A mid-March batch of links
Since the last batch of links went out, on the paid portion of this newsletter I sent out a sermon I delivered and then separately a different way of thinking about mentorship. Looking ahead, I’ll put out this weekend a column about why people are migrating away from agency life, one of the many trends that was accelerated as a result of the pandemic. Last week I served two days of jury duty and got to work on a handful of new posts, several of them just rough drafts at the moment that I will craft in the coming weeks. As you plan to live this Spring differently than you did the winter that’s passing, please be in touch about what’s on your mind - and what you’d like to see covered in this space. We have a number of outside experts whose voices will appear.
This is why it’s so hard to find mental health counseling right now. I’m one of the people starting to look for a new therapist at this time. There are people available, you just might not have your pick. It reminds me of last summer when you could lease a car, as my agent said, you just won’t get a say in the make, model, color, or cost. For me, I’m waiting now to start with someone doing in-person visits. Telehealth served my needs for a few years, however I want to get back in person regularly now.
Employers need to reach out to workers struggling with mental health issues.
It’s the End of the World As We Know It. And We’re Still At Work. This story is insane.
Treadaway, the former hospitality COO, says her wake-up call came last April. After months of unending work, she took one of her 45 accumulated PTO days to get married. When she turned on her phone that evening, only to be met by a flurry of frantic, work-related demands from her colleagues, she knew something had to give.
Press 3 for a pep talk from kindergartners. A new hotline gives you options for joy.
Swapping laptops for hammers: ‘Great Resignation’ boosts interest in trades. The conversation around vocational training finally seems to be shifting which, if it sticks, will be one of the positive side effects of the pandemic period. We need to as a society champion more kinds of roles for more people.
It’s time to go back to work. I’m amazed that this still needs to be said but here we are: “Tech professionals (like most professionals) want their bosses to trust them to know where and when they do their best work, within reason. That might mean letting managers decide how often workers come into the office and it might mean letting the employees decide, but it rarely means instituting a one-size-fits-all policy for everyone at the company.”
The Pandemic Is Taking a Toll on Your Managers’ Mental Health.
My phone was controlling me, so I went on a digital diet. This is one of the great struggles of our lifetime. Much of what I enjoy doing with my spare time - including typing up columns for this Substack - requires me to be at a computer. Which is more computer time beyond what I do for work. Not all computer time is the same, yet it adds up to a super amount of computer time.
COVID robbed Chicago of tech jobs.
‘It’s going to get messy’: How rising generational divides could kill workplace culture. A lot of the assumptions about different generations in this article ring hollow to me. We need to stop defining groups of people as wanting the same thing and to begin to address each individual's needs as they come up, in the workplace and otherwise. It could be a big shift in mindset, so train people to think differently than they do now or find managers who will.
Employees Say Unsustainable Workloads And Expectations Are Driving Them To Quit.
The Great Resignation Was About Getting More Money. All I have to say here is that after two-plus years, we’re going to start seeing people making job changes for no other reason other than it was time to move on, pandemic or otherwise. People looking to make more more money usually can find that outside of their organizations. This doesn’t contradict what I will write in the newsletter this weekend, but it butts up against it.
Forcing your employees to unplug for a week is harder (and easier) than it looks.
Thousands of New Tech Jobs Spring Up Far From Silicon Valley. I wish these stories focused on cities other than Austin. I speak to people in Austin who say that it’s what they ran away from in San Francisco. I’d much rather hear from people on the ground who moved to the other cities that have seen growth in their scenes these past years. St. Louis would have been a better choice for this story, in my opinion.