General Discussion

until it bit me in the BUTT and I lost my job.

My boss was fired about 6 months after I went fully remote, and her replacement could "never figure out what I did." Or so he said in his weaselly fuck fashion as he was firing me the week before Christmas.

I was the Communications Manager for a big division (insurance/billing/medical records) in a medium-sized healthcare system. I wrote the newsletter, managed the recognition program, managed the leadership development training program, and managed the websites for our several departments. I developed web content, kept every department's page fresh and accurate, rolled out new pages for new programs, and developed web-based systems for gathering and tracking information.

I did special projects, too. Example: I coordinated the roll-out of hundreds of HIPAA-compliant remote work desktops to the folks who had been sent home permanently after COVID. This was a huge job, involving the vendor, the IT department, and every department and work group in our division. I came in on weekends to distribute machines and train users how to set them up. I even learned how to program the desktops in the first place, to take some of the load off IT.

But the new boss never met me in person. He walked in the door not knowing what I did, learned only the position description, and never asked me for any specifics in a Zoom meeting. When I had one-on-ones with him he'd either cancel or slough me off after 15 minutes, impatient and disinterested. He *KNEW* intellectually what I did, but he just didn't think foo foo "communications" was at the heart of our work, so he convinced himself that I was superfluous.

Thing is, I'm charming and presentable and compelling in person. I get leaders laughing. I get them engaged. I make them feel like process improvements that *I've* thought of are mostly their idea. (Leaders love that.) They feel not just supported, but clever and creative. About 95% of the time, they love me! They think what I do is valuable. They see that I am capable and smart, and they give me "stretch" projects that allow me to become invaluable.

BUT THIS IS ALL BETTER IN PERSON. Much better. It's a vibe. It's a dance It's a relationship. And it is wildly challenging over Zoom.

Maybe this guy would have fired me anyway. There were budget pressures at the time, and he needed to offload staff - but there were similar, if not worse, budget challenges in the prior years, and I wasn't let go because to my original boss, "Communications Manager" wasn't low-hanging fruit to be slashed with no impact to the department. She valued my contributions and my talents, and she happily piled more work on me in order to get value for money for the institution.

Anyway, ever since I was sacked I have been ruing the day I decided to go 100% remote and not keep my wide behind IN THE OFFICE. I'm pretty sure I'd still have that job. I loved it.