share widely the | truth of their lived experience that will preemptively poison | the trust of others towards machines designed to use and | discard people. | pizza wrote: | 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!"_ | quantified wrote: | 'Tis more blessed to give than to receive. | | Means you're preventing someone from obtaining a blessing | if you don't take their gift. And by definition, it's | less blessed to receive than to give. But if everyone | only gives, no one receives, grinds to a halt. | | Metrics on virtue make things so difficult. | bsder wrote: | To the person injured, the reason for being helped is | less important than the fact that he was _HELPED_. | | Too many people will ignore things like this. Too many | people will stand around helplessly--if nothing else, at | least call 911. The number of times I have been the first | person to _actually call 911_ at an accident is | embarassingly high--I have only ever been the first | person on site once. The rest of the time a crowd was | gathering but nobody bothered to call 911. | | Personally, I'll take help even if they're doing it | selfishly. And I'll thank you just the same. | anonporridge wrote: | 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 about the conscious being who is the good | Samaritan or if they're talking about the unconscious | entity that is the generic big brained ape that has | deeply embedded survival and reproductive instincts that | drive their conscious behaviors and desires outside of | their control. | | I can simultaneously say that the person was honestly | just being good while acknowledging that the biological | entity may have achieved some kind of advantage by | signalling their virtue. Alternatively, I could also say | that the good Samaritan is actually acting in a way that | is a detriment to his survival, and only happens because | of a bug in his generic and psychological programming or | an old beneficial feature that is no longer good for a | new environment and will eventually be removed via | natural selection. | telesilla wrote: | People forget: in this story, the Samaritans were enemies | and known to be hostile. So how is it virtue signaling, | to another group of people to whom you don't want to | belong? In this story it was an act of altruism. | nindalf wrote: | The Samaritan knew this was his opportunity to be | immortalised in a religious text so he pretended to be | extra good. And he nearly got away with it for 2400 | years, until all of us in this thread figured it out. | svachalek wrote: | In an ideal world, the onlookers are secretly good souls, | working acts of kindness and charity away from the public | eye. In practice, they typically have no virtue to | signal, and their comments are merely a variation of | "sour grapes". | jazzdev wrote: | I don't think of it as virtue signal as much as it is | community building, which certainly has a reproductive | advantage if the community is stronger because of it. | ajkjk wrote: | The corporation may not be kind as an entity, but it would | be nice if the individual people are. | trinsic2 wrote: | That's the rub, at least for me. The poster above you is | right, corporations are just corporations. If you look up | the etymology of the word it comes from latin: corpus | (genitive corporis) "body, dead body, animal body. | | This is why I think that, more and more, people who have | a heart, are moving away from big entities like this. I | expect in a couple of generations corporations will be a | thing of the past, or something so far removed from | society, that it will no longer exist as a social norm. | | The biggest problem is not the people, its the amount of | people that organize together to make something happen. | When you live and work in a sea of people vying for | attention, to be seen and heard, there is no possibility | of humanity. Its the size that makes or breaks the | organization, not the people in it. It breaks | accountability and it breaks social connections. | | I see smaller organizations all the time that act | responsibility. These organizations usually consist of | smaller teams. This is the future, a new way of living, | small decentralized organizations providing the world | with what it needs in a human way. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > If you look up the etymology of the word it comes from | latin: corpus (genitive corporis) "body, dead body, | animal body. | | You could just shorten this to "body", which has the same | range of meanings. If you want to say "corpse" in English | or Latin, you can use a more explicit word, but you don't | have to. | | The idea of "incorporation" is that something comes into | existence - that it becomes "corporeal", not "soulless". | anonporridge wrote: | > I expect in a couple of generations corporations will | be a thing of the past, or something so far removed from | society, that it will no longer exist as a social norm. | | Alternatively, in a couple of generations, people who | have too much heart/soul and can't stomach being part of | a corporate machine will be bred out of the gene pool | and/or thrust into the powerless underclass, while the | psychopaths that have no problem with them will acquire | the most resources and reproduce the most, passing on | their genes and their way of thinking to their children. | | Some might argue this already happened generations ago. | halfdan wrote: | That's not how reproduction works though. The | unprivileged often have more kids and people on the | corporate bandwagon tend to have fewer. | anonporridge wrote: | They're also the first in line to die via disease, | famine, and war. | gunapologist99 wrote: | Corporations are like a computer program. Sometimes they | act a bit sentient, but mostly they just do what they're | told. | | The only people who are people are people. | samstave wrote: | 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 his tea. | rhizome wrote: | > _I hate, hate, hate the way corps try to brush away any | unpleasantness like ignoring it means it didn 't happen!_ | | Remember that study that found psychopathic traits in upper | management? | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p. | .. | zdragnar wrote: | Everyone is a bit of a psychopath. | | https://youtu.be/xYemnKEKx0c | [deleted] | evancoop wrote: | During my doctoral years, two students in my department took | their own lives (separate events, to be clear). The events | themselves were horribly tragic, but the lack of even a clear | acknowledgement of the causes of death left a surreal sense of | denial. | | Mental health is an enormously under-discussed issue in an | increasingly digital society that hides suffering in so many of | us. | | Work becomes an increasingly integral element of our connection | to others while certain employment becomes increasingly | transactional. | | We all can do better. So sorry to read about another human | being lost too soon. | maleldil wrote: | Do you think it wasn't acknowledged specifically because it | was suicide, or was it an overall culture of not addressing | the cause of death in general? Because the second one sounds | fine to me. | BoorishBears wrote: | 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 | maleldil wrote: | 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. | DiggyJohnson wrote: | Mental health isn't underdiscussed, it's just not discussed | seriously enough. | haswell wrote: | 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. | | Mental health issues are hard for some people to understand | if they haven't experienced their own challenges. And | because it's not discussed frequently/seriously enough, | it's easy to downplay it or believe that the person | struggling can change just by thinking hard enough. | | And the people suffering from it don't feel the same | freedom to share those struggles because they've also been | conditioned by the same collective mindset about mental | health and worry what opening up about it will mean for | them. | | Someone with severe depression who struggles with suicidal | ideation has to wonder if people will think less of them, | or if they'll be understand at all. Even though awareness | has grown, those old stigmas and default behaviors remain | just under the surface. | | Someone with a terminal illness will receive an outpouring | of support and encouragement. | | I'm happy that awareness continues to grow, but there's a | long way to go. | bckr wrote: | > Even though awareness has grown, those old stigmas and | default behaviors remain just under the surface. | | This is exactly right. Even in the last few years I feel | more understanding about mental health struggles, and I | strive to be supportive as well, but even I judge people | who take time off for mental health reasons, and I | hesitate to tell people about my own struggles. | quantified wrote: | Taboo/misunderstanding/hangups beget that hesitation, | round it goes, sadly. | sacrosancty wrote: | Depression and suicidal thoughts have a lot of public | awareness and sympathy, at least in my country which has | had public health campaigns about it. There are still | many mental health problems that are stigmatized because | they come with behaviors and feelings that are rightly | stigamitized in normal people who have the power to not | do them. Things like anxiety, anger, violence, | inappropriate sexual feelings, and self-pity. | freedomben wrote: | > _Mental health issues are hard for some people to | understand if they haven't experienced their own | challenges._ | | Bingo. This is the root of the problem IMHO. We're really | good at recognizing and empathizing with a gaping | physical wound, but if we can't see it/touch it/feel | it/etc it's hard to grok. | hashhar wrote: | Reminds me of this other comment I made on an old thread | discussing this point in a way which hopefully others can | relate to at-least a bit. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27909275 | darkwater wrote: | 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. | s1artibartfast wrote: | 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. | vlunkr wrote: | Is this the norm? I don't see why they wouldn't at least | announce it an email. It's a bit of a weird topic for a work | email, but it's certainly better than doing absolutely nothing. | kn0where wrote: | Yeah, I've worked at a couple places where someone died, and | it was definitely acknowledged by management and I feel like | it would be incredibly weird not to. | | At one place, a guy who had left the company a few months | prior died in a car crash. The guy had a wife and newborn | baby. The CEO shared the news and the company made a | contribution to a GoFundMe for the wife and baby. I think the | company offered grief counseling. | | At another, larger company, someone died shortly after I | joined, so I never knew them. We were all notified, once | again I think a grief counselor came, and the guy's desk was | left as a memorial until we moved offices a few months later. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Reactions from management and everyone else is typically | different for suicides than for car crashes and other | causes. In my experience, suicides are hushed and not | discussed while car crashes and heart attacks are. It's a | terrible double-standard. | jouleshey wrote: | It may be because there is evidence that discussing | suicide increases the likelihood of more suicides. I'm | sure there's more nuance that could be done in theory / I | would assume there exists some "right" way to discuss it | that may actually be healthier, but it's easier to just | look at studies and say best to just avoid it altogether. | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207262 | veb wrote: | This is why it's illegal to report deaths as suicides in | New Zealand media as well. | | https://mentalhealth.org.nz/media/reporting-and- | portrayal-of... | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | That link says something different: "a description of the | death as a suicide before the coroner has released their | findings and stated the death was a suicide" | freedomben wrote: | Same. I don't think it's with mal intent, I think it's | the result of a (misguided) attempt to give the passed | privacy or spare them the | embarrassment/humiliation/stigma that some people (mainly | those who have never struggled with depression/suicide) | think is attached to it. A good friend of mine committed | suicide several years ago, and it was like pulling teeth | trying to get somebody to just tell me WTF was going on. | The most I could get was "Douglas passed away." Nobody | even wanted to say it was a suicide! | | We really need to start talking more openly about these | things. If your coworker dies in a car crash nobody feels | like they can't talk about the car crash or even | acknowledge the cause of death. Yet with suicide, nobody | wants to say it. The result is even more pain mixed with | frustration. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | I've had the same experience - when someone passed, no | one would tell me the cause of death. I surmised the | cause because of that, but never got external | confirmation. It was just so ... strange. | NAHWheatCracker wrote: | Not acknowledging a death is wild, but a lot of organizations | normalize only discussing positive project-related | accomplishments. | | When the day-to-day doesn't address the simple human aspects | of work, it becomes even harder to address the difficult | aspects. | catlifeonmars wrote: | This is an interesting take. I strongly suspect you're | right about this, but would like to find more data to | support it. | bqmjjx0kac wrote: | Apathy is the path of least resistance. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Maybe if you are apathetic by nature? | 9530jh9054ven wrote: | Depends on the company. I know for a fact that if I died | tomorrow, only two people would actually notice at all and | neither of them are coworkers. | | It doesn't seem particularly helpful to send out a | notifications to people other then those that would be | affected by having to take on my workload. And what good | would come from them being told I was dead vs just left? | rvp-x wrote: | Not noticing doesn't mean the world doesn't care. There are | a lot of reasons people vanish and it's harder to notice | the absence of something than its existence, and people | usually vanish for positive reasons, so I think nothing of | it. I cried after discovering some people I hadn't known | personally but were adjacent to me have died. I didn't | notice their absence but I can empathize with the suffering | they felt before their death, or the feelings of their | family coming to grip with their absence. | | While I have a strong emotional reaction to it, I don't | think it's a bad thing, it is a part of life and a reminder | for me to savor life. | VariableStar wrote: | I do not know if it is the norm but I have also worked at an | organization where one employee committed suicide. Leadership | said nothing and everything was toned down. Some people spoke | up and complained though. My interpretation is that the | response was a combination of culture (although suicide is | not "taboo" here it is not a preferred topic) and not wanting | to bring undue attention to the organization. | refurb wrote: | 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. | pc86 wrote: | 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 death is posted in the | newspapers and otherwise discussed in public all the | time, there is no right to privacy around that piece of | information. | newaccount74 wrote: | I'd like to think that if you spend 8 hours a day with | someone everyday, and suddenly they are gone, it would be | a decent thing to tell you what happened to them. | VariableStar wrote: | Colleagues knew it was suicide and wanted to talk about | it. Leadership did not want to discuss the issue. Normal, | as you write. | avgcorrection wrote: | > There's more to being a leader than shipping a volume of | features, you are also an important figure in the lives of your | team and they need you in a time of crisis. | | _deleted_ | idontknowifican wrote: | this isn't work related, this is human meeds and suffering. i | understand management is ass, don't become an ass yourself | avgcorrection wrote: | > this isn't work related, | | So give them time off to grieve. | | Once you say that "they need you [the manager] in a time of | crisis" you are putting the tragedy in a work-related | context. The crux of the issue is the tragedy that | happened. Not how the supposed leader responds to it. | | The worker bees can get space to grieve alone or among | their peers. | pbourke wrote: | > Once you say that "they need you [the manager] in a | time of crisis" you are putting the tragedy in a work- | related context. | | Sometimes all that's needed is for the manager to not be | a giant fucking dick. | | My aunt passed away a few years ago, and I took a few | days off work to go to her funeral (a few hundred miles | away). | | When I mentioned that I was going to take a few days | bereavement leave, my manager at the time responded by | rules lawyering whether the death of an aunt qualified | under the company's bereavement policy (it did). He | otherwise said all the right things, but that's what I | remember nearly 10 years later. | eyelidlessness wrote: | Several years ago, I lost a friend to cancer. He had | previously worked on my team, and was well liked there. | My boss at the time, who I adored and still do, hadn't | known him as well but understood that his death | devastated to me. | | I came in on a _Saturday_ to let the team know of his | passing, and to work. We had scheduled a weekend | hackathon--if I recall, this had been my idea originally. | | My boss, very sincerely concerned, asked me, "why are you | here? You can go home." I told him there's no where else | I'd rather be. That wasn't only because he was such a | great boss, but that was a large contributing factor. He | kindly, gently said he understood and that I should stay | and contribute whatever felt comfortable and leave | whenever that felt like what I needed. That didn't make | mourning feel any less difficult, but it made me feel | like I was right that work was where I needed to be that | day. | | My point is not that this is the form all leadership | should take. It's true that giving people time off to | mourn is almost definitely the best default. But there is | a compassionate kind of leadership that can be this | welcoming and compassionate comforting. | wccrawford wrote: | My limited experiences of grief has shown that I react | largely the same way at first, and then later probably | need that time off. So I'd rather come in and get some | work done until things really hit home, and then take | that time. Others clearly need the time right away | instead. | | I think a lot of people still don't realize that everyone | deals with emotions differently, even though they've been | told that a lot in the last few decades, and perhaps a | lot longer. | avgcorrection wrote: | That was the right move by them. But I can't say that it | takes much compassion to in order to allow/remind an | employee that they don't have to work on a Saturday | (hackaton). | cookiecaper wrote: | It sounds distasteful only because the vast majority of | bosses out there aren't worthy of the mantle. An individual's | relationship with their immediate boss is one of those | intimate things in life and it deserves sanctity. | | Help your people and don't be a dick and you'll be amazed at | the bounty of unearned gratitude that comes back around -- | and often not just once, but continuing for years. Being a | good boss is "the gift that keeps giving" to good bosses | everywhere. | [deleted] | tonyarkles wrote: | I'm not saying this as any kind of brag. To be honest, I | ended up as a manager by accident and when the team grew | too much I found someone else to do it. I still work at the | company and come by to help the team out once in a while. | That shift happened about 6 months ago. | | My wife caught COVID last month while I was out of town. | Since I continued testing negative, we decided that I would | stay at the farm until either I tested positive or she | tested negative. I posted a message on Slack explaining | where I was and why, just as a "why is Tony joining all | meetings remote this week" kind of update. | | Immediately, three of my previous reports reached out | directly to let me know that they were more than happy to | drop off anything she might need: groceries, medication, | Dairy Queen, anything. _That_ is the kind of relationship a | manager /leader and their reports can have. We've never | really done much outside of work socially. We do the odd | team dinner to mark special occasions. Two of them have had | car trouble and are handy but didn't have the tools they | needed; I had the tools (tubing bender for a brake line, | electric impact for getting a stuck bolt out) and dropped | those off on the weekend. | | The big dance I have always tried to do is make us into a | team that always has each other's back. I've made it clear | that sometimes The Business wants us to do weird things | that don't always make sense and we've gotta just do it, | but in general I'm doing my best to shield them from | nonsense and help make sure we've got an environment where | everyone can do their best work. | | I dunno, it was all an experiment and it seems to have | worked out. | gotbeans wrote: | I might be off here, but I have only been able to feel | this sports-like team behaviour in actual sports teams | when no money is involved; where everybody tries to be | the best and at the same time help their peers to be | their best, for no actual personal gain or interest. | | On the professional world, where money and titles are put | on the head of people, things hardly ever go that way, I | believe for many reasons but mainly due to competitivity. | | Regardless, really happy to hear your experience and | story. I'd love to be at an actual team as you put it. | avgcorrection wrote: | Of course this looks like the fruits of your leadership | ("not to brag") from your perspective. On the other hand | it can look different from the other side when you see | your peers jump at the opportunity to please the boss. | | As long as one is the person with the authority in a | relationship one cannot really know which option it is. | absurddoctor wrote: | There might be merit to this in general. But in this | specific case the person is no longer in authority so it | doesn't seem to apply. | maleldil wrote: | I think some of that is a lot harder to when remotely, | though. You can't do team dinners, and the alternatives | feel forced to me. It's also a lot harder to socialise | with people that you only interact with a few times a day | (if you're asynchronous) because they don't feel like a | part of your life like in-personal colleagues would. So | it ends up being a very I'm impersonal relationship. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | I agree but have found turning on the camera and keeping | it on for most meeting does help. | mrtranscendence wrote: | During the time of COVID I've had two jobs, one where the | culture is (usually) to keep the cameras on at all times, | and one where the culture was to keep the cameras off | even when speaking. | | There are benefits to the latter approach ... I could | futz around on my phone in particularly boring or useless | meetings. But keeping the cameras on does make | connections feel more personal and overall I prefer it, | particularly for small meetings. | | Plus, everyone gets to see my dogs roughhousing in the | background. | lostcolony wrote: | >> I could futz around on my phone in particularly boring | or useless meetings. | | The fact those meetings are occurring is a failure of the | culture, and especially the move to WFH. It's been the | key differentiator for me post-COVID; companies that are | begrudgingly remote try to keep the office norms in | place, just now remote, vs the companies embracing remote | finding new workflows, which means leaning on async | communication, collaborative documents, etc, instead of | meetings, and synchronous meetings only when absolutely | necessary. | | And it's been eye opening; in those former cases, no one | wanted "social" Zoom meetings, myself included. But in | those latter, people asked about it, championed it | happening, etc. | | People only have so much time they want to be in meetings | online, and making sure it's used to build team bonds, | instead of squandered on business problems that could be | solved other ways, seems like a huge part of making | remote be successful. | treis wrote: | >An individual's relationship with their immediate boss is | one of those intimate things in life and it deserves | sanctity. | | I think there's a fundamental divide between people. Some | see the workplace and the people in it as an integral part | of their life. Others see it as a place they spend 40 hours | a week that enables them to live their actual life. Neither | are wrong and I think a lot depends on the type of company | you work for. For me personally there's nothing intimate or | sanctified about my relationship with my boss. | | But I do agree with your general point. Being someone's | boss can have a large impact on their life. I'd reach for | terms like responsible, ethical, or kind. | sinsterizme wrote: | I'm of the former opinion and it boggles the mind a bit | thinking that some people view the place they spend the | majority of their waking hours as ancillary to their | "real life." Maybe my real life is just boring though :p | emerged wrote: | I felt it was part of my real life. But after leaving the | first company (then each subsequent company) I almost | never saw any of them again. | | People put on a polite friendly face at work, but that | doesn't mean they're your intimate friends. Sometimes, | but I think it's not so common as you're implying. | avgcorrection wrote: | Of course it is part of my real life. Doesn't mean that I | necessarily like it, though. And I would be doing | something else if I could. (Don't tell my boss^W^W my | noble leader though.) | avgcorrection wrote: | The first option is a subjective view that some people | might have. The second option is a bare fact for most | people. | treis wrote: | "live their actual life" is a subjective view. For lots | of people what they do at work is part of their core | identity and an integral part of their "actual life". | avgcorrection wrote: | Sure. I was of course referring to the fact that they | have to work in order to survive. | | And once you have to do that it might be prudent to let | it become a part of your identity. It is after all | something that you have to do for half of your waking | time outside of weekends and vacations. | NotAWorkNick wrote: | Disclaimer: I'm about to disclose some personal information so | will probably burn this nick shortly. | | I am slowly going blind (long, boring story; only relevance to | the topic is during a discussion with the eye-guy consultant he | mentioned that he had had a close personal friend of his kill | himself the day after a night out and that he (the consultant) | wished that he had been able to somehow sense that his friend was | so close to the edge.... | | I looked at him softly and with compassion and said to him that | there was no way in hell that he would have ever known or be able | to sense something like that because the serious ones don't | broadcast their intentions (simply because they don't want to be | stopped from doing it). | | My heart bled reading this article but having grown up in a life | of violence (early start in Africa, a bit of a chequered past led | me in to the world of I.T. (machines are better than humans... | they can tell you why they are sick, what part(s) are broken and | then either report a (1) Fixed or a (2) Not Fixed... any how, | that's how I wandered into IT field mixed in with some ex | military stuff including a lay-over in Dubai that lasted for two- | weeks... the bloke at Heathrow customs glanced at my transit | stamps and asked me where the fuck I had been for two weeks (10 | day gap in departure from place {x} to arrival at LHR .... | | I looked him in the eye and said simply ..... 'Good god, my arms | are tired from all that flapping and those head-winds were a | bitch!' | | He muttered something along the lines of "f*ing smart-arses", | stamped my passport and waved me through. | | Whole point of the above? I dunno but nick & karma points burnt | telling it. | | If you take nothing else away from this - Please know that you | likely would have had no way of knowing so please don't feel | guilt.... They made a decision and it was one that you (the loved | one grieving) would have been unlikely to have changed even if | you had have known. At best, you would be likely to have simply | delayed it for a while. | | YMMV | idontknowifican wrote: | ))) | pbourke wrote: | Tell me you're a lisp programmer without telling me you're a | lisp programmer | NotAWorkNick wrote: | You are correct @idontknow.... I did omit some ellipses; My | Bad. | | Thank you for pointing it out (Unfortunately the edit window | has closed otherwise I would add them :) ) | mettamage wrote: | IMO no need to burn this nick. Check my comment history, | I'm still going strong ;-) | NotAWorkNick wrote: | I meant more in terms of leaking PII ;) | | Thanks for caring though, and hang in there :) | Twirrim wrote: | I had someone I knew from two consecutive jobs commit suicide. | We'd routinely cross paths through meetings, water cooler chats | etc. Nice guy, smart engineer. Capable of handling stressful | incidents without batting an eyelid and spotting the shorted | path to the best resolution. The kind of engineer you'd be | lucky to have on your service team. | | He grabbed me for a lunch time meal about a week before he | committed suicide, wanted to chat about my faith. These | conversations happen from time to time, especially working in | tech which seems to bias towards atheism, so I didn't think | anything of it. It was a type of conversation I've had dozens | of times over. | | In hindsight, of course, it was obvious he was looking for | help. I can rationally tell myself over and over again that | there was no possible way I could have known, but I highly | doubt I'll ever convince myself of it. | peaknarcissism wrote: | gordaco wrote: | > the serious ones don't broadcast their intentions (simply | because they don't want to be stopped from doing it). | | While this might be generally true (and it's especially true in | the sense you wrote the message, i.e., there's a good chance | that no one could see it coming), I would add something. It's, | as I said, mostly true, but far from being the case 100% of the | time. Ok, that was probably obvious, but the thing is: | sometimes we interpret it as the contraposition (which is, | after all, equivalent to the original statement): _the ones who | broadcast their intentions are not serious about it_. And that | 's a huge mistake to make, when it happens to not be true. | Someone who broadcasts that kind of intentions _might_ be | overdoing that kind of millenial "everything sucks" gallows | humor you see a lot in Twitter... or they _might_ be serious. | | So, pay attention to people talking about that suicidal | ideation. Many times, it's more than a joke. | | BTW I also agree that in many cases an intervention can only | delay the decision but not prevent it completely. I know it can | be a hard pill to swallow for many people (and for good | reason), but I strongly believe this to be true. | tgtweak wrote: | This is a larger issue. And it's not just limited to remote | contractors. Even in the cushiest of office jobs with full | benefits, seasoned HR and regular check-ins these personal issues | can and do impact employees - often times not resulting in death | but universally in personal suffering. | | It's easy and convenient to keep the workplace professional and | file those concerns away as "not your business", but they're | important. | | A good friend of mine (after years of being a good colleague) had | immigrated from Ukraine to Canada a year ago and was weeks away | from his family joining him when the unfortunate recent events | unfolded. His wife and newborn child forced to drive a car from | Kharkiv to Poland for a full week before they were even remotely | "in the clear". He offered to continue working during this time | when told to take time off fully paid, and said it kept his mind | off of the things he couldn't control and that he was eternally | grateful that he had this job in the first place and that his | family's relocation was already prepared, saving him weeks of | striding through refugee paperwork. | | The lesson was clear - had he been an affordable contractor there | we left in Ukraine vs a valued team member who we cared about on | a personal level it would have been a dire situation for his | family and our company. | | Take the time to genuinely ask your people how things are inside | and outside of work. | fsckboy wrote: | I really liked that his wife figured out how to submit a support | ticket to send the death notice to his company, seems fitting in | the age of remote work and in no way diminishing. As a tech geek, | the tools of the trade are as comfortable as a favorite sweater, | there's nothing wrong with a support ticket. | | Reminds me of something slightly humorous I encountered back in | the 90's, based on my particular career path. I had used unix | extensively in the time before tilde meant "login/home | directory". Then I moved to windows and was doing C++ dev, where | tilde means destructor. Reading Slashdot one day, there was an | announcement that somebody had died, with a link to page about | him, and it used an URL with a tilde and his name for his | homepage, they way universities often did. Not knowing the | convention, I thought "oh cool, somebody set up a memorial page | and they used the destructor syntax in tribute!" | trinsic2 wrote: | Thanks for posting this and thank you to the organization for | being honest and upfront about where your team was at with remote | workers and the lack of communication with family. On the one | hand, I really think remote work is great for many people who | cant get into the office and I am glad its becoming more of a | thing. On the other hand, I can see for myself, that remote work | might put a strain on a person who doesn't go out much, or has | mental health issues and that there can be a disconnection from | others by relying to much on remote interactions. I learned a lot | from this post and I will remember to reach out more and inquire | about people I work with remotely, with care obviously. | [deleted] | ronzensci wrote: | Having lost a loved one recently, I can say that never ever | underestimate the effect of sharing grief with the family in- | person. Just drop into Pete's home in Scotland and spend an | evening with his family & loved ones. They must all be deeply in | grief and your physical presence to talk to them about Pete would | mean the world to them. | RONROC wrote: | Even though I had subpar due diligence that resulted in a almost- | decade-long-contractor's wife not having any official channel to | contact her husbands employer, this made me feel really bad. | | This is so fucking embarrassing and full of shit. | | Rest In Peace to Pete, and fuck the author of this post. | xwowsersx wrote: | Where is the /pete page? Anyone have a link? I don't know what | company this is... | [deleted] | cebert wrote: | Sometimes I am amazed employers aren't a little more sympathetic | of personal situations as doing so can result in greater | productivity (if that's all firms care about). My dad was in the | hospital this past September-November with complications from | pancreatic cancer and passed away late November. My spouse's | father died from complications of multiple-myeloma the November | before that. Needless to say this was a lot to process, and I | really could have used a week or two off following my father's | death. In December, things start to slow down anyway but I didn't | have the vacation time left to take a break. Instead, I continued | working but had a hard time focusing and dealing with the past | two years. I'm finally starting to feel myself again in March and | am becoming more productive. If I could have had a week or two | off, I think I would have been in a much better mental state and | it would have been better for me and my employer in the long run. | | I recently had an ok performance review a few weeks ago, but it | was difficult for me to hear some of the negative feedback | considering the past year I've been dealing with my dad's | situation. That's not to say the feedback wasn't all fair, but it | wasn't the best timing when I was trying to get back to normal. | My goal was really just to survive last year, not necessarily | advance in my career or get a raise. | cweill wrote: | I've been working a Full Time Employee in the industry for over 8 | years at multiple companies. Never once has HR done anything | remotely useful to help me when there were family problems or | tragedy, except maybe a couple weeks of paid leave. | | But I would like to hear the take from a founder who built an HR | team to know if maybe I am missing something. | | I'm really curious if it's really different being an employee vs | a contractor in that respect. | basisword wrote: | >> I've been working a Full Time Employee in the industry for | over 8 years at multiple companies. Never once has HR done | anything remotely useful to help me when there were family | problems or tragedy, except maybe a couple weeks of paid leave. | | I'm curious (genuinely) what the company could have done | different for you in these cases? Personally I wouldn't expect | anything from the company other than paid leave/general empathy | from managers with amount of leave varying depending on the | loss (e.g. loss of a partner requiring more time than loss of a | grandparent). I'm not sure what else I would want from my | company or what they could offer. | heffer wrote: | Our company offers its US employees access to a service | called Wellthy. It is good to know that when you are dealing | with issues in your personal life you can reach out to a | dedicated, named individual that has expertise in the area | you are struggling and that is there to help you navigate and | organize. Even if it's just for the feeling that you are not | alone. | | Similar programs are available to employees in other | countries. | InCityDreams wrote: | ...and for the non-US? | mgkimsal wrote: | I thought the same thing. The only thing I'd want from an | employer would be time away and space to deal with things on | my own or with family/friends. No texts, calls, emails about | anything work related. If you have social connections at | work, some show of support from colleagues (cards, flowers, | calls, donations, etc) may be appropriate, but I would not | expect that. Struggling to think of anything else most | employers should be expected to do. | Markoff wrote: | I don't know what operation they are running, but I work 100% | from home for years as contractor under same conditions as him | (heck even my name is Peter), was never hired for this position | in person, I don't think I even did any interview or video chat, | just passed the test (though I work on stuff position in person | many years ago, since then there are no people who met me in | person working there), but when I communicate with different PMs | they have all their Chinese work landline numbers in signature | and they have clearly my number in system, since occasionally | (maybe 5 times a year?) when I don't respond quick enough to | their emails someone dares to call me from Chinese number in | broken English. | | So even if I had locked computer/phone (which I don't have) and | wife couldn't just reply any email (several dozens per day) or | see phone number in email I can only imagine it would take them | only few hours to realize I'm not answering and my phone would | start ringing like crazy. | | Btw we never talk personal life, they can only learn about it, if | I explain why I won't be available in certain hours because I'm | going to hospital or we just politely wish each other nice | holidays, all emails are strictly work, we don't even chat and | during occasional video training I never switch on my camera. | | So considering all of this what kind of company is this they | don't have his phone number to call? And how can they not notice | he is not answering his emails and not just call to check on him? | Unless he is not that important part of team they won't notice he | is missing until his wife let them know. | broth wrote: | I have been working fully remote for over two years now. I | certainly feel quite disconnected from my team now. I remember | the days of commuting, water cooler talk, and just being around | people. | | I've been with my employer for a long time now and have | experienced a lot of coworkers passing away. Cancer, heart | attacks, suicide, and undisclosed. The whole spectrum. Some of | these coworkers I worked close with while others not so much. | Either way it affects you and really puts things into perspective | with how fleeting our lives are. Thinking about this gives me a | lump in my throat. | rmk wrote: | I think human connection and doing things as a community has | fallen by the wayside in the modern world. It will be | particularly bad with fully remote work: most people do better | cognitively and emotionally when they have contact with a variety | of people and have the changes of scene that are part of a normal | day. | | It's also sad to see the complete disconnect at the workplace, | where people are no longer building relationships thanks to | remote work. I do not know about others, but I am loath to | discuss personal life on slack or on zoom. I am much more likely | to do it at lunch, in person, with colleagues, or in hallway | conversations. Nothing at remote work in the past two years has | replaced that. | brianwawok wrote: | Right. But the discussions about a benefit of in person work is | that hanging out with coworkers end up as "I already have | friends, I don't need work fake friends". | | I just don't think the end state is a cohesive company doing | their best work. Just a bunch of individuals doing their micro | task. | geraldwhen wrote: | I will not be able to make friends at BigCo. My coworkers are | all in wildly different stages of life than me, or don't | speak fluent English, and making any comment outside of a | thin politically acceptable line could threaten my family's | livelihood. | | On the other hand, saying nothing is safe. And if I do have | the opportunity to pick between two equal candidates, and one | is like me and has shared interests and one is not, I'm | supposed to choose the latter to encourage diverse team | building. | | A job is not a place for friends. Not in corporate America | anyway. | rmk wrote: | I agree that a job is not a place for making friends. But | collegiality and good relationships with colleagues is | still better than a complete disconnect from them. After | all, a huge percentage of waking hours are spent at work. | tomdell wrote: | This hasn't been my experience at all. Plenty of social | connection and discussion of personal lives in my team | meetings, just less with coworkers who aren't on the same team. | I'm doing better cognitively and emotionally working from home | - I can take breaks more freely and use them more fully, going | on walks around my neighborhood instead of a dull corporate | park, interacting with my fiance instead of coworkers, napping | on my lunch break. I have more energy, time and money to | socialize with friends outside of work and pursue fulfilling | personal projects thanks to not commuting. I'm more productive | at work because I'm less distracted by office gossip and | unproductive coworkers and because I'm happier. | [deleted] | peoplefromibiza wrote: | RIP Pete | | I didn't know you, but you were a person and it's sad you're not | among us anymore. | | Our line of business is seriously f*ked up if we don't take care | of people like you. | | Thanks for sharing this story, it's important that we all | remember that connecting with people is so much more than having | a video chat to talk about features, deadlines and whatnot. | | At the cost of being rethoric I wish we've all learned to be | better, let's put people over deliverables again. | | It won't cost us a dime, it will repay us with a lifetime of | stories to tell and memories to share. | grae_QED wrote: | Not to diminish the seriousness of this post but I'm a little | curious why this site is named 'so fucking agile'. If it's just | for shits and gigs then it would have been great if they called | it 'sofa king agile'. | dvtrn wrote: | _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 as a middle manager where my team | interfaced heavily with a group of contractor developers | overseas. When the time came to demo new features and place | superlatives upon the various teams, I noticed my leadership | cadre said nothing about the contractors and did not acknowledge | any of the work they had done. | | I spoke up about it when the floor was given for anyone else to | give kudos where they desired, and mentioned the overseas team | and thanked their team lead for working with me on delivering. He | spoke up and expressed his gratitude in kind. | | Apparently, this got my CTO into "trouble" with "legal" because I | guess merely acknowledging contractors was some kind of a | "problem". As a result, my boss got in trouble. As a result, I | got written up. I was out of that company within six months after | relationship with my boss and CTO deteriorated immediately after | I opened my darn mouth. | | For expressing gratitude. | | To contractors. | fiznool wrote: | This is probably an unpopular opinion but as a contractor, I'm | not expecting to be fully integrated into a company, nor lauded | for my efforts. As a contractor, I understand that I am | plugging a gap at short notice, on a temporary basis. I | anticipate coming in, being useful and getting paid well to do | so. I then expect to leave and find something else. The | flexibility, autonomy and well-remunerated nature of | contracting is what appeals to me - integrating with co-workers | and compliments on my work are a distant second. | | As an aside, if you are being compensated less than permanent | employees as a contractor, then your rate is not high enough. | The 'fully loaded' cost of a permanent employee is higher than | their stated salary, due to tax, insurance, pension | contributions etc - all of these need to be deducted from the | contractor's billable rate to provide an accurate comparison | between the two. | kortilla wrote: | >> 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 | | This is like the one scenario where being a contractor is | better than being salaried. Asking for more hours and getting | paid for them is absolutely not being "taken advantage of". | Corrado wrote: | I was a contractor in corporate America for a while and | experienced the same thing. The way it was explained to me was | that you cannot give contractors the same "benefits" is a | regular employee. If you do, then you have to treat them as | employees, which means you have to offer the same healthcare, | PTO structure, etc. | | I don't think the rules around the "benefits" were especially | clear from a legal standpoint. Therefor the company would | always err on the side of caution. If some auditor somewhere | could perceive an action or event as employee specific and a | contractor took part then the company could be penalized for | it. In my case, it was pretty standard things like in-office | birthday parties and monthly staff meetings. | | It's not right, but I can understand why it happens. The legal | team in a big corporation is extremely risk averse. | civilized wrote: | This seems inconsistent with what little I know of employment | law, or at least the spirit of the law. The difference | between an employee and a contractor is mostly about the | degree of control the employer exerts. Employees are more | heavily controlled and therefore get more protections and | benefits. | | In a sane world, common practices like forbidding a | "contractor" from working with any other company would be | more legally risky than letting a contractor participate in | an in-office party. | eric-hu wrote: | I was a long term, full time contractor from about 2015 | until 2019. It worked out better for me since I was working | as a nomad abroad. Around 2019, my client wanted me on as | an employee. I never found out the precise motivations, but | I suspect it had to do with the contractor laws getting | tightened down for rideshare drivers. I suspect that I | could have remained a contractor by the letter of the law, | but that still might have skirted into territory the legal | team was not comfortable with. This seems like the most | reasonable read of the situation to me, but it's still only | my speculation. | civilized wrote: | For all we know, some attorney general was ginning up to | collectively punish businesses that use contractors | because recent press had made such businesses politically | attractive targets. And your client was just trying to | stay out of the crosshairs. | | You can be compliant with the spirit of the law and still | be targeted by some ideologue using the law as a cudgel. | eric-hu wrote: | Yes that's exactly the way I'd characterize the public | sentiment towards "businesses with many contractors" at | that time. | me_me_mu_mu wrote: | That's dumb. I work with contractors who I consider not only my | team mates (we work on the same shit) but also my friends. We | play games together after work sometimes and chat once in a | while on zoom. | | They give demos, leadership gives them kudos, and they feel | part of the team. | | Contractors are team mates with a different employment | structure but if we're in the trenches together that | distinction gets thrown out. | olvy0 wrote: | That's awful. | | I was a contractor myself, and I still work with contractors | every day. I wasn't treated as badly as that, but I was not too | happy with how I was treated either. I and my team lead try to | go out of our ways to acknowledge and include all workers, | without regard to their actual employers, in all the team's | meetings and interactions, and acknowledging their | contributions. | | It's still not enough. Just last week, I found out that a team | member is now considering to leave, and one of their reasons is | being treated as "less worthy" by the higher-ups in my company. | There was some internal confusion where they forgot to assign | them an office, and since they're a contractor, HR ended up | putting them in a somewhat remote office, away from the team, | completely ignoring our protests. | | The thing is, we (my team lead and I) don't know what to tell | them, how can we convince them to stay after this. We're at a | loss. | geraldwhen wrote: | Tell them to leave and be happy for them. You cannot fix a | broken organization. | Spoom wrote: | The argument is that it's a legal risk. Look up the Microsoft | co-employment lawsuit for the kinds of things they're scared | of. As parent accurately describes, the contractors are doing | the same kinds of work as full time folks... So to avoid the | appearance of them being the same (and possibly suing for | benefits), basically they get treated as second class citizens. | | I know of companies where referring to vendors by _name_ is | frowned upon. | rvba wrote: | MBA way of doing business. | | On a sidr note: at least they were paid for overtime. | lostcolony wrote: | As an hourly employee they legally have to be. If the company | doesn't, they're in for a world of hurt if the employee | decides to contact a lawyer. That assumes a level of | privilege (knowing your rights, having enough money to pay | for a lawyer's initial time, etc), but that level of | privilege is common in software, so much so that no company | with a legal department is going to let it fly to try and | treat an hourly employee like a salaried one; there's just | too much risk. | puritanicdev wrote: | It was the same in the last two (American) companies I was | working for. In both companies, my team and I have done some | majestic work. Still, at the end when C-level people and | managers were giving aknowledgements and thanks, my team was | either not mentioned at all, or we've received some vague | aknowledgements for our work... | | We still got paid handsomely, but It sucks to be left out from | the end credits. | icecap12 wrote: | 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 to solve. Here's the thing - this guy made up for all | the rest of those shitty FTEs. He fixed all their problems, he | did all the real work, developed the best features, and fixed | all the hard bugs. The lead engineer was an absolute joke (I | once caught him making changes to a live production database). | The roles were all reversed. | | Well, it didn't sit well with me then, and I became friends | with that guy and the other contractors. We're still friends to | this day. I'd say he got the last laugh because he started his | own company and is doing well. But I promised myself that I | would never treat any contractor like that ever. I'm a Director | now, with a team of my own. 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. As a leader, I invest the time in them like | they're my own, because they are people too - regardless of the | SSO number or the ".consultant" in their email address. | paledot wrote: | 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. | detcader wrote: | In some time the future generations will come to consider this | contractor/employee dichotomy with the same disgust we have for | child labor. Same with surrogacy and many other things. | dvtrn wrote: | Funny you say that, the entire reason I even opened my mouth | was because I used to be on those contractor teams early in | my career. Experienced it first hand. It sucked. I knew how | much it sucked. I promised to be a better leader than the | ones I had and saw. | civilized wrote: | It's a glaringly obvious caste system. I hardly see the | difference between being punished for praising a contractor | and being shunned for associating with an "untouchable". | misslibby wrote: | Why is a contractor asking for more hours an example of them | being taken advantage of? | kradeelav wrote: | Some people can make it work, but imo it's an orange flag for | a path to burn-out, especially if it's an excessive number of | hours and not a standard 9-5 (with all the rest of their | clients put together). A lot of times contractors work for | multiple clients at one time, so it's easy to forget "your | hours" are not their only ones. | seb1204 wrote: | From the text I would assume Pete was working full time for | this company. This is also not unusual for my company. | | In Germany there are laws against this type of | 'contracting' as you seem/are fully depending on one | client. | gcheong wrote: | I don't know if Pete was working from Scotland in which case he | would have had access to NHS, but if not, then I'm all the more | convinced that we need such a system in the US so nobody need | depend on their company status to have access to what should be | basic healthcare. | simsla wrote: | Unfortunately, NHS waiting times for mental health are | abysmally long. | sgt wrote: | Surely there is a private health sector as well? | oportunityastro wrote: | 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 everywhere (even in Scotland, which has a left-wing | govt running the NHS). | | It is just a resources problem. Even in the private sector, | there isn't a supply response to higher prices. Ironically, | the UK has lots of people who do undergrad Psychology, just | none of them actually go on to practice because entry is so | tightly controlled (for some reason, the NHS in Scotland is | attempting to train nurses to do psychology with a couple | of days training...that is going as well as you can | imagine). | gcheong wrote: | I don't know what is meant by abysmally long but it seems | they are trying to rectify some of the shortcomings. It's | certainly better than nothing at all and I would hope if | you're imminently suicidal that that would put you in the | urgent category though: | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-people-patients- | mi... | oportunityastro wrote: | Abysmally long means 1 year plus to get an appointment. And | you are usually only eligible for a limited course of | treatment...if you are fortunate enough to get treatment, | most people don't get treatment at all because there aren't | the resources (you will get referred to a nurse within your | GP, who will have done a few days training on basic | advice). If you have anxiety or even something like autism, | it can be impossible to get a diagnosis (and btw, this | isn't just mental health...I have a physical illness, I | have been waiting roughly two years for treatment and I | expect I will be waiting at least another year or | two...this is something that impacts my quality of life | daily, not fatal but annoying enough). | | If you are imminently suicidal, you can be hospitalised but | there is little to no support outside of that. Bluntly, | there are a lot imminently suicidal people and limited | resources. If you attempt to commit suicide and are | unsuccessful, that wouldn't speed up the process. | | Also, it is worth saying the rate of suicide in Scotland is | very high. I live in a small place in Scotland with | essentially no poverty, and there are still 10 or so | suicides every year. I know someone who works as a | psychologist within the NHS in Dundee (probably one of the | worst cities globally for suicide/deaths of despair), and | it is totally out of control. There isn't sufficient | funding, and there is no way to acquire sufficient | funding...it isn't possible (and btw, it isn't just | suicide...heavy drug use in Scotland has been an issue for | many decades). | cphoover wrote: | 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. | gkop wrote: | 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. | knorker wrote: | 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 (name). | kayodelycaon wrote: | I've had online relationships that are just as close and just | as real as the people I know in person. | | Deaths of people whose faces I've never seen and voices I've | never heard hit just as hard as any other. I've attended an | online funeral with only text for interaction from a hotel room | a thousand miles from home. It was just as real as ones in | person. | Macha wrote: | Many of my longest friends are from online relationships, be | it people I met online or from people I met in person but | where circumstanes have left irl meetups very infrequent | (e.g. moved countries). | | Compare that to my IRL social circle which has turned over a | few times as my college friends and I scattered around the | country post-graduation, or as I've moved around since then. | trentnix wrote: | 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. | Graffur wrote: | 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 are unnatural anyway. In a meeting or social | setting you generally don't sit facing everyone, face to face, | watching all their movements. | ianai wrote: | The thing we can all do is be kind. I had a college dorm mate | attempt to kill himself over a holiday. He didn't show any signs | and frankly we his friends probably didn't have the maturity | bandwidth to be the solution as we too were teens. I'd say being | kind helps. | | This is related to why I abhor arrogance or any signs of holding | oneself over others. It's fundamentally unkind. If you truly are | the Wisdom In Flesh Come Down From Heaven then you're breaking | your humble vow in any shows of arrogance. So be humble and show | us all what you know. Let us learn from your actions and deeds. | Don't tell us your greatness or demand your authority. | faangiq wrote: | Let's be real this has nothing to do with remote and everything | to do with callous and corrupt corporate culture. | asn0 wrote: | One of the people I managed on a remote team suddenly died one | night from an aortic aneurysm. He was in his early 40's, had his | teen-aged daughter living with him (who fortunately was away | visiting her mom). I'd talked to him only hours before. I'd only | met him once in-person, just a few weeks before, when he and I | and another person I managed had an informal "on-site". I'd | learned recently the two of them had been really good friends for | many years. | | The company had never had to handle something like this. | Thankfully, HR and execs had the right priorities - concern for | his family, respect for him and his family in how the news was | shared with co-workers (especially with cause-of-death being | unclear at first), concern for how it would affect close co- | workers and others in the company, awareness that people would | need to process and grieve in their own way. | | HR talked with the family and got their permission to make an | announcement to co-workers, and some guidance on the wording. HR | offered to send this, but I felt that would feel too impersonal. | I wanted news like that to come across in the most personal way | possible, from someone (like me) who knew and cared for him. | | The amazing response from the company was a big part of the | healing. So many people wanted to do something. The family | decided to have a private ceremony, and asked that instead of | flowers, donations be made to an animal charity his daughter | loved. People really felt for his daughter, and wanted to send | cards and letters (which the family was happy to support). One of | the teams (that hardly knew him) decided to have a commemoration | during their weekly meeting. | | The hardest part of all of this was (a) when his daughter called | me to arrange for return of his work equipment and (b) when a | family member suggested that one way I could help would be to | share some of my experiences with his daughter about working with | her dad. I have girls of the same age, so pretty close to home. | It was hard to write that letter (#b), but it was also healing | for me to think about the many positive ways he'd affected me and | our team. | | A few days later, it felt right to me to have some "closure". I | sent a note to the company thanking everyone for the different | ways they had respectfully honored our co-worker and supported | his family. I also shared some of my memories working with him, | and how much I missed his contagious happiness. As sad as it was | that he wasn't with us anymore, I wanted to remember how much fun | it was to work with him, and that's what I was going to focus on. | | I hope I won't have to go through that again any time soon, but | when I do, I hope it goes this well. | madrox wrote: | I realize there are toxic side effects to "our team is like | family," but it's been important to me to find ways to express | any sentiment that recognizes the shared humanity of people | coming together to work on common goals. I'm glad to hear the | team was given space to grieve. It's not something that comes up | in a typical management playbook. | | Take care of your team and your peers. You may not be family, but | you're something else kinda like it. | photochemsyn wrote: | "Pete had no HR, no health benefits, and no employee record with | alternate or emergency contacts." | | Welcome to tech dystopia, I guess. | misslibby wrote: | He was presumably making good money, so able to buy his own | insurance? According to the article he was from Scottland, so | presumably he would also have been eligible for care from the | NHS, like every other UK citizen? | | Just because people organize their own things, it is not | "dystopia". Some people don't need and/or don't want a nanny or | a nanny state. | charcircuit wrote: | beaconstudios wrote: | Dude, the guy /died/. We memorialise the people we care about | when they pass away. | kilburn wrote: | I have conflicting feelings about this. | | I've witnessed a company name a hall after a guy who took his | life. We all knew that the main reason he did it was because | the company wouldn't secure his position. He was an expert on | a very specialized field and losing his job meant he would | have to move to a different country. It still feels | hypocritical when I think about it. | | It is generally accepted that a company's mission is simply | to make money for its shareholders. Management will fire | good, well-performing, committed people without thinking | twice about how it impacts their life. But then someone dies | in a car accident or takes their life and ... it's memorial | time? It feels off. | beaconstudios wrote: | I agree that companies should be less exploitative and | generally evil, but that doesn't subtract from this | particular case. I agree that it can be done cynically | though, and that's messed up. | pdpi wrote: | What you're describing is a company naming a hall after an | employee when that employee was just numbers on a | spreadsheet to them. What this article is talking about is | a specific team, who had a personal relationship with Pete, | adding that memorial as part of their own coping process. | The former is definitely cynical and offputting, while the | latter is human and heartfelt. | tartoran wrote: | You're conflating company with the team and direct peers. | You're right about the company mission but the workers are | human and make connections with their peers. | crankysiren wrote: | is the tribute page sofuckingagile.com/Pete? | asyncscrum wrote: | It's inside a b2b enterprise app with ~50k mau. However that | would have been a fitting blog path. But his name wasn't | actually Pete | desireco42 wrote: | I lost a colleague year ago. Both him and me were at the similar | level, we had really good professional relationship. He had | family issues and while we talked, he never wanted to share too | much (but I knew what is happening). We did know each other in | person before we went remote because of pandemic. | | Now, he got laid off during one of the "smart realignments" our | oversized corporation did. Didn't make sense at all but it | happened. Me and another colleague (both immigrants) were the | only one who reached out, I tasked my reports to write him | testimonials on LinkedIn etc, my other friend connected him to | where he eventually will find a job. He was a proud man, with | personal issues, this was really too much. | | Two months later he took his life away. | | It was really hard to this day to think about this. I was always | supportive of him so I don't have that kind of guilt, but I | always think, what would happen if he was not laid off, if things | were different. | | Anyhow, in a weird way, I understand this. We really need to show | more support and understanding to each other way more, remote or | in person. | | After that I was in charge of team and we had so much fun and | care about each other, I got a message from a new guy who joined | the team around I was leaving, just telling me how unique and | good experience he had and how they are trying to preserve all | the good things I instituted. | rendall wrote: | If you work remote, I encourage you to turn on your cameras, and | encourage icebreakers and social chatting. Have face-to-face | meetings if possible, but take time out to hang out with your | remote colleagues. Do this daily. It is important for mental | health, and will also help with team trust and productivity. | | My sincerest, heart-broken condolences to @sofuckingagile. | chrisandchris wrote: | What's the experience / statistics about that? I'm not always | cam-on but most of the time I use the cam and I encourage | others to use it. | | > [...] and even during the interview process we didn't use | cameras. | | Yes, appereance does not matter (mostly) for your job | performance, but seing a face just makes it more human. | jeandejean wrote: | That's the very reason why I don't want full remote as a norm. I | want to see my people and meet colleagues, for a good laugh or | whatever but for human interactions that I value a lot. Very sad | story here, twice as sad with that profound lack of human | interaction... | willcipriano wrote: | For me, "my people" are at home. The transactional work | relationships do nothing for me on a human or social level. | It's like when a pretty waitress is nice to you, it means | little since she is paid to be nice. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Second this. Colleagues are just people I interact with to | receive a wage. Friends and loved ones are elsewhere and at | home. | [deleted] | Angostura wrote: | whereas I generally like people. You say: "The transactional | work relationships do nothing for me on a human or social | level" perhaps the mistake you are making is seeing any | interaction with the people at work as purely transactional - | or being absolutely determined to keep it that way. | | I have a family and kids and friends. But I absolutely have | friends who I have made at work as well. I quite regularly go | out for a beer with people I worked with in the 1990s. | willcipriano wrote: | Here's the problem. If I talk with my friends and misspeak | or say something I don't mean, worst case is I lose the | friendship. At work I lose my livelyhood. That means I have | to have a constant cognitive overhead at all times at work, | I am unable to explore ideas that don't fit into that | narrow box. If your life fits entirely into the confines of | polite society maybe you don't have this worry, but I can't | bring my full self into these situations and that makes it | feel transactional to me. | | The narrow workplace acceptable box is full of activities | and thoughts that I'm long bored of. That means workplace | interactions will be boring by definition. | Angostura wrote: | I suspect that there are probably literally an infinity | of thoughts and concepts that it is acceptable to talk | about at work. | willcipriano wrote: | Everything except politics, religion, sexuality, drug | use, firearms, philosophy and your ambitions in life | (unless they are die working here). | | You also don't want to bring up things like playing video | games too much, or going out for drinks too often, unless | people get the wrong impression about you. Getting too | personal about issues you are facing in life also can be | career limiting. | [deleted] | supertofu wrote: | This was heartbreaking to read. What disturbs me most is the lack | of any face-to-face time for this distributed team. I understand | that not everyone likes to use a webcam, but to have gone 7 years | without ever seeing your colleague's face seems, in my opinion, a | symptom of a big managerial problem. Software engineers are | usually humans, and teams composed of humans should make some | effort to interact in a human way -- face to face (even just once | a year!) | | It's also easier to get measure on how people are doing | emotionally when you see them in person semi-regularly. (Not | always, of course, but when you get to know people in person and | learn their body language, you get a sense of their emotional | baseline, and it gets easier to notice when something is off. Of | course, none of this matters when there is no HR support because | an employee is "just a contractor") | user_7832 wrote: | I was also surprised by the complete absence of face to face | interaction. It seems very odd; though I hope it is not | something that the author ends up regretting as well. Mental | health needs to be talked about much more and de-stigmatized. | hohoemi8 wrote: | I'm probably a minority but I don't care about my company or | coworkers or building relationships. I'm just here to do a job | to make money. As soon as I find a better offer I will happily | quit. So being forced to use a camera to attend unnecessary | meetings is just annoying to me. | supertofu wrote: | For a long time I was like this too -- until I arrived at my | current job. My dev coworkers are good friends, and I care | immensely about their well-being. | scarface74 wrote: | If a company cares about their employees getting to know each | other - and they should - and they are distributed, they should | budget for travel for them to meet in a central place - not | withstanding a worldwide pandemic. | | No, cameras and "virtual happy hours" don't cut it. I was hired | remotely 6/2020 and the rest of my division is remote. I didn't | meet any of my coworkers until 9/2022. I didn't meet most of my | teammates until even later (long story, there is distinction). | But this was completely due to Covid not company culture. | | It's made a world of difference. My manager just said that if | any of us feel that we need to get together for a few days, he | has no problem with us meeting at any of the corporate offices | around the US, just give him a heads up. | [deleted] | supertofu wrote: | Absolutely. Remote companies need to invest in team get- | togethers. | ENGNR wrote: | I don't know, would it be more awkward for management to force | you to turn on your webcam? I think the lack of face to face | and the free language of this post shows some empathy. Maybe | they could/should have arranged an in person trip sooner than | that or something | teknopaul wrote: | +1 I hate cameras, and pushing social media was a source of | mental health issues for me. Lost a couple of colleagues | recently, who I had never seen, I don't think cameras would | have helped. Especially not when mourning loss. Face to face | meetings are imperative, but not cameras. Plenty of people | are camera shy but just fine over dinner or a swift pint. | | Can't understate the importance of breaking bread. | gkop wrote: | +1 to that would be awkward, and post shows some empathy | | A strong manager of course would not mandate micro behaviors | like webcam use. A strong manager perhaps might 1) give space | for the team to develop their own norms, 2) subtly nudge | those norms with intention to test a hypothesis, gauge the | result, and iterate and 3) once healthy norms have developed, | take steps to formalize them (while taking care to maintain | space for healthy dissent). | asyncscrum wrote: | Am OP, can speak to the lack of cameras. We actually crafted | our process in the Microsoft Lync era. Video was brutal. Also | because of the diverse accents (Vietnamese, Portuguese, | Russian, Scottish) it was easier to 'listen' without | distraction. Obviously if you were starting today, cameras | would be on. As you pointed out, probably a mistake. | Philip-J-Fry wrote: | I feel like it's much easier to understand what someone is | saying when you can see their face and mouth than if it's | just audio. | CoastalCoder wrote: | Same here. Seeing their lips move often provides just | enough additional information for me to correctly guess | their words. | darkerside wrote: | I can see this not being the case with international | latency causing lag between audio and video | cfcosta wrote: | Nowadays, with high definition and close to no | perceivable latency. Early video chat was so bad that | having the video on was more distracting than helpful. | supertofu wrote: | I'm so very sorry for Pete's suffering and the loss to you | and your team. | | I hope I didn't imply that "cameras are required for | distributed teams!!" I don't agree with that and you're right | that it's super impractical a lot of the time. | | I do hope to suggest that in-person team-building shouldn't | be overlooked for the success and well-being of distributed | teams. | [deleted] | lostlogin wrote: | I've never used Lync, but Teams with poor internet | connections is terrible, so I'm not sure everything has | improved. | | I used to have a lot of Australian colleagues and their | connections made calls with 5+ people just horrible. | busterarm wrote: | You'd be surprised how normal this is, historically, among | remote-first companies (pre-pandemic). | | A decade or so ago, I worked at a remote-only company with 1600 | employees and we never cammed up. We had a large number of | employees with serious medical conditions or other personal | issues that prevented them from holding down normal jobs and | really appreciated not having to go on video. | notamy wrote: | > We had a large number of employees with serious medical | conditions or other personal issues that prevented them from | holding down normal jobs and really appreciated not having to | go on video. | | This is the reason I treasure my current company. The work I | do works around my disability perfectly, they don't demand I | have video on, they're very understanding of my health | issues, ... I got seriously lucky and hope I don't have to | leave this position for a long time. | mgkimsal wrote: | I'm on a couple of remote teams, and set the expectation that | I won't be 'camera on' all the time during meetings. My | reasons are more practical than privacy oriented. I'm often | pacing during meetings, and connected via phone and desktop. | I can see and hear what's going on, and can talk back, but | when my camera is 'on' it's just constant movement, which | distracts folks. | | Every couple of weeks I'll start a meeting with camera on for | a minute or so just to say 'hello' to some folks, let them | see I'm still 'here' in some sense, then camera off | (usually). It feels useful to have some initial face/camera | time to get a sense of the other person, but again, it's not | something I generally routinely will leave on. | | I had a period of a month or so last year where I moved to a | Mac mini and... there's no camera. I didn't have a working | webcam at all laying around, and it took me a month to bother | to get a new one. No one missed anything of value by not | seeing my face during that time. :) | | Over the last 5-6 years, it's only been a noted issue with a | handful of folks, and never been a deal breaker. The | compromise is 'on' now and then for the start of a meeting. | There's a humanizing aspect which is easy to lose sight of, | but in most meetings, it's typically not that useful anyway. | When there's more than a handful of folks, not all camera | boxes can be see (too small, too many), and if/when you're | working with a smaller group, there's usually much more value | in sharing a document/editor/whatever. | paulcole wrote: | > No one missed anything of value by not seeing my face | during that time. :) | | How do you know this for a fact? You think sharing your | face isn't valuable, why do you think this applies to | everyone you work with, too? | mgkimsal wrote: | Speaking in absolutist terms, I can't know as 'fact', | true. The output/quality/pace of the group was about as | close as it could be during that period of no camera | whatsoever. But the comparison is my normal MO which is | camera on a few minutes per week. So the delta wasn't | that different to begin with. | gkop wrote: | What efforts have you made to get candid feedback here | though? | | > it's only been a noted issue with a handful of folks, | and never been a deal breaker | | In my experience it's not realistic to expect people to | proactively note constructive feedback on one's unhelpful | behaviors. It takes creativity and effort to collect | candid feedback. | | Do you work with anyone for whom the language spoken at | work is not their first language? They might appreciate | any advantage you could offer to make yourself easy to | understand. | mgkimsal wrote: | No, everyone (bar one person) has the same native | language. The person with non-native English does not | care, and often has their camera off as well. | | The 'issue', such as it has ever been raised, was "why | don't you have your camera on?", and in one case it was | "I have no camera", and in another case it was "I'm | walking around, you won't see me or you'll get dizzy | trying to look at me". | | > It takes creativity and effort to collect candid | feedback. | | I'm not sure how much I actually want to spend time | 'collecting candid feedback' vs a) getting stuff done and | b) supporting other people in getting their stuff done. | Camera on/off has not been noted as enough of a hindrance | (as in, any at all) by anyone as an impact on their | ability to get stuff done. We also have phones and direct | meetings where people can collaborate that way. | | Forcing "cameras on" is... the covid-era version of | "butts in seats" it seems. | waylandsmithers wrote: | Not that long ago conference or regular phone calls with no | video at all were the norm and we seemed to get along fine | supernovae wrote: | Depression is something we never talk about and don't treat as | a health concern. My daughter attempted suicide and it wasn't | for any reasons I could relate to. That was a hard lesson for | me. | | What i did learn is that depression is taboo, therapy isn't | talked about openly, insurance doesn't cover therapy well and | there aren't enough therapists in existence that the burden of | depression seems to heavy. It's not because we didn't turn on | cameras but because of systemic failures in our culture and a | fascination with puritanical beliefs at all costs. Come to work | depressed, come to work sick, work all day long, have no life, | have no vacation, never mind the cost of living surpasses your | ability to afford to live and now just living seems like the | worst option.. replace work with school... | | not a single person here seems to be talking about how we've | normalized suffering and as long as it's always someone else, | it's their loneliness it's their depression it's their problem. | we celebrate the people who would be psychopaths if we knew | better.. it's odd | | we have a society in place that doesn't afford opportunity for | all and not only doesn't afford it, but is politically | motivated to make sure people suffer for wanting to live it how | they wished they could. | | the puritanical fetish at all cost - mostly because they | suffered through it and so should you... | bckr wrote: | > That was a hard lesson for me | | Let me tell you: you are a good parent merely for having this | attitude. | [deleted] | JCharante wrote: | Maybe it's different, but I've known people for a decade | without ever seeing their face. Just communicating through | text, text to speech software, or through VOIP while playing | games. You can build deep connections and know their voices | very well to hear when things are off. | | Of course at work I've seen people's faces but as someone who | grew up online, only voice comms seems normal too. | [deleted] | robertlagrant wrote: | > but to have gone 7 years without ever seeing your colleague's | face seems, in my opinion, a symptom of a big managerial | problem. | | Video calling is still a relatively recent thing. It will | become more unusual not to have video calls, but the past is | less likely to have had it, not more. | illender wrote: | Ive been on fmla since first week of jan. i'm trading self harm | for more time. the thoughts are killing me slowly until i lose | the battle. i'm desperatly trying to bring myself to call EAP and | get in a hospital but that scares me even more. I tried to resign | my remote job and they refused to accept it and sent the cops. i | don't know why i'm sharing this here. The entire company went on | holiday and i volunteered for the week between xmas and new years | to keep distracted. | CrispinS wrote: | I can relate, and I was in a similar situation not too long | ago. I remember dreading weekends because there was nothing to | stop me from curling up in a ball and crying the whole day. | | And honestly, if you've taken advantage of FMLA, you're | actually doing better at taking steps to help yourself than I | was! | | Medication really helped me. I've been on bupropion for about | two years, and it's made for a drastic improvement. I'm | actually able to see things for how they actually are, and not | let every minor stumbling block or criticism make me think I'm | a complete and utter failure. | | If recommend finding a mental health clinic nearby and | scheduling an appointment to talk about depression. The | appointment will probably take half an hour, and at the end the | doctor will give you a prescription. This is _extremely_ | routine -- you 're not suffering from anything a million people | haven't gone through already. | | If you're scared on being institutionalized or something, | just... Selectively tell the truth. I mean, I can't say this is | the best idea, but it's what I did when the psychiatrist asked | me if I had suicidal thoughts. | | I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that your | brain is just another body part. If your knee hurts, you go to | a doctor and get it looked at. If your vision is blurry, you go | to an optometrist and get glasses. If your brain is giving | incorrect responses to stimuli, you go to a psychiatrist and | get medication. It's fine and it's normal. | geraldwhen wrote: | Screw the job. Join a group fitness class, an amateur sport, | something with other people that isn't a job. Leave mid day. | Take a walk. | | What are they going to do, fire you? Who cares. | 58x14 wrote: | Hey, you matter. | | The world is pretty fucking broken and you have every reason to | feel how you do. I don't have pithy advice, I'm just another | guy on the internet. | | But things can change. I promise they can. I don't know how or | when, but they can. And you're not alone. I promise there are | so many people fighting the same battle. | | Don't give up. | kayodelycaon wrote: | Many times you can't know it was going to happen. | | As some who is bipolar and struggled with suicidal thoughts most | of my life, you wouldn't know. The thoughts had been so constant | they became background noise I learned to ignore. By the time I | was ten years old, I knew I had to hide anything that wasn't | "normal". | | As far as never meeting the person you knew... | | I've lost a friend I only knew online this way. I never knew | their face, their voice, or their real name, but we had been on | the same mod team for two years. We found out because their SO | posted some details on Twitter. | | A few people organized an online memorial service. I think we | used Twitch for the audio for some readings and Discord for | discussion. | | These things were no different from the friends I've known in | person. Relationships are relationships. | saos wrote: | Very sad. I'm not sure if this is problem of remote working but | more of a relationship / communication / poor company culture | issue. But, it clearly does show remote work done wrong. The | theme had been set from the interview... | | > I was the person who hired him and even during the interview | process we didn't use cameras. | | anyways this is why I'm a big fan of hybrid working. We often | think about ourselves in this moment but actually it's important | for others who may actually need human interaction. | UglyToad wrote: | Not reading the article because I think I'll find it too | upsetting but I think you're right that the issues described | aren't necessarily remote based. | | A friend of mine died of suicide back in college and it wasn't | clearly communicated, there wasn't any support offered, etc. | And this was a group of people gathered in person almost daily. | We found out the details from an online news site. | | Unfortunately suicide can kill people wherever, whenever. | Problems handling it aren't solely the preserve of remote | companies. | saos wrote: | I do feel like WFH does compound loneliness factor. Overall | it's all about relationship with others. If we have that then | we can all help each-other... | NoblePublius wrote: | "Full time contractor" is an oxymoron. | rubyist5eva wrote: | I...was not ready for this one...bit too close to home for me | mateusfreira wrote: | Thanks for sharing. We sometimes forget that we are fragile. This | post needed to be read by all remote teams. | rob74 wrote: | Yeah, working remote has many advantages when looking at it | "rationally", but humans (even software developers!) are social | beings and a lot of that gets lost with remote work. I tend to | also not turn the camera on more often than not, have to | remember to change that... | leeoniya wrote: | > I was the person who hired him and even during the interview | process we didn't use cameras | | this is so bizzare. | beebeepka wrote: | I treat camera requirements as red flags. Don't want to get | judged for skipping shaving for a month | jnwatson wrote: | 7 years as a contractor is abuse. It is abuse of the crappy | enforcement of labor laws and abuse of the contractor. | | That you can have an integrated member of the team clearly be a | second-class citizen, that's just hard to fathom. | [deleted] | burntoutfire wrote: | Depends on the particulars. In some countries in Europe, | contractors pay much less taxes than FTEs. Hence, a lot of | people prefer contracting. The additional benefit of being | outside of grasp of HR and their processes (I'm mostly a | contractor and never once in my life had to formaly define | "yearly goals" or write up evaluation of my peers) is also nice | for a lot of people. | wonderwonder wrote: | I don't know, I was offered W2 at my job and declined it. As a | contractor I get to invest far more of my salary towards tax | deductible retirement accounts and I get paid for OT. I don't | get paid time off which is unfortunate. But I have had projects | where I consistently worked 80 - 90 hour weeks. I am lucky | enough to get my benefits via my wife's job though. I do agree | with you though regarding someone that wants to come on board | as a w2 employee, stringing them along for so long is pretty | bad. | exitb wrote: | Isn't it difficult/impossible to employ a remote worker from a | different country? I assume the company was American, while the | contractor worked from Scotland. | keskival wrote: | You can use abundant Employer of Record (EOR) platforms to | payroll people located in other countries. | jlokier wrote: | The company is free to treat contractors as well as an | employee in many respects, if it chooses, even if pays them | as a contractor internationally and has the legal constraints | associated with that. | | Things like: Putting them on the same mailing list as regular | employees, inviting them to the same company-wide meetings, | including them in international company get-togethers and | christmas parties, paid vacation time and sick leave, listing | them in the company directory and org chart, paying a day | rate so they aren't counting specific hours, a training | allowance, giving them the same credit for work as employees, | equity including vesting, any of the HR functions that were | mentioned in this story (such as bereavement support), etc. | | The idea that a contractor can't have HR services or that | nobody in the company knows about them just "because they are | a contractor", or that they have to be paid by the hour with | no paid time off, is really just down to company policy. Some | companies have better policies. | Macha wrote: | Worked in the vicinity of a guy in one of our US offices who | flip flopped between employee and contractor a few times on his | own initiative. He eventually settled on a FTE role when he | became a manager and to my understanding that was a company | decision that no we can't have a contractor manager. | jonp888 wrote: | Some people choose to stay as contractors. | | My last team had one. Compared to the internal employees he | earned more money, paid less tax, could work for multiple | employers, could work from home 5 days a week instead of 1(pre- | pandemic), and had more say over what projects he worked on. No | way would he have agreed to join as an employee. | 1270018080 wrote: | In developed countries (so not the US) that have public | healthcare, I've heard contracting roles are much more common, | typically preferred by workers, and pay better. | noirbot wrote: | It's interesting that you think that they're "clearly" "second- | class". I've never had a feeling that the contractors on the | teams I worked on were treated any differently. Obviously I | didn't know their pay/benefits, but that's even true of folks | in different offices/countries that are FTEs. | | If anything our contractors seemed to have looser schedules and | would often take planned extended vacations for a month or so | since they didn't have any real limit on vacation time, just | however long they didn't want to be working. | | If anything, inside of Ops stuff, contractors are usually | amazing to have around since they often have worked at a lot of | different companies and have seen different patterns and | practices in person to compare. | treis wrote: | > Obviously I didn't know their pay/benefits, but that's even | true of folks in different offices/countries that are FTEs. | | Usually contractors make more than FTEs for various reasons. | It's only in the context of H1B body shops that contractors | really get abused. Otherwise, the trade is higher pay for | less stability. | mparnisari wrote: | "His wife had to create a support ticket". Jesus. I can't imagine | my own family being able to even FIND how to create a ticket to | alert my company. | | Thanks for sharing the story. RIP Pete. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-26 23:00 UTC)