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Mourning loss as a remote team

• jnwatson 5y ago
  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.
  • exitb 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      You can use abundant Employer of Record (EOR) platforms to payroll people located in other countries.
    • jlokier 5y ago
      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.
  • burntoutfire 5y ago
    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.
  • noirbot 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      > 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.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Macha 5y ago
    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.
  • 1270018080 5y ago
    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.
  • wonderwonder 5y ago
    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.
  • jonp888 5y ago
    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.
  • nickkell 5y ago
    I would have assumed they fall foul of the IR35 rules. I’m assuming these rules are uk-wide, but I’m not sure
• RONROC 5y ago
  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.
• supertofu 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
  • ENGNR 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      +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 câmeras. Plenty of people are camera shy but just fine over dinner or a swift pint. Can't understate the importance of breaking bread.
    • gkop 5y ago
      +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).
• mateusfreira 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing. We sometimes forget that we are fragile. This post needed to be read by all remote teams.
  • rob74 5y ago
    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...
• flybrand 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
• TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      How do you find a good therapist? It seems like a market for lemons.
      • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        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 5y ago
          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?
• draw_down 5y ago
• dougmwne 5y ago
  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.
  • vlunkr 5y ago
    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.
    • NAHWheatCracker 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        This is an interesting take. I strongly suspect you’re right about this, but would like to find more data to support it.
    • bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
      Apathy is the path of least resistance.
      • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        Maybe if you are apathetic by nature?
• NotAWorkNick 5y ago
  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
  • peaknarcissism 5y ago
  • idontknowifican 5y ago
    )))
    • NotAWorkNick 5y ago
      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 :) )
• cweill 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    >> 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.
    • mgkimsal 5y ago
      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.
    • heffer 5y ago
      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.
• knorker 5y ago
  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).
  • trentnix 5y ago
    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.
    • knorker 5y ago
      I'm still on IRC, and find it better than audio only. Because IRC is an all day background conversation. Audio meetings? They are an objective focused limited time thing. Nobody has time to sit in a video meeting with their friends all day (especially since it's multiple groups of people at the same time). But it'd be a better connection.
  • kayodelycaon 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
• charcircuit 5y ago
  • beaconstudios 5y ago
    Dude, the guy /died/. We memorialise the people we care about when they pass away.
    • kilburn 5y ago
      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.
      • pdpi 5y ago
        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 5y ago
        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.
      • beaconstudios 5y ago
        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.
• jeandejean 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      Second this. Colleagues are just people I interact with to receive a wage. Friends and loved ones are elsewhere and at home.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • Angostura 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
• saos 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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…
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  I…was not ready for this one…bit too close to home for me
• trentnix 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • starkd 5y ago
    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.
• crankysiren 5y ago
  is the tribute page sofuckingagile.com/Pete?
  • asyncscrum 5y ago
    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 5y ago
  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.
• kayodelycaon 5y ago
  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.
• BubbleRings 5y ago
  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!"
  • civilized 5y ago
    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!)
  • brassattax 5y ago
    The moment you realize HR is there to serve the company's interests, not the employee's, your expectation of them changes.
    • devmunchies 5y ago
      Are there any orgs that don’t serve the company?
      • tonyarkles 5y ago
        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.
• edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Why isn't there a video required policy?
• atribecalledqst 5y ago
  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.
• lostlogin 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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"
• tgtweak 5y ago
  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.
• jll29 5y ago
  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.
• ralmidani 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      if I hear the expression "it takes a village" on more fucking time I will quit my job and become a baker
• thenerdhead 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
    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.
• sergiomattei 5y ago
  Wow. What an incredible read.
• dvtrn 5y ago
  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.
  • puritanicdev 5y ago
    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.
  • olvy0 5y ago
    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.
• nkrisc 5y ago
  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.
• joshuahutt 5y ago
  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.
• jdavis703 5y ago
  > 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.
• Markoff 5y ago
  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.
• gcheong 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Unfortunately, NHS waiting times for mental health are abysmally long.
    • gcheong 5y ago
      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-mind-england-b2020760.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-people-patients-mi...
      • oportunityastro 5y ago
        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).
• cebert 5y ago
  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.
• photochemsyn 5y ago
  "Pete had no HR, no health benefits, and no employee record with alternate or emergency contacts." Welcome to tech dystopia, I guess.
  • misslibby 5y ago
    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.
• leeoniya 5y ago
  > I was the person who hired him and even during the interview process we didn’t use cameras this is so bizzare.
  • beebeepka 5y ago
    I treat camera requirements as red flags. Don't want to get judged for skipping shaving for a month
    • leeoniya 5y ago
      requirements?
• hogrider 5y ago
  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.
• patientplatypus 5y ago
• rmk 5y ago
  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.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • brianwawok 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
• dcatx 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Breaking the news is so hard. Sorry about your colleague. This sounds pretty rough.
• ryanmarsh 5y ago
  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.
• broth 5y ago
  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.
• faangiq 5y ago
  Let’s be real this has nothing to do with remote and everything to do with callous and corrupt corporate culture.
• illender 5y ago
  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.
  • 58x14 5y ago
    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.
    • illender 5y ago
      thanks, im trying
  • geraldwhen 5y ago
    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.
    • illender 5y ago
      facts
  • CrispinS 5y ago
    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.
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  “Full time contractor” is an oxymoron.
• gh0std3v 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    > 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.
• Reggie_Walls 5y ago
  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.
• golemotron 5y ago
  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.
• ronzensci 5y ago
  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.
• grae_QED 5y ago
  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'.
• cphoover 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    • cphoover 5y ago
      I don't know I work for an old-school very corporate-feeling company. I feel like I would be presenting as too casual. I work in finance and while we (software developers) don't have to wear suits or traditional business-ware like traders, fund managers or other associates, sitting in my sofa couch in a t-shirt just feels like it would come off ass to casual.
      • cphoover 5y ago
        as too*
• rendall 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
• trinsic2 5y ago
  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.
• xwowsersx 5y ago
  Where is the /pete page? Anyone have a link? I don't know what company this is...
• peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  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.
• dhosek 5y ago
  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.
  • usui 5y ago
    Regardless of company or team, suicide is far more stigmatized than cancer and carries with it associations, implications for people who hear it as a cause of death. There's a reason why liberal perspectives are pushing for "dies by suicide" as a replacement for "commits suicide". Compare https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%22commits%20suicide%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... versus https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%22dies%20by%20suicide%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...
• fsckboy 5y ago
  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!"
• deleted 5y ago
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• asn0 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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.
• deleted 5y ago
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• hahaitsfunny 5y ago
  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.
• mparnisari 5y ago
  "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.
• ianai 5y ago
  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.
• dschulz 5y ago
  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.
  • pflanze 5y ago
    Oh my, I hope you're feeling OK now. Some of what you're saying rings familiar to me, I've got a German/Swiss cultural background and was in Canada, and do think this background can give difficulties. I also do think that mental health problems are difficult for others to do anything with, so it may have made them nervous and act counter productively. I hope you're finding or have found good therapy. Let me know if you'd like to talk (contact in my profile).
    • dschulz 5y ago
• dandigangi 5y ago
  Mental health is no joke. Please seek help if you're struggling.
• deleted 5y ago
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• quasarj 5y ago
  rip pete
• larrywright 5y ago
  At every funeral I've ever attended, save for a few where the deceased was tragically young, many of the attendees are coworkers - current and former. It's always nice for the families to hear about the impact that their loved one had on people they worked with. I've heard all kinds of stories, from people who gave someone encouragement to try for a promotion, or picked up some of their work so they could be out of the office tending to a sick family member, etc. I've spent the last decade working at a large company on fully remote teams. Nobody I have worked with during that time has lived within 120 miles of me. Most aren't even in the US. They're in London, Dublin, Rome, India. I've occasionally had the fleeting thought: who is going to come to my funeral? I have family and friends, people I know in the community through various things. But there will be a big demographic left out. I turned 50 a few weeks ago (and just today attended a memorial service of someone I'd known since middle school), so perhaps this is just hitting me at the right time. But it does bother me a bit, and I don't really see an obvious solution for it.
• balr0g 5y ago
  Dystopia, man…
• aaron695 5y ago
• throwawayHN378 5y ago
  This is crazy I was thinking of offing myself and was wondering how my parents would be able to contact my work. Would it be a slack message? Idk