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The Anticipatory Bereavement · Sunday Scaries: Work Edition

• 0:03
  Welcome to The Sunday Scaries Work Edition, a podcast for hot takes and real talk on all your workplace quandaries. Hosted by two burned out girl bosses who've seen it all.
• 0:13
  I'm Bijal Mehta. I started my career building warehouses and super fast delivery for the Internet's magical two day shipping. I've worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America with both big tech and startups. Over 15 years, I became a vice president leading drone delivery operations. I've managed more than 500 people across the world. And these days I raise my playful daughter and chat with my good friend, Emily.
• 0:37
  And I'm Emily Tao. I got my start making coffee as a production assistant at CBS News. Eventually, I became the first director of communications at the largest entertainment union in the U.S. and Canada. My 15-year career and counting has taken me from red carpets to political fights to Ivy League admissions offices.
• 0:57
  We're here for your weekly dose of workplace reality. Let's jump in.
• 1:03
  Hello Bijal. Hi, Emily. All right. 'Tis the Christmas season. It's holiday party season. So I am curious if you have experiences doing work holiday parties and how that went for you. Because I will say generally, it gives me huge anxiety as a poor gift-giver in general. Really? Yes.
• 1:22
  Gift giving. So I think I'm really lucky in that I've not had to do a lot of holiday parties. Because at Amazon, we mostly were too busy working. Oh, right. It's a busy period. Yeah, it was, like, our really busy period.
• 1:41
  And then the last few years they did do them, but they weren't like what most people are thinking. They were these like big events. Like they literally rented out this soccer stadium in Seattle, the Sounders Stadium, and they had like, it was like a carnival, basically. That sounds awesome. It was for like tens of thousands of employees. There was like music, like big bands. I forget what they were now. But it was, think of like a concert-meets-a-festival-carnival kind of vibe.
• 2:13
  Wow. So it's like a spectacle, which it was cool. But the funny thing is it's like, there's not like this central organizing force to it. And so you're only going to have as much fun as the people you attend with. So if you don't like your co-workers, then it's just like you and your date and like a bunch of strangers, right? At this like...
• 2:38
  But at least it sounds like there's a lot of cool activities? Yeah, there's like a lot of things to see. But at the same time, I'm just like, I could just go to my own concert. So did you go to a lot of these? I went to like two of them, two or three, maybe. They didn't do them for very long. And a friend just told me who still works there, actually, that they got enough complaints that they decided to just cancel it. Oh, my God. Yeah. And honestly, I think that's smart.
• 3:02
  Basically, my MO is I'm anti-holiday partying. So when I say I'm lucky, I'm lucky because I'm just like, I honestly can't think of anything more awful than having to go.
• 3:14
  OK, that was a very extreme statement. There are many, many more awful things in the world than going to a company-sponsored work holiday party. Yeah, exactly. With bands. But I would not enjoy going to a company holiday party.
• 3:27
  OK, well, I mean, it feels weird to know that enough people complained so that they canceled it because it also feels like if you don't have it, it's like a blow to morale. But also, I'm like, it wasn't always my favorite, even without a gift-giving aspect.
• 3:44
  Wait, so what were your holiday parties like? So when it was at the entertainment labor union, it was a lot of holiday parties sponsored by different local unions. Right? And so it was actually nice because you got to go see people that you would work with and you would see them in person. And it would range from like a small gathering with food and drinks to like big things and big politicians show up. Like the New York State AFL-CIO would throw one for all of the labor unions in New York City.
• 4:12
  And, you know, that was a big deal. And sometimes local politicians would come. But when it was- Wait, so how many parties are you going to? A lot. It was like a good amount of parties. Like all of December, I think, after work, multiple times a week, you would be going to- You go show face and you go be a representative. That's very common within entertainment, and especially during the holiday season. I would find that so exhausting.
• 4:35
  It was. And then for me, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm 25 in New York and there's an open bar. Like, oh, yeah, you know, that was so exciting. And then- And they sound like they were probably at cool venues because- Yeah, the entertainment is always good. When you work in an entertainment place, the live entertainment and the events are always really well thought out. And then the thing that did give me anxiety was within the office, like having to give gifts for the admin pool, for example, especially I was a director level. So it felt like there was a lot of like intrinsic politics of you can't give too bad or too cheap of a gift.
• 5:12
  And then also I'm like, I am 25 years old and, you know, maybe someone in the admin pool is much older than me, has been here longer than me. And I also can't afford to spend like hundreds of dollars on a super fancy gift. I don't know what's appropriate.
• 5:26
  They wouldn't set parameters for how much to spend? I don't remember. But even if they did, I wouldn't want to buy garbage. And again, I'm a not- I'm pretty bad at gift giving. I way overthink it. And then I don't want to just give like a $25 gift card, even though I'm sure that would have been greatly appreciated.
• 5:45
  OK, what did you- I defaulted to Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Which is like not too fancy. Yeah. And not too unfancy, maybe? I feel like for that time period, that was good. Now they do seem a little common. Every grocery store sells them. Yeah, but maybe I just love chocolate a little too much. I love those things. No, I think chocolate or like a truffles box in general is an excellent- Classic. Classic. I've had some bad truffles in a box, but I'll try it. Yeah, you still enjoy the experience of trying them, yeah. Yeah.
• 6:20
  What was the best gift you received at one of these? Oh, I don't remember. I was not in the position to receiving good gifts, I think. Like, I was much more concerned that I would like give a nice gift. That was the focus. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever receive anything good? Was there gift-giving if it was just like a big party? No, because those- the ones at Amazon were so big. Like I said, they were more like a festival in a way. My other company, which was a lot smaller, did do holiday parties.
• 6:49
  And I would say they were so bad because unlike- Like if you're gonna do it, I just think put in the money, make it something special. Yeah. Right? But these guys didn't do that. They literally did the holiday parties at the office. No. Yeah. So it's just like you're not even in a new environment to bring out a new side of yourself. A lot of people just wore the same clothes from that same day in the office. Yes, I would put in minimal effort. They got like food trucks to like give food. I think they ran out of food because they were too cheap on the food budget.
• 7:28
  And it was- That's like an Asian violation if you run out of food at a party. Oh, it's a huge Asian violation. I think it's a huge any hosting culture violation. But like especially- Yeah. It's just a huge violation. Like it's really bad. Yeah.
• 7:44
  And then it was weird because I don't feel like they had an audience in mind. So like a lot of people brought kids because they're like family-friendly. But then they had this event that was literally like a wine tasting event. Oh, fun. And it's like guess what the wine is. First of all, nobody can guess the wine. Like what? Like it's red or it's white. Exactly. Exactly.
• 8:05
  So that was like really confusing. It was, it was just so badly done. I don't want to socialize with my co-workers. Great. We're doing great. I would gladly go to someone else's holiday party because again, you get to like pop into their world for a little bit. That's kind of fun. Yeah. And it feels less high stakes. Yeah. The last thing I want to do during the holidays because I enjoy the holidays is to not enjoy myself- Well, you heard it here- At my own company holiday party. It's our verdict on holiday parties. That's my question. Okay. Yeah.
• 8:43
  Shall we get to our main question? Yes. Great. Which I have not heard. You have not heard this one. No. All right.
• 8:55
  "Dear Sunday Scaries. My employee's cat is dying." Oh no! "But not dead yet. She's needing to take a lot of time off to go to the vet and for cat-related things. She's still getting her important work done. However, the situation has been ongoing for months." Months? "And I'm wondering, is there a limit to this? But I also want to support her. Signed, Concerned Cat Boss."
• 9:30
  Okay. I have two cats. You should give her all the time and all the money. Full bereavement leave. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Basically, that is. Okay. As a pet owner- So, Bijal, you don't own any pets. You have pets that you help pets sit. Right? But not like a pet in your life. I have a child, she feels like a pet sometimes. Yeah. But she's also like your whole heart. She's a child, right?
• 9:59
  Pets: I've had cats since my late 20s. And I do not have children. And I know they are different. And then when my cat is sick, I'm like, all I can think about is how my cat is sick. And I think the difference is when a cat is real sick, when an animal or a pet is sick, it's so severe and it goes so fast. Like, they die quick.
• 10:29
  So, I'm actually kind of surprised that this has been going on for months. Yeah. Because it usually happens so fast and that's why it feels so sudden and so drastic and so sad, because within the span of a few weeks or less, your pet is gone. Your whole life routine changes and it's very jarring. They go from being like what you think is completely healthy to just not in your life anymore. Yeah. It happens very fast. Yeah.
• 10:53
  And so, to have it go on for months, so stressful for that cat owner. But, yeah, kind of puts the boss in a weird position. Ugh. But, yeah, now I just want to hug my kitty cats. I know, right?
• 11:08
  Yeah, this is, it is a little bit of a sad one, but I just thought it was such an interesting question because when I- over the years as I've been working, I got the chance to work in a lot of different countries and continents and like really diverse cultures. I spent a lot of time working in parts of Eastern and Western Africa, in East Asia, Asia, and in Europe.
• 11:35
  And I haven't done a lot of work in Latin America. But I learned through that about quite a diversity of communal and cultural expectations and processes around just grief in general. And so, I think this just question around bereavement and how to support employees during their moments of bereavement because I actually, despite not being a pet owner myself, I'm like it was kind of obvious to me on reading this question- At least at this age, I don't know if I would have had this empathy or perspective in my 20s.
• 12:13
  But now, post-having a kid, I'm like, I'm not here to judge how close you are to your animal. I'm not, right? They matter to you and that's kind of what matters to me. Yeah. Right? As your boss or your co-worker or something.
• 12:29
  The point is you are saying that this is a moment of real grief for you or a moment of having to be in a position of care for somebody else, right? And so, how do you support that? Because I think there's the bereavement part of this question because eventually it sounds like this pet is also going to pass away and then what do you do then, right? But then there's also the care part like when you have a sick parent or a sick, like a very sick situation. Yeah, when you have to care take someone every single day, it's exhausting. Yes, caretaking. It's like a big thing.
• 12:58
  And so, I think it's interesting because it really kind of comes- To me, it really brings through that question around what are the cultural norms of the community that you're living in regarding family, regarding caretaking, regarding just grief. Like in West Africa, in Ghana and Nigeria, funerals are really something. They are huge affairs. They often happen months actually after the individual has passed away. They are bigger than weddings. Wow.
• 13:37
  And people travel from around the country to go to a funeral. I had a colleague I worked with who I recall would go to, went to the funeral of like a college mate's mother. Wow. And that's just so uncommon I think in the States. I rarely hear of people attending funerals for people who aren't their own like blood family or their own direct kind of relationship. Right. This kind of indirect relationship, you don't tend to attend the funerals for, right?
• 14:10
  You're not expected to give your time in that way. And we kind of had, we actually ended up developing a pretty direct bereavement policy that like after, if any family member passed, because that was the other thing is the definition of family and close relation is quite variable, right?
• 14:30
  In Africa, people have big families, but also you know, you don't necessarily grow up with your direct biological parents. Sometimes your parental figures are aunts and uncles. Cousins are treated like siblings. This is also true in India, like in kind of our family structures.
• 14:51
  So again, in the States, it's like people take it seriously, I feel like when you're like, oh, my mother or father is sick. Right, someone in like in your nuclear family. Right. But even if you're like, oh, my uncle is sick. We're like, okay, when do you need to go to the funeral? But you really don't expect them to be in mourning for the fact their uncle or aunt passed away.
• 15:11
  The U.S. feels very stingy, I think, when it comes to bereavement and grief. On the policy side, like absolutely. Yes. I think very, very stingy. But even on the personal emotional side. Yeah. I just find myself just kind of assuming no one's close with their aunts and uncles here, whereas when I had team members in Africa or India, I would actually send them notes of being like, hey, how are you doing? I heard that your aunt passed away. I hope you're holding up okay. And people would respond saying like, yeah, I'm pretty shook up about it. We were very close. She was like a second mom to me. Wow. There were these beautiful, real, deep relationships with just so many people. Yeah.
• 15:58
  So now when someone's like, my cat isn't doing well, I'm like, yeah, okay. You know, your cat's not doing well. I don't think I treat it differently than if someone's like, my kid is sick. Yeah.
• 16:14
  I mean, I think that's really empathetic and really lovely. And I want that for myself and everyone, in a workplace especially. I am curious, for this workplace that you're talking about, where you guys did have these different cultures and you did do bereavement policies. Was this workplace, would you say, like also empathetic in general and emotionally intelligent in general?
• 16:37
  No. Uh oh, dang. But, well, I don't know. I think it depends on who you ask. In workplaces, their culture changes quite a bit over the years. I mean, maybe- it was a young company, right? And so I think young organizations change their culture very quickly because they're just not established. Yeah.
• 16:59
  So yes and no is probably the short answer. But if you look at the policies in the U.S. versus internationally, very different. But the leadership's also different. So I had a lot of say in what our policies were internationally. That was mostly the operations footprint. In the United States, you have a lot of engineering footprint, business sales, like these just other departments. And so you had like really often very different approaches to these things. And we had a lot of independence and room to do these things in a culturally nuanced way. So we got to have very specific approaches for the unique countries.
• 17:42
  And that's why, for me, this question is like I almost want to ask, I'm like, where do you live? Right? So let's not take Africa as an example. Let's take a different, like a more Western country. I know that when I was working in the U.K., they had, I think they also had a really interesting approach to just like family.
• 18:13
  So what I mean by this is there was a little bit more of an implicit understanding around sometimes when an adult figure was like the sole provider in their family unit. And that played a factor in things like compensation. That played a- Interesting. Yeah. And how you think about just, all of this is under the umbrella of benefits. Yeah. And like supporting.
• 18:37
  So there was this like- I really felt like in the European countries, while I was working there in the organizations I was working in, all caveats included, there was this willingness to discuss the employee as a unit of, a member of a family unit. And therefore, how you talked about benefits, really, you had to think about the holistic family unit. Right.
• 19:05
  And like, that's just not at all the approach in America. No. Very individual in America. Yeah. Like kind of nobody cares if you're also a spouse or a parent or a caregiver for your own parents. Like people don't really- Do you think people want to know what you're doing in your personal life?
• 19:27
  I think in the U.S., it can make people very uncomfortable because it feels too intimate. And in my experience- why I asked you if the place you worked at with this, you know, bereavement policy was emotionally intelligent, I'm like, I can think of some horrible examples at my previous workplaces. And some really great examples and some really horrible examples of how they treated different people grieving and bereavement, right?
• 19:54
  And so to me, it was always really tied up together. The more empathetic you could be, the more emotionally mature you could be, perhaps the more generous you would be as an individual, at least. I want to hear some examples. Oh my God, it's so mean. Okay. So we-
• 20:11
  It's so mean, I hate saying it because I'm like, I would do it different or step in if I could, right? We had someone who started at the company and then within like a week or two, she was like, can I take some time off? My pet rabbit died. And she clearly loved this pet rabbit. And everybody was just like, pet rabbit? That's stupid. That's not a real pet. We don't know this, we don't know what a real- And then for the rest of the time she worked there, like usually we would be like, oh, how do you feel about eating rabbit? Because they knew she had a pet rabbit. Oh my God! I know.
• 20:44
  It was a very low EQ workplace. Okay, so she got no time off? I mean, I think she took some time off, but people were just like, you're just using your days off, your PTO, right? Oh, interesting. And people were like, rather judgmental behind her back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She lost some respect, basically. Yeah. And then they mocked her for it later! Yeah.
• 21:05
  Okay. Honest question: at the time, were you empathetic as well? Or were you more neutral? Where were you on this? I was not empathetic as a person, as a young person in my 20s. Just as a state of existence. Yeah. I was not. And I think that's why I fit in with that work culture so well at the time. We were all different ages, but the same low EQ. We all got along that way. So that poor woman.
• 21:30
  And the other part of it, so this was working at the labor union, is they were so good in how they treated members and walked them through, like, death, basically, and death benefits, pension benefits. They were so caring. They made sure that a member's family was well-supported. And, for example, if you were the working member and you had your spouse - so a husband and a wife, for example: if the husband was that working member and he had pension benefits and he, let's say he was not on top of his paperwork so that his wife was set up as the beneficiary, like, they would come to you in the hospital and make sure you signed that paperwork so that your family would be supported, your wife would receive those pension benefits that you worked for through the union. Wow.
• 22:20
  So they were actually incredibly caring that way. If any admin or staff member lost a family member, we would all show up to that funeral and pay our respects. Oh wow. And so I learned a lot about that process because in my own family, being raised Chinese-American and very, very low EQ, we weren't good about dealing with that. And so it was really interesting learning that way. And it was fascinating to see how they treated these members so carefully and respectfully with a deep understanding of how American workplace policies can really fuck you over if you didn't sign your paperwork. Yeah, exactly.
• 22:56
  And then at the same time being like, you're going to eat that rabbit pasta? Right, so to be clear, this is the same organization? Yes, and I'm just like wow. Amazing, caring, warm response- Yes, yeah, the best I've ever seen- When it's family members, human relationships. Yes But when it's pet relationships. Yeah, which is weird because they also had dogs and cats and there were people that were caring. It was just like this old school machismo thing. And when it was something a little surprising, they're going to default to, oh, that's stupid, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, hey, at the time I fit right in, so.
• 23:29
  Coming back to this question then, what would you suggest for this person who's a boss where they've got a team member who's dealing with a scenario where there's an elongated care, that there's likely going to be not a great outcome at the end, and it happens to also be a pet? I don't know if that matters in what you will say in this instance, but how does a boss navigate that if they're not being kind of given guidance either in forms of policy or just like the culture of their organization?
• 24:04
  You know what? If they got the important work done and they're not doing extra because they're so focused on this cat, I am not mad about that. I really don't think I could be upset, I can't ask more of them. If there is a busy period coming up, perhaps I would pull them aside and be like, hey, I know you're dealing with a lot. And it doesn't even have to do with specifically a sick pet cat. It could just be someone is dealing with a lot in their lives, right? Right. A big event, child, family issues, your car broke down, like just so many things happen. Personal life is just heavy. Yeah. And so to give some sort of grace in that way, I think is just the better human thing to do. And as much as I would be allowed to do that as this person's boss or manager, that is what I would try to do.
• 24:49
  I think I would caveat that a little, or say that it's also important to know what the line is on the other end. Because I think our jobs as bosses often is really to provide clarity to our employees around expectations. And the truth is, there is no such thing as unending grace. Like, yeah.
• 25:15
  Have you experienced this personally as a boss? I'm curious. As a boss? Yeah. You know, not necessarily the example of complications with the pet. Actually, though, I did have an employee who had a really sad situation where, you know, their dog unexpectedly died from eating something that was bad for them. Oh, awful. But I think to your point, it was very quick, right? And so that's a little bit different than this question. And I think the elongated period of not showing just how long this will last is really at the heart of this question.
• 25:57
  But I've definitely had situations where I had a team member who, a marriage just very unexpectedly overnight kind of fell apart. Oof, that's rough. Yeah, and it was a huge shock to them. And it was very, very, very disruptive. And so there was this question of when they could return to work, if they can return to work, was it going to be full-time capacity or not? Were they going to be able to take on the same amount of responsibility and workload?
• 26:29
  I know of situations with women in the postpartum and post-maternity leave and return to work. And if there's complications related to their physical and mental well-being, you know, how that has influenced their ability to come back to work in the same capacity as they were before. Right. And so there's definitely been a lot of this. And I would just say, first and foremost, if you are a boss or ever have an aspiration to be a boss, this is part of it. Like, we are- you are hiring humans and the full reality of their humanness is coming into the job one way or another. So this is just part of it. And that's why I think it's extremely important to know where the line is because you want to be really consistent with your employees, you want to provide clarity. That is the role at the end of the day. And there's a way to provide clarity in a way that's fair, right?
• 27:26
  Or, I don't know about fair, but- Yeah, fair, but also kind of what you said, like honors the human reality in all of us. Right. And so, you know, in my case, I would say a lot of the workplaces I've been in have very aggressive performance expectations for people. So taking care of the important work is okay for a certain amount of time, but only for a certain amount of time.
• 27:58
  After that, if they're not able to do their full scope of responsibility- because the full set of expectations is more than just taking care of the important stuff. Right. It's more than just not dropping balls. It's, can you advance your space? You have to grow things. You have to take on leadership. You're supposed to be being proactive around work.
• 28:22
  So it sounds like in that case, it would be you, as the manager telling them or reminding this employee that it is more than just doing the important things or the baseline is doing them a service to remind them of this in this workplace.
• 28:41
  I think it's about timing, right? So like, let's say somebody is coming to me with a personal circumstance and they're explaining to me that this is going to affect their ability to work. In the short term, I'm going to say, okay, tell me what you can do. Tell me how long, you know, this situation you think will last for. And it depends, if it's like a personal mental health crisis, they don't know and I wouldn't ask a question like that, right? Right.
• 29:05
  But first and foremost is to really just get the information, be curious and understand kind of what is the magnitude of the thing that they're dealing with on the personal side. But I think in that conversation, whatever plan we come up with, I'd be very clear that we will do a check-in.
• 29:23
  We're going to do a check-in in two weeks, in four weeks, whatever feels like the right amount of time. I would not let it go past four weeks and we're going to check in and we're going to reconnect. You're going to tell me how you're doing and I'm going to tell you how I think you're doing, like how the work side of it is going. Right. Because that becomes my job at the end of the day in this situation, is they're taking care of themselves and we're going to be on the same page about the important work and I'm going to be responsible for communicating how long this arrangement can last for.
• 29:53
  I don't need to know it on day one. Right. Right? I'm saying, okay, for two weeks? Yeah, fine. For four weeks? Okay, yeah, fine. At that point, we'll do a check-in and we'll see. Right. Right? We'll see if it can keep going longer or not. And it depends, right? It depends who else on the team can pick up, it depends how long the person's been around, what their general performance is like, how much demand is in the work space.
• 30:17
  I've negotiated with people in situations where personal circumstances have really come through and are maybe prolonged for them to do reduced-capacity roles, like we've basically down-leveled them. Whatever it's, I don't know, it's not an anti-promotion. It's not a demotion like from a performance perspective, it's a demotion from just a- Like a life circumstances. Exactly. Yeah. So then we're like, okay, we're going to go the demotion route or okay, we can do this, but just so you know, your performance review might be affected by this. Right. That doesn't mean you're out of a job, but it does mean it's going to play a factor.
• 30:51
  Or maybe we say, okay, maybe it's time for you to go on official leave. Like, take your leave of absence benefits and all that kind of stuff, right? Because that helps with job preservation and it can allow for us to maybe get temporary support in a different way from just someone else and do some backfilling.
• 31:11
  That makes a lot of sense. It is really hard also when you're the person going through like a personal crisis because you're kind of panicking and then you're like here's this huge checklist of stuff. So I think to have some guidance on what is available to you, what might be a good decision for you considering your situation, and that does require a lot of open and more frequent communication. But it could benefit everyone a lot better and not lead to building resentment on either end and yeah, just be a lot clearer. Absolutely, right?
• 31:43
  I think the main point here is, to me, the employee's role in this situation is to communicate clearly with their boss about what they have capacity for. What they can and cannot do when it comes to the job. Right? And to the degree that that changes to, again, just communicate clearly. And the boss's job in this situation is to communicate clearly around what the company is capable of giving them. Right. How much leeway, for how long, and to not overpromise on that. Right? Be realistic and just set check-in dates so that you're like, okay, this is my answer for the next two weeks. Right.
• 32:32
  Right? And then we'll check in. Because you're going to have more intel on what your capacity is and I will have more intel on where the company stance is on this, right? Yeah. And in the meantime, it is a lot of work as a boss! Like you end up having to talk to HR and just other leaders to triangulate on this a lot of times. But it is a little bit of this good faith, like let's try to do right by each other. But as the boss, I think you can't forget that you're still helping negotiate between the human reality of your employee's life and the company's reality of what they need for the survival and growth of the continued success of the organization, right? Yeah. Both matter
• 33:18
  I think this is a very fair and balanced take and I am still like take whatever you want. Take whatever you want! I hope your cats live for twenty years! I agree with you and my heart is like do it, do it. Take care of those babies! You know, I think my perspective really adjusted on this when I started to have to manage more and more people and really like departments because the volume changes. Oh yeah. Right like, this isn't just like a one-off thing that happened on the instance. Right. It starts to become something that you're like oh, when you're managing 500 people, it comes up often enough that you start to see the patterns, you start to see where you need to be consistent, where your lack of clarity ends up being, you know, maybe taken advantage of. Right.
• 34:06
  And often, the employees end up feeling disgruntled, right? Yeah. I think having some guidelines and parameters actually helps the employee as well. Yeah. It's like when someone asks you to do something, you're like, oh, what would you like? And they're like oh, whatever. And you're like, so I got to make it all up? And that can be frustrating, it's a little too much to decide especially if you already have reduced capacity. Absolutely, absolutely. And as the boss, I will just say: "I don't know" is also clear. You can say I don't know, let's check in at the end of the week. Yeah. Or let's just, why don't you just do as much as you can that feels reasonable for you over the next two weeks and I will use that as my time period to see if that works. Yeah. Like just do an experiment. It's okay to not know. Be clear about that though. Right. Yeah. I think that's good.
• 34:59
  Okay. So any final takeaways, either for yourself or the reader? To quote Brittany Howard from the Alabama Shakes concert we went to, "I hope your pets live for 30 years." That's my takeaway. That's your takeaway. I'm still stuck on that.
• 35:15
  I think my takeaway is I have- I didn't think I would actually think about this in the context just of general bereavement. Yeah. I'm finding myself a little surprised that I'm not really thinking that this situation with this employee and her cat is any different than like a team member and their aunt passing away or having a sick family member to care for. And I think that's actually kind of cool. Like I sort of love that. I do love that. It's very humanizing, it makes work seem less terrible and you're not just like a number on a balance sheet. Right. Right? And it's consistent and I don't have to go into the game of how much grief are you allowed? Right. That's not my job.
• 36:02
  Yeah, and it feels bad for you to do that too. Right, I don't want to be guessing how much you're allowed to be sad. I only need to be clear about how much- what the workload expectations are and how much wiggle room we have and how we can adjust that. Yeah. Yeah. I hope your employee's pet lives for 30 years. Hope this helps! Hope this helps and that they live forever.
• 36:29
  Dear Concerned Cat Boss, it's really kind and empathetic of you to even submit a question like this. You're probably already on the right foot in terms of doing right by your employee. Just make sure you're also not overpromising, I'd say. Yeah, and more empathy. I love it. I love that this question was even submitted.
• 36:51
  That's it for this week's Sunday Scaries: Work Edition. If this episode resonated with you, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review!
• 37:00
  Got a workplace horror story or a burning question? Send it our way at sunday.scaries.work.edition@gmail.com. We might tackle it in a future episode. Or just have a good private laugh.
• 37:15
  Sunday Scaries: Work Edition is produced by Emily Tao and Bijal Mehta. Our theme music is by Bitter Old Men and artwork is by Erin Leeder. Until next week: may your inbox stay manageable and your work-life balance tip towards life. Bye!