Holy cow. My sympathies, ddtibbs.
God, mine too. That’s a lot to deal with, from two directions at once.
Oh man, my condolences.
That’s a gut punch for sure, my condolences @ddtibbs. Wife of a friend of mine passed away yesterday; I’d only met her once or twice, but nonetheless that kind of news is tough. Two friends at once has got to be hard.
Damn that’s terrible. So sorry.
Damn, really sorry to hear. I don’t know what else to say.
On a lighter note, don’t forget that your wife is now a Mom and there’s a pretty important event on Sunday!
So… one of our members of leadership recently had a meeting with virtual employees. This person told us that he read or had been told to treat virtual employees like they’re autistic. They went on to say what they really meant by that but… yeah, that’s not a good way to put it, like at all.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say this person has probably not had pro-longed interaction with someone who is somewhere in the mid to higher end of the autism spectrum to think that would be even remotely appropriate to say in a meeting.
Did he explain it at all? That sounds really bad at first take.
One would hope that a member of leadership had some actual, you know, management course work and manages people as people, not as a group of people on the spectrum.
Yes. They tried to explain that what he was getting at is virtual employees can’t take visual cues or recognize tonal changes or jokes. Only two of those are really true, and there is a lot more going own with autism than an inability to take visual or social cues. It was just a bad comparison all around.
I don’t know why this person doesn’t just ask virtual employees what might be helpful because otherwise, we work just like everyone else. The data even shows that.
Is “virtual employee” your actual title or designation? Makes it sound like they’re employing AI constructs :)
The autism bit is a really bizarre thing to say about employees, especially from leadership. Was he much older?
Nesrie, what is the temperature outside right now?
Seriously though, what a strange conversation by that boss. I would worry they have zero clue how to manage remote workers.
Haha, no. I am an analyst, at least this year anyway. That is the biggest limitation with the virtual gig at my location. To advance to anything else would require me to basically move there, but that’s an issue for another day. He is older and a bit notorious for saying being blunt, as he calls it, but this isn’t blunt. this is something else.
The autism remark though… since we were on webcam pretty sure our reactions was the primary reason he felt the need to sort of clarify. It’s just… autism is a real struggle for parents and carekeepers. It’s not something to… downplay or simplify to make a point.
The virtual members of the department are fully functional adults. We’re all different but there aren’t any giant hurdles to clear for this kind of work. There are just a few things that are more difficult or sometimes easier than for the local employees who, by the way, remote work several days a work too. So on those days, we’re literally no different from employees who are local.
Haha.
I’ve done a fair amount of off-site work, contract and full time, and those companies tended to either refer to folks like me as remote or virtual employees. But yeah, the virtual designation always sounded weird to me.
It is a horrible comparison, but the attempt at coaching about the downsides of tele-communicating are a good thing for managers to be aware of. It’s less of an issue when it is a one-on-one situation (whether phone or video-conference) because both parties are in the same situation, communication-wise, but I think it’s really tough conferencing in when a large group of people are together, in person. Whenever I’m presenting in a meeting with a tele component, I try to be more explicit with my communication. I still prefer face-to-face meetings, for important things, whenever possible.
I appreciate the thought process just the approach seems really flawed as is the comparison.
My team is over 50% virtual employee, and the locals have more virtual days than onsite which means my manager basically has a virtual team. There are no issues there. This other conversation is kind of a company wide conversation and includes teams that might have one virtual employee on it… but for some reason they don’t want to talk to the team with the biggest virtual presence and, you know, ask how it is going.
I also do not believe our leadership individual actually found a book with a literal sentence in it that reads treat your virtual employees like they have autism. So even the approach of lets go find books to tell us what to do seems… iffy.
Our first spring in our new house here in Maine. The other day I happened to look outside a saw a woodchuck (groundhog) poking his head out of the ground in the side yard. This was cute for all of 5 minutes or so until I realized that this hole was near the septic tank, and also too close (for my comfort levels) to the leach field. Later on I went outside and saw two more holes, one of which is right up against the foundation outside the walkout basement, under our farrners porch.
After calling to get quotes for removal, which ranged from $250 to $850 (!), we decided to buy a trap ourselves and relocate it. We decided to buy a trap because we live next to a nature preserve, and I have a feeling this will not be the last woodchuck we have in our yard. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, but I think we’re going to put it out on Wednesday and see how it goes. I’ve read that woodchucks adore canteloupe, so that’s what we have for bait. (As a bonus, whatever is leftover is for me, because I also adore canteloupe.)
I totally feel like a Mainer now.
I know not for the efficacy as bait, but I approve of your plans for leftovers!
Also fun thing I picked up in Italy is wrapping a slice of melon in prosciutto. No, really, it’s quite good.
My wife loves that too, but I can’t abide it. But then I hate melons.
I’ve heard of that, but I’ve never tried it. But I totally would!
