March 14 - Coworker or Person

After a series of events, I am still in Chicago. The situations that brought me here were slightly less than ideal (I don’t mean to be cryptic, I’m just trying to respect some friends’ boundaries), but ‘work’ understood.

This weekend made me even more grateful to have a boss who acts like a real human being and who treats me as one. The stark contrast between the way that she handled me being stuck in Chicago without my work computer for an extra day vs. the behavior of the boss of one of the girls I was staying with was shocking. While my boss texted me that her fingers were crossed that everything was okay, my friend’s boss was choosing to not answer for hours on end and to then avoid asking any questions that didn’t have to do with work itself.

I do think that there needs to be a separation between work and life. But I often think that coworkers confuse not wanting to cross that line with not treating a coworker like a person. If someone goes through something traumatic, say you’re sorry. Say you hope everything’s okay. Ask them when they’ll be able to get online after you know that they, as a human being, are alright.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned.