my community was destroyed by the hurricane — how do I function at work?

by Alison Green on October 8, 2024

Readers, can you help with this one?

I had a question I’m hoping to get your or your readers’ input on.

I live, and work remotely from, one of the Southern Appalachian communities that was most severely impacted by Hurricane Helene. I’m very lucky in that I’m safe, my people are safe, and I didn’t have catastrophic property damage. And, the city I call home is in ruins, I have no running water (and likely won’t for weeks), cell service is spotty, WiFi access is inconsistent, and many people I’m close with lost everything or are stuck in remote communities still inaccessible by road.

Even though I’m physically okay, mentally I’m barely functioning. My life has become a series of long lines to get drinking water, supply runs for isolated friends, endless news (both actual news and 1-1 news from people I care about) about how bad things are, weeding through extensive disinformation on social media, volunteering on emergency response teams, etc. Every time I leave my house I see another treasured place that’s either gone forever or will never be the same. I’ve dealt with trauma and loss before, but this is different – both in its enormous local scale, and what feels like irrelevance (or even unawareness) to everyone outside the region.

My company has been accommodating through the first week, and has given me a blanket “let us know what you need and we’ll work with you” offer. But I’m in a senior role and I’m worried about my total lack of mental bandwidth to do my job. I’m short with people, and I can maybe get through one major task a day before losing focus. I expect my employer’s patience to run out well before I’m back to 100%. Performance assessments are coming up next month and we’re in the middle of our busiest season, so it’s not exactly a great time for me to be struggling – and it’s a small business so my current survival-mode capacity has real impacts. I have no idea what I could even ask for to make work easier, other than “let me take two months off to rebuild my ability to function like a normal human again.” I’m not in a financial position to quit or take unpaid leave, and I’m not able or willing to temporarily relocate out of the disaster zone.

I’d love to hear about anything I could ask for from my company, or anything else you can think of to help me navigate the aftermath of such a catastrophic disaster at work. I also have folks in my community who would benefit from ideas about how to negotiate with employers who are less flexible with remote staff in this situation.

I’d prefer to keep comments specifically focused on remote work. I deeply appreciate the intent behind suggestions re: life-logistics, resource access, community response, or general expressions of empathy, but I don’t have bandwidth to absorb it all.

Readers, can you help? (Please make sure to respect the writer’s request in the last paragraph.)

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  1. crose*

    Could you possibly ask to take a temporary emergency leave? However, those usually aren’t paid. So if you can’t go without, could you see if they would allow you to shift your working hours or duties temporarily? Maybe go to part time or shift your duties temporarily to email communication only, so you don’t have that pressure to be “on” visually.

    1. Not Another Username*

      A voluntary donation/emergency leave bank might be perfect here since the OP’s co-workers are in a different geographical area. However, I don’t know the practicality of implementing that in a small business.

    2. WOOLFAN*

      I wonder if their employer offers paid (or even partial pay) leave for anything, and if so, whether they could figure out a way to have that apply to their current situation. For example, if their company offers paid FMLA (or the equivalent, since they may be too small to be obligated to offer FMLA), maybe they can figure out how this could fit within that scope. Perhaps it would be worth trying to get an assessment from a medical professional regarding emotional trauma, etc. Or perhaps their employer would be willing to extend some flavor of paid leave applicable to a different situation to this one?

      I wonder if one of the outcomes (on a national level, not specific to the LW) of this year’s hurricane season will be a proposal for legislation covering victims of natural disasters. It really sucks that there isn’t already something covering folks the way FMLA does. I’m kind of horrified hearing stories about folks who can’t evacuate from hurricanes because they will lose their jobs – how is THAT not a protection that is already in place??! (Well I assume state politics in Florida and other states often affected by hurricanes? But why isn’t this a federal level protection?) The interruption to one’s ability to work caused by this stuff can be just as severe as the interruption caused by major injury or illness. It really sucks that there are so few safety nets for so many folks.

      1. LL*

        Yeah, I know this isn’t a disability exactly, but maybe disability leave/insurance might cover it? idk.

      2. merida*

        Agreed, how does federal protection for workers during natural disasters not exist??

        Even in my really tiny experience with a small natural disaster I struggled to get my work done. We had a blizzard with record-breaking snowfall totals once back in the in-office days. They wouldn’t allow us to go home until the roads were already mostly impassable, and the strict expectation was that we go right back to work at home. After more than an hour white knuckling it home (normal commute was 15 minutes) I had to shovel my driveway before I could get my car in without getting stuck. During that my neighbor got their car stuck in the road so I helped, and then finally went inside to work even though I was full of adrenaline from the situation and my clothes were soaked. I got “talked to” for not immediately going back to work once I got home because I was hourly. I know that’s a really really small thing in comparison, but it just paints the picture of how much room for improvement there is!

      3. Just an idea*

        Piggybacking on this idea, during a catastrophic wildfire fire year when many employers lost their homes to fire or had severe smoke damage making then uninhabitable even if they still stood, my employer got creative and extended a week of bereavement leave to everyone to folks severely impacted by the wildfires. Maybe your employer could do something similar.

    3. MadisonCat*

      Mental health worker here. Please have yourself evaluated for a) acute stress and b), as the weeks go on, PTSD. An MD or APNP should be able to diagnose for these if there’s no mental health access, though you might be able to meet with a mental health worker virtually who isn’t in a part of the state that was hard hit. PTSD, generalized anxiety, and depression are disabilities under the ADA, and if you have short or long term disability insurance, you could perhaps use that temporarily. You’ll need the formal assessment and diagnosis. FMLA also allows folks to take “intermittent leave” so that you could work the hours you somehow can and be on leave the reminder — though I don’t know whether short term disability insurance can be titrated like that. Sending many good wishes and solidarity as you navigate through this situation for which nobody could truly be prepared.

      1. Stat junkie*

        100% had the same thought. This is exactly the type of situation where short term disability should apply or even a brief medical leave. The idea here is that you are (for very understandable reasons) not able to function at your normal ability level. Realistically, you are actually functioning much higher than your normal ability level, it’s more accurate to say your time and energy are focused on much more important things than your normal work demands. Talk to your boss and see if they need medical documentation, but an acute stress leave would be really viable and would give you the space you need to focus on the things that are truly important while not jeopardizing your work functioning.

      3. just some guy*

        Yes, this.

        OP’s work needs to treat this as a case of “employee is injured and unable to work at full capacity while they recover”, because that’s exactly what it is.

      4. Mina Murray*

        FWIW, I’m going through a completely different and more personal devastation, but my company’s STD and LTD coverage are both enabling me to take leave intermittently.

    4. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      YES!
      “and has given me a blanket “let us know what you need and we’ll work with you” offer. But I’m in a senior role and I’m worried about my total lack of mental bandwidth to do my job.”
      What you need is uninterrupted time to process your loss. I’m not saying a month, even, but maybe another week or two. As an individual contributor, I’ll tell you it will be easier for me to plan and execute work if I know you are not there, compared to your being there but being distracted and stressed.
      As a person with a great boss who works with all of us to be flexible, I would appreciate the ability to show the same concern for her that she does for me.

  2. Jane Bingley*

    Honestly, it sounds like you need a full reset. In your shoes, I’d be going to my boss with a specific list of tasks on my plate, my estimate of how much relative time they eat up, and a line drawn below which tasks simply won’t get done. I’d be looking for my boss’ input on whether I’ve got the right items on the list, in the right order, with the line in the right place – but the reality of cutting the to-do list in half for the next few months being the immovable goal of the conversation.

    Then it falls to your boss to decide how to handle tasks you’re no longer doing – can they be skipped, delegated to another employee, offloaded to a temp, delayed for months? If you find this tough, imagine if you’d undergone a major medical emergency and could only work half-time – how would the company handle it? This emergency is external rather than internal, but its impact is the same – you can’t do a full-time job right now and you need permission to drop specific things to focus on what your priorities are.

    1. AVP*

      This could maybe also focus on what tasks are most heavily impacted by the unavoidable realities OP is facing. For example, at past remote jobs, I’ve had a lot of on-camera calls with clients > without good wifi or the ability to shower regularly, those would probably need to be handled by deputizing someone else to take them (which frees up X hours per day, or at least would allow OP to prep her staff instead of facing outsiders).

      But I think the idea of going through your to-do list, making an action plan that focuses on the next two months beyond this week, makes a lot of sense and is something a CEO would appreciate seeing and being able to weigh in on.

      1. M2*

        All of these are really good ideas. I think coming up with a list of things that must be done in the next month and then the next week and speak to your boss about what you are able to do and what can be put onto others. The issue here is you have a small business so you don’t have as many people who can likely take your load.

        Speak to your employers. Maybe they would be willing to pay for some kind of WiFi or generator that might help you in the short term. They also might just say take this week off and yes it’s not 2 months, but it is something.

        Also, could you ask if you can work less
        hours? Could you maybe work an hour or two if the WiFi works then take a break ? Is there a period of time when working is better for you?

        If you have a team be open with them. Someone on another team had an emergency and the only person they managed was out on FMLA so they told everyone and we basically said “what tasks can we take off your plate that must be done?” That did mean people
        including me worked more hours, but we were happy to do it for a short period. I don’t know if you’ll get that type of support especially at a small company for 2 months but maybe start with asking for it for a couple weeks and see what people might help you with.

        I think writing things down- what must get done the next month then break down week by week and write down what you need/ write down who might be able to take some of the “must get done” off your plate and then communicate it to your boss and then team. People usually want to help but don’t know how so giving people concrete examples will really help them. “Hey Tim, for the next month can you intake over the Llamma Groomimg project? The information is in the shared drive and I’m happy to have a 15 minute call to go over any questions. I will also loop on the clients to let them know you are the point person for the time being. I’m happy to oversee it but can’t do day to day functions due to lack of WiFi and water in my area.”

        I think the best thing is to be clear and sort of go week by week. Thinking of you!

        1. Jackalope*

          On the “Is there a period of time when working is better for you” question, one of the things I noticed early pandemic when suddenly wifi networks were being taxed beyond their capacity is that there were times of day that were definitely better than others. You said your connection is spotty right now; could you take a couple of days to see if there are trends? If there’s a time of day when it’s most likely to be working, or most likely to be down, that might help you figure out times of day when you can do internet work or stuff that doesn’t require internet and can be done on just your computer.

    2. OP*

      Yeah, this is a good suggestion. I met with my manager yesterday to talk big-picture about this. One of the challenges is my capacity is super unpredictable – like, yesterday at 3 pm my internet crashed and burned, so I missed a couple deadlines that I was expecting to be no problem.

      1. Momma Bear*

        I’d continue to communicate with your manager and see how you can backfill or delegate, or what the company might be able to purchase to help you out. It might also be helpful to not give you hot button items until you know the Internet is stable. And frankly, that happens anywhere. Just the other day I was down for a bit with no access to cloud documents for no good reason. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

        You might also see where you can go old school – Teams has call-in options, right? Is your cell service more stable? That kind of thing.

        1. TooTiredToThink*

          I remember seeing posts that users in affected zipcodes could get free 30-day access to Starlink. If OP is using their regular provider; maybe they can switch over to Starlink when theirs is down.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            I hope that works out. Some refugees are being charged $400 for Starlink by lovely Mr. Musk. /s

      2. I Count the Llamas*

        Can you ask your company for a mobile hotspot and battery pack? Depending on the type, the hotspot can either connect to the cell tower network, or one that can connect via satellite might be preferable if cell coverage is going down still. The battery pack can keep a laptop going, or it could run a monitor and computer, etc. to extend your availability when the power does go out.

        Best of luck OP, I can’t imagine what you’re going through.

        1. JSPA*

          Doesn’t work to assume cell service. Some cell towers went down (like, literally collapsed) and others no longer had power lines to them.

          1. Observer*

            Agreed. But having it means that *sometimes* there will be a failover. Which is better than NEVER having a failover. And if the LW has a cell phone, use that as a hotspot to, when that works, and ask the company to get them a hotspot from a different cell provider. Just make sure that the provider is not an MVNO that uses Provider One’s spectrum and towers. So, if you have Verizon get T-mobile or AT&T, not a company that uses Verizon towers.

            1. Jules the 3rd*

              My understanding is that part of Biden’s emergency declaration was a requirement for cell providers to share capacity, so if there are any towers in the area, carrier should not matter.

          2. I Count the Llamas*

            Agreed, which is why I also suggested a hotspot that could connect via satellite if the cell networks are an issue.

      3. Jules the 3rd*

        Definitely take some time to assess your workload and delegate as much as you can. Do not try to keep anything because it ‘looks good’ or ‘you know the people’. If it is possible for someone else to take it on, let it go.

        You are not un-noticed. I live in Raleigh, and 90% of the people I know here have done something, from money to loading trucks to making sandwiches for World Central Kitchen. We see you, and worry about you, and are so so sorry this happened. If I were your co-worker in an un-affected area, I would jump at the chance to do something to help you. Out here, mostly what I hear is “Is so-n-so ok?” and “It’s so frustrating that we can’t go *do* anything.”

        So, help us help you. We want to, very very much.

      4. Blue Pen*

        To the degree it’s possible, or maybe at least just for now, you may want to upload/retrieve all your work in a shared file drive system so that another colleague can pick up things right where you left off when your internet crashes.

    3. OrdinaryJoe*

      I think this is a great approach. How would your company handle a sudden death or cancer treatment where the person isn’t at 100% and isn’t going to be for a few months. Triage the situation with A Level To Do’s and work down. You may even, depending on your culture, suggest people who can potentially take over certain tasks so your boss isn’t scrambling as much and at least knows that … Frank can run the X Report and Mary knows all about the Y Project.

      Also, know that your work and co-workers WILL understand because most of us know that if this situation wasn’t us, something similar will hit us …. death, illness, natural disaster… eventually. Major life disruptions happen to everyone.

    4. RIP Pillowfort*

      I just got off a call where we were missing people due to the Helene impacts and I 100% agree with what you said.

      OP- you don’t have running water and your bosses have told you to tell them what you need from them. Outline what you need delegated or put off so you have a manageable workload. I live in the South and get what you’re talking about. It’s never going to be the same. But you’re not financially able to not work. You need to trim the job to the bare level of acceptable and not worry about how it looks on a performance review it until you’re through the other side.

      Another thing- if you could switch when you’re doing the work that might be something to think about. Maybe doing your work early before going out or later when you come back rather than holding to any core working hours. We’ve been flexible about that with workers when dealing with exactly this.

      1. Sloanicota*

        I agree with this. Can you request take on a bigger, longer-term task – a big report or something, that’s not due for several months – and push other stuff to someone who’s not in an active disaster zone?

        1. TechWorker*

          +1, especially if electricity is more stable than wifi then having tasks that don’t require solid internet access are likely to be more tractable.

      2. Bruce*

        One thing, any manager that has any awareness is not going to ding you on your review for being impacted by a hurricane. I would hope that if they are frustrated it is at the situation, not at you.

        1. Reindeer Hut Hostess*

          Right on. This is a perfect example of when “Meets Expectations” is more than enough.

        2. EmF*

          Right? “Was in a catastrophic hurricane, without running water, and living in a disaster zone, and still attempted to do her best at work.” is exceeding expectations.

      3. Media Monkey*

        exactly this – can someone else take over the finalising of deadline driven work for a while until your wifi etc is more stable and you input into the non deadline driven parts? or focus on tasks with longer deadlines?

  3. HCworker*

    I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It’s awful and heartbreaking.

    Is there any way you can make yourself as comfortable as possible when remotely working, even in teeny tiny ways? Like, wear your softest clothes, work from the couch, sit by a window, hold a pet?

    Could you ask to turn your video off for most/all meetings? That could preserve some mental bandwidth and also give you the opportunity to dress down/be more flexible with location.

    I wonder if it would also be helpful to have a concrete discussion with your boss about expectations, instead of a vague “we’ll support you however you need.” Can you talk about adjusting your expectations for output, or delegating some leadership duties temporarily? You could even put dates to those things to indicate you intend to come back to full productivity eventually.

    1. OP*

      Video is definitely a no-go right now – bandwidth won’t support it. I like the idea of keeping the pets close by though – they are absolutely helpful as a source of emotional support.

      1. HCworker*

        Yeah, I have not had to deal with anything as severe or long-lasting as you are describing while at my current job, but I have experience doing a very difficult and emotionally demanding job while also going through my own stuff, and those tiny little things can mean a lot. If I can hug a cat while completing documentation, it makes the day a little more bearable. If I’m doing virtual appointments with my fuzziest socks on, it doesn’t solve all my problems but it’s a teeny way to make them more bearable. Take advantage of every isty opportunity to be gentle with yourself.

    2. HonorBox*

      The suggestion about talking to your boss is exactly where I was headed too. Their expectations may be based on their outside understanding of what that might look like, where you’re going to have a different perspective. If an employee in this situation came to me and outlined specific things they needed, I’d be very appreciative. There may be some things that you, and they find that you need to do, but there may be other things that can be handled by others. Hopefully your boss is supportive in action and not just in word. And having that conversation may take a bit of stress from you, too.

      I’m really sorry you’re dealing with this. Sending you positive thoughts!

  4. R*

    IS FMLA available here? I don’t have the legal knowledge to know for sure, but it seems like you might be able to take it, especially if you get a diagnosis of PTSD or some other stress or anxiety related disorder arising from the events.

    1. Miss Chanandler Bong*

      I was thinking that as well. If OP can get a diagnosis that they need leave for mental health reasons, they likely could also use short term disability.

      1. cha0tica*

        Short-term disability wouldn’t cover leave to take care of logistics, sure. But anxiety and post-traumatic stress, absolutely. What the letter writer describes is absolutely disabling! They may have a hard time getting in contact with a local mental health provider if they’re not already established, but maybe one of the telehealth mental health providers would be willing to establish the disability claim for them.

      1. OP*

        Yeah and the idea of even attempting to get some kind of diagnosis is more logistics than I can handle right now. All my regular medical providers are shut down. This is a great suggestion for some of my people who have more established mental health records with providers in other parts of the state that are open though!

        1. Vin*

          Is there any way you can call a telehealth provider through your medical insurance? I’ve been able to get minor diagnoses through a telehealth phone call, I just called their telehealth hotline and was able to talk to a doctor that same day. Maybe you could get a diagnosis easily that way. Some employers also provide EAP, I’d highly recommend Allison’s article on how to take advantage of EAP resources, I’ve also used them for mental health help.

        2. AnotherOne*

          could you talk to your employer about whether they’d consider you for FMLA based on your volunteering on emergency response teams?

          I’m not really clear on how this would work but i’ve seen it proposed. (someone here may have an idea of the logic or how to present it.)

          1. Lisa*

            The FMLA law defines what FMLA applies to, it’s not up to an employer’s discretion, and only medical (including mental health) conditions/treatment qualify. A company could grant other unpaid leave for any reason, but you don’t have the protections of FMLA.

        3. Annnnon*

          Acute stress reaction is a dx that most pcps could make in this situation, since yours are all closed, hopefully a tele health provider could, shouldn’t have to be specifically a mental health provider

    3. samwise*

      No, not if there is no medical need on the part of the employee or a qualified family member for which the employee is caring, or if the employee or a qualified family member is military active duty and that duty creates a “qualifying exigency”. Unfortunately. google: dol.gov fmla

      I suggest talking directly to HR as to what sort of leave might be available. It might be unpaid, can you do that? if so, check about whether benefits are covered while you are on unpaid leave (especially health insurance).

      1. cha0tica*

        Mental distress would absolutely fall under short-term disability plans, if the employer has one!

  5. Happy Camper*

    You mentioned being senior. If you have reports I encourage transparency as much as you can handle. A brief “I’ve been greatly impacted by the Hurricane and am still dealing with the fallout. Because of that I will be less responsive and may even sound shorter with you than usual. My apologies in advance”. My boss had a bunch of personal stuff come up recently and said something similar. I appreciated the heads up and adjusted my expectations accordingly.

    1. OP*

      Great idea! I think what I really need from them is to email me things that I can just answer yes or no to, not having a lot of back and forth. This is really different from my typical management style so verbalizing it would be helpful for all of us. Thanks for the suggestion!

      1. Beth*

        This would be fantastic info for me as your direct report in this scenario. In their shoes, I’d want to help and support but likely wouldn’t be able to guess what you need from me. Knowing your preferences (whether to ask questions via email vs slack vs “leave you alone except for one daily call where we handle everything at once”; to share info via yes-or-no questions vs a short summary of a situation that we’ll then discuss; to expect turnaround times to be an hour vs a day vs a week for things I need your signoff on; etc) would empower me to do my job and support you well.

      2. Sloanicota*

        You could ask them to aim for one (weekly? Twice a week?) email from each of your direct reports that include yes/no responses. Send them an example of what you might want: a series of bullets that end with “I’m planning to do X and Y unless you tell me you would rather have me focus on Z. If my plan is right, just say yes and I’ll run with it and let you know how it’s going with an update on X date and a planned deadline of Y date.” Acknowledge that this is different from how you’ve operated in the past. Maybe point them towards a peer or another person for the back and forth if they need it. Ask the team to brainstorm together?

      3. bamcheeks*

        If you’ve got good people working for you, let them step up. Where possible, tell people it’s ok to make decisions without running them past you first. Ask them to check each other’s documents and send them to you for quick signatures. Don’t CC you if it’s just for information— let go a little and pick it up later when you’re more grounded.

        Hopefully you have a few people who will really go for the opportunity to have a bit more responsibility and autonomy for a short-term period, and that’s ok!

      4. Allegra*

        I don’t know how much your work might deal with this specifically, but as an example–mine involves a lot of communication with outside stakeholders, and some issues come up that need pretty finessed wording to come from senior staff. When my boss is completely slammed, I’ll do my best to draft up a potential response so I can include it when I let my boss know about the issue. It’s not always exactly what we need to say, but it’s much easier for her to adjust my draft than to come up with one from scratch.

        Are there any situations where you can ask your team to do something like that–either asking if they can include a plan of action you can just sign off on, or provide drafts you can adjust more easily, things like that?

        (And on an interpersonal note, when my family/hometown was pretty devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I ended up just telling people at work, “I know you’re all sending the best and appreciate it, but I’d love to not keep bringing it up so let’s leave it there” and that worked. Thinking of you and your community.)

        1. Kazelle*

          Yes – this is something I do routinely for my senior leadership team. I write draft emails for my director or her manager so they can just make a few edits then cut and paste, and I send up summaries and proposed actions so I can just be told “go ahead” or “hold off” or my director can just forward them on to her manager with “this is the proposed action”.

      5. Theaz*

        Yes, I feel like there are 2 or 3 baskets of things you need and identifying them out loud is helpful? I’m so glad you are still here, but crisis mode makes it hard to reflect and it makes total sense that figuring out what would help is hard. I think you need assignments and expectations on deliverables (work and communication) to be adjusted to reflect the external reality that you don’t have the reliable technical capacity to do this, right now, and you aren’t the person who can change this. It’s going to come when it comes, in the queue with all of the other recovery that’s needed. You need your employer to adapt to this by changing the workflow, assignments and communicating that to others so that you don’t get called on or depended on for this. An out of office from you, and agreement from them that this will be adjusted is just reflecting the basic reality right now.

        You also need a reduction in overall workload because things that used to be available immediately now are way harder. Water. Food. Living. This is not a past-tense situation, it is affecting your every day life and you have other things you suddenly need to address, on a regular basis. You don’t have the time you used to have, and you also have a bunch of steps now that take energy out of you. Whether it’s every second day, or half days, or fewer projects, or whatever makes sense given your type of work and role, you need more time away from work.

        Along the same lines (but maybe different?) you might need some straight up time off. You have been through a tragedy, you need and deserve time to recover and process and grieve and absorb it. Your mental/emotional tank might be totally empty right now, and a hard break, even if it is a week or two, might be enough to start putting something back in it, that you can sustain at a lower workload.

    2. AndersonDarling*

      As a direct report, I would appreciate the transparency. I’d like to know that my manager was making their personal life (and safety) come first and making adjustments in work life. Or even stepping away from work completely.
      When my manager makes their family and life first, then I know I can do the same if I’m in a difficult situation.

      2. Code Monkey, the SQL*

        Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Currently I have a manager and direct team member who are in process of evacuating (Tampa). Their transparency (one had their hotel suddenly cancelled, the other is tending to aging relatives) lets me do everything I can to keep the requests on their time/mental energy low. If they encounter disaster, our team can keep their stuff stable while they carry on being human, and we know we can count on each other.

        1. Ezri Dax*

          OP, I’m so sorry you and your community are dealing with so much. You sound like an incredibly conscientious and caring person, both at work and in your personal life. As someone who was recently forced to slow down at work due to some health stuff, who also couldn’t afford to take leave, I just want to emphasize that you’re not a failure if you need to do the minimum for awhile. Your coworkers and managers won’t see you that way, either, if you work with even halfway decent people. I’ve been far harder on myself than my coworkers or manager have been on me, and I struggled to accept that it truly was okay to take a step back from my normal pace at work for a few months. If you can, go easy on yourself, and accept any help and support your coworkers are able to offer. Best of luck going forward, and I hope things stabilize as much as possible for you all soon.

    3. Tally miss*

      I’m currently going through an unexpected death in the family so maybe my experience can help you

      You can do this electronically but paper works for me – write down all your to dos and then when completed, write down what you did because remembering can be challenging.

      I’ve also found having a paper notebook with movable pages helpful. I have one and keep 2 sections – work & estate. The movable pages help because you can jot down notes or things you need to do when you think of them and then put them in the right place. Being able to just do what my brain wants and not worry about switching from work mode to me mode has helped.

      I’m really sorry you are dealing with this and I hope things get better for you.

  6. Melisande*

    Given the cell access & wifi issues, seems reasonable to say to your employer that you aim to have set, short times online – an hour daily, a half day weekly, whatever might work for you – for urgent checkins and that the rest of the time you will be in survival mode and catching up with what you can do (eg maybe notes for staff assessments?) offline.
    Have a detailed out of office message to redirect routine queries to the best places – someone may be able to set that up for you.
    Triage your work tasks ruthlessly just as you would if dealing with a personal rather than community crisis: what can be delegated? what left completely?
    Try to take pride in what you are achieving for work against all odds, in dreadful circumstances that are not of your making. They are lucky to have you.

    1. OP*

      Ohhhh the out of office message is something I never would have thought of and is a great idea. I’ll set that up today, thank you so much for the thought!

    2. merida*

      I second the hour or half hour a day thing. With little internet and literally spending so much time and energy just trying to survive, what more could any employer expect??

    3. Kara*

      I’m glad to see someone else suggest detailed use of OOO message options.

      I do this all the time, even when I’m in the office but working on something time sensitive or a “heavy hitter” project. I have multiple templates saved in my email for various “out of office” options and lists of who can handle things in my stead.

      Definitely put whatever details you’re comfortable including about your situation and your ability to be responsive. Ask specifically for what you need and be honest about how long you’ll need to respond to things. And bullet points are your friends in this communication. :)

      My heart goes out to y’all. We’ve got family in Tampa, so this is going to get personal for us more so than it already is. We’re all in this together. <3

  7. MsM*

    First of all, I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. I’m distressed enough at how many communities this is affecting, and I’m not even in the path of any of this. I can’t imagine living through it.

    Maybe two months off isn’t realistic, but can you ask your company for at least a week or two followed by part/flex time that will allow you to just focus on the one task you feel up to each week, and talk with the rest of your team about how to distribute other tasks or what can go on the back burner until you’re feeling ready to take on more? The timing may not be ideal, but if you’d been taken out by a more personal disaster, they’d have to figure out how to work around that. And I’m sure everyone would rather you communicate and ask for help upfront than wait for the situation to become a genuine emergency.

    1. OP*

      I did get a week of leave, but that almost made things harder when I came back – after a week of being totally surrounded by people who just Know What’s Going On and Get It, it was kind of emotionally devastating to come back to business as usual. I’m not blaming anyone outside for not knowing how to interact with me, it was just a huge shock even though I intellectually was prepared for it.

      1. Momma Bear*

        Hopefully people will stop bombarding you, but maybe a boilerplate response would be helpful to get them to move on. Or redirect people to what you need. “Thanks, but what I really need right now is someone to track down x y data for the report, as my bandwidth is limited. Can you get that for me and send it in a plain text email?”

      2. WeirdChemist*

        I totally get the feeling of everyone around you being “business as usual” while you’re struggling. I had my house destroyed by a hurrricane while my coworkers basically dealt with some minor things getting knocked over in their yard. They considered the hurricane to be a fun break from work while I was functionally homeless for several weeks. Not to mention the added stress of my commute essentially doubling to deal with couch surfing, dealing with insurance, replacing stuff, general lack of sleep/stability/etc… Needless to say I was dealing with similar problems you are (difficultly focusing, snappish behavior, etc). It didn’t help that my boss was a complete a-hole about the whole thing, but he’s a whole AAM post by himself

        Make sure you’re taking care of yourself outside of work! I personally got addicted to Great British Bake Off during this time and I legitimately used it as a comforting lifeline lol. Some people find it helpful to unwind by doing “nothing” (ie binge watching shows) and some find it helpful to do something that’s very different from work/your stressors (ie exercise, art, etc). I also found it helpful to journal a bit, just get some of those thoughts out of your brain so you’re ruminating on them less. Listening to music while I was doing work helped me stay focused.

        I wish I could give you more helpful advice, but truth be told it all just completely sucked for a while. And even when things were back to normal, the stress/anxiety stuck around for a lot longer. If you are able to seek mental health care over this, you will probably find it helpful (but things WILL get better with time)

        1. bamcheeks*

          The year that my mum was terminally ill I played Tetris for five hours every night. There is a lot to be said for easy, repetitive, brain-comforting things when you’re going through stressful times!

          1. Arrietty*

            Tetris has been shown to reduce the impact of traumatic events on mental wellbeing, and is actually a recommended intervention for people at risk of PTSD, so this was an excellent choice.

          2. I Have RBF*

            My wife is in home hospice for cancer. I play an hour of mindless games a night, just to try to knock my brain off of the hamster wheel of doom. I feel a little guilty about it, but I have to take the break. It still has wrecked my concentration.

            More to the point, make sure to take a mental break to get off the doom loop that coping with catastrophe causes. You can’t “will it” to be handled quickly, because it’s not just you.

            Also, if you find that your coworkers are asking you what they can do, try making a list of orgs they can donate to or volunteer with, then give it to management to disseminate and coordinate. Then when people ask you, you can point them at the list and HR/management coordination.

          3. Anne of Green Gables*

            When my mom spent a month in the hospital and we didn’t know what was going on, I did a coloring app on my phone. There are several out there, I used Happy Color. I’m not into computer/ phone games of any kind, so this filled the mindless and repetitive need for me.

          4. Blue Pen*

            Yes! Online card games are also great for this. Their “built-in” sorting abilities help me disconnect. And since you’re playing against an AI, there’s no personal emotions involved.

            My favorite is Rummy (https://cardgames.io/rummy/), and that site offers everything from Solitaire to Yahtzee to Canasta to Cribbage (and more).

        2. OP's neighbor*

          That’s a HUGE part of the problem for me – a lot of my self-soothing techniques are simply not available to me since I have no power or Internet. I would love to binge watch a show or listen to music. Fuck, I would love to zone out in a hot shower. This is part of the frustration OP is expressing – y’all outside of WNC don’t understand, we have had NOTHING for over a week. Nothing but hunting for water to flush our toilets with, cutting trees out of our neighbors houses, and trying to decide whether it would be worth burning gas to charge our phones in our cars when we’re not sure we’ll even have cell service, much less when we’ll be able to get more gas.

      3. Observer*

        I’m not blaming anyone outside for not knowing how to interact with me, it was just a huge shock even though I intellectually was prepared for it.

        Someone I know put it this way, in the wake of another tragedy: “How does the sun just keep on rising and setting?” Like they *know* that that’s what happens, but still it just was surreal to them.

        You are literally in the eye of the storm aftermath. Even someone who has been through something similar will probably need to have stuff spelled out for them. Which will seem *really* weird to you because it’s just SO blindingly obvious from where you sit. But they aren’t there….

        I think that accepting that you are going to have this kind of cognitive dissonance is a mental energy saver, because then you don’t have to try to “fix” it.

      4. Elyse Grasso*

        After my house burned in the Marshall Fire, I started an informal occasional email newsletter for friends and family so I didn’t need to answer the same questions over and over (and over and over) from each of a bunch of different people.
        If there is some central spot where you could post status updates, it might free up some connection time for thinking about things other than the disaster.

  8. beepbeep*

    I assume that you have some flexibility with what time of day you can get work done, would it be possible to get a pass on any meetings or things which require you to be on at a certain time of day? Since you say service and the rest are spotty and mentally not 100%, at least having the space to dictate your schedule without having to plan around others (while you’re already doing that with the rest of your community) could help.

    Also, is it possible to speak to whoever you work with, above or below, about what they would need from you at this time (bare minimum baseline)? If you worked in office and your working environment got destroyed, there’s only so much you can do. I don’t see why this is any different. Best of luck to you.

    1. OP*

      I like the “bare minimum baseline” framework, and I think that successfully communicates just how devastating the storm was to people who aren’t seeing it first-hand. Thanks!

      1. Stat junkie*

        I wonder if you could also ask your boss/HR to tell you what resources the company has available to you. E.g. Make them do the work for you and lay it out.
        Your needs: You need to be paid.
        Wants: Regular touch point with the company?
        Cannot do’s: Cannot commit to regular hours/regular times for contat.

        Within those parameters, what options are available to you? Do you have paid leave? EAP? Community time donations? Could you drop down to ?

        If you could show up to say “I don’t have the time, energy or resources to do this research myself, could someone in the company do it and get back to me with options?” I’d love to see what they come up with. It sounds like you generally have a good working relationship with your company and have some capital to spend. This is a great time to use it.

    2. Quinalla*

      Yes, I agree with this. Come to a minimum baseline that you can provide and work out with your boss if that means going part-time temporarily, having extremely flexible work hours but still full time, etc. and yes the logistics of how you can be available with the limits on bandwith and cell right now.

      This isn’t the same as COVID obviously, but similar in approach. We had people that requested to go part time temporarily as they had infants at home with no childcare available. I requested extremely flexible schedule as did many others as I had school aged kids that I needed to monitor/help with school during school hours. It was almost easier during COVID as all the typical office workers who were now WFH all got it. Even if folks were dealing with different challenges, there was an all in it together sense which you are missing here.

      I also set OoO on my calendar when I would be busy, I think the suggestion above to set a general OoO where you briefly explain your limited availability is a great idea. Make it clear to your direct reports how things will change temporarily.

      I would keep communication open on as things change or that yup things are still generally still the same crap situation as people will forget. It sucks, but it will happen and probably already is happening. Your OoO will hopefully help with that some.

      1. allathian*

        Even during Covid lockdowns there was a lot of arguments with WFH office employees on one side and employees in essential services and healthcare who couldn’t WFH because their jobs required them to work in person on the other, with lots of regrettable, if understandable disagreements between the two groups.

        Some of those who went out in public and risked their lives so that others could safely isolate at home were pretty resentful when WFH employees complained about the issues that affected their lives the most, like the mental health effects of prolonged isolation and fear, and the practical problems of caring for young children or elderly relatives while attempting to WFH.

        The conclusion was pretty much that WFH employees have a right to talk about the issues they’re facing, but that people who can’t WFH aren’t the right audience for those complaints.

        Similarly, a person who’s lost their home to a flood isn’t the right audience for someone whining about how the excess rain is making their garden rot away.

  9. The Ginger Ginger*

    How consistent is the schedule of things you need to do like water runs, etc? Is that all at the same time every day? Assuming you haven’t already – Is there any way to let your work know what window you can be available for work each day/week? It’s not clear how structured your current arrangement is in your letter. But perhaps having it generally known at work that you are only available 10-3 Mon, Tues, Fri (or whatever) for the foreseeable future would take some stress off you, and make it easier for them to plan around you?

    Also, 2 months may not be possible, but could you get 2 weeks then come back to the abbreviated schedule? It’s going to be easier to get any major accommodations you need NOW when it’s fresh in the news cycle, than it will be later as coverage slacks off and people forget how long it truly takes to build things back.

    1. OP*

      It’s really unpredictable, unfortunately. Like last week the public showers shut down before I could get there due to more-than-expected demand, and I’d been doing some relief work that exposed me to toxic mud the day before so I couldn’t exactly delay a shower, so I had to drive 45 minutes each way to get to a friend’s house with well water in the middle of the day. Yesterday my internet crashed and burned at 3 pm unexpectedly and I wasn’t able to work the rest of the day. Today, internet has been fine but the tree that fell on another tree that could fall on the house shifted in an alarming way so, we’re looking for a chainsaw. Basically nothing is working very well, so everything takes 5x longer than it should.

      1. merida*

        Oh OP I am so sorry. Please, please focus on yourself and surviving right now, not on work!

        If your employer gives you any pushback (hopefully they won’t) please send them that above paragraph about what it’s been like for you. Heck, even send them the link to this whole letter. If they push back it’s because they’re not understanding.

        1. Your Oxford Comma*

          Great idea, sharing the link! That would be enlightening to the boss.

          OP, I hope you get some slack both in your life and your work. Big positive vibes to you from the Left Coast.

  10. French Toast*

    From another angle and building on Jane Bingley’s comment above: Is it possible to talk with co-workers and management about doing some triage on the *company’s* commitments as well? What absolutely must get done as originally planned, and which relationships have more room for scaling back the offering or grace for an extended timeline? Is there money in the budget for some short-term contract work (especially for remote roles) so that the work can be done by people outside the region and not so heavily impacted?

    This method makes more sense if some of your co-workers are also impacted, but may be relevant even if it’s just you.

    1. OP*

      Interesting, I do think some money could be found to outsource some of my crucial responsibilities to contractors we have existing relationships with. That would be a pretty easy lift to manage. Thanks for the idea!

      1. just some guy*

        As well as triage, consider reshuffling responsibilities.

        For instance, if mental bandwidth is a big limitation: are there things you could take over that would be still useful to the business, but less draining for you, in return for others taking on some of those higher-bandwidth tasks that can’t be postponed?

        I sometimes have low-focus days, and I treat those as days to catch up on mind-numbing admin stuff that doesn’t require very much function.

  11. Dawn*

    Is your company large enough for you to qualify for FMLA? Because you really sound like you need it. FMLA doesn’t apply to natural disaster recovery, but it would apply to physical or mental illness resulting from it, and it sounds from your letter like you may have hit that point. I’m not a doctor and I’m not going to armchair diagnose, but there are some telltale signs in your letter that you’re suffering from more than an expected amount of despondency post-disaster. Which is perfectly understandable!

    Anyway. I know that you’re working for a small business and it’s your busy season and your role is vital, but as we’re fond of saying on AAM, this sort of thing happens and your employer will survive; if you had been physically injured in the disaster, you’d be out of work now whether you wanted to be or not, and your employer would still have found a way to move forward.

    So. That’s my advice for you. See if you can take some leave to properly recover from this, and maybe share this letter with a medical professional while you’re at it. And I’m very sorry for your current circumstances.

    1. OP*

      Thanks – unfortunately my established medical providers are all shut down for the foreseeable future and the logistics of getting documentation for FMLA are more than I’m up for. I know my company will figure it out, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be professional consequences for me. Which I’m mostly ok with but would prefer to minimize where I can.

      1. Dawn*

        I’m sorry to hear that; that’s really unfortunate that there would be professional consequences to you for having to recover from a natural disaster. One would hope that people would be more compassionate in the face of this sort of thing.

    2. Karstmama*

      My husband was in the hospital for 7 weeks this summer, 2 hours from where we live. I work for a big university hospital myself (but not the system he was at) and was *supposed to take PTO for all my FMLA*. As in, supposed to take 36 hours of it a week and totally spend it to zero which would have taken about three weeks then, I dunno, ask the birds to give me more PTO so his/our insurance was paid. This is a shitty system and I was only saved from this by our HR person who told me the rule, then told me I had to take enough to pay for the insurance (12 hours every 2 week pay period), then told me she never checks that people do this.

      2. Anonychick*

        Oh, yes! I really like this framing! Or if you wanted to make it even more obvious, not even OP’s home (because some things are different on a bigger scale), but: if you worked at a satellite office in your area, would it be open?

  12. learnedthehardway*

    I would talk to your manager and lay out what the logistics issues are that you are dealing with in very clear terms. Eg. if power or water is unlikely to be restored within 3 months, then it’s in your and their interests to let them know that you’ll need some extraordinary support. You might need a generator or satellite uplink for your computer. The company might be willing to provide those.

    Perhaps you can go down to part time, or have some of your duties re-allocated to someone else for a time (that might be the only way to accommodate both your need for income and your inability to deal with the logistics of your situation). OR, maybe your manager can take on managing your team for the time being and/or being the face person for client relationships, and let you focus on delivery work that you can do on your own schedule and without having to interact too much with other people.

    Perhaps you could negotiate to take vacation time as a block – which sucks but it would be one way to stay paid while not being active at work.

    I would personally ask that your performance review period not include the next couple of months, as you are dealing with circumstances far beyond your control.

    1. OP*

      Ohhh I wonder if they’d cover a subscription for my sat phone so I could at least do essential calls when cell service is down. Great idea!

      And I also love the idea of asking for the next couple months to be caveated in my assessment; I think they’d go for it.

      1. Observer*

        Or get a new iPhone. The latest version actually has the capacity to do messaging (basic, but still…) via satellite.

        I realize that you are not up to actually doing that. But someone at work could make the purchase, set it up for you, and then send it via USPS.

    2. Beth*

      One thing I’m seeing in this comment that I think is going to be a big deal for you, OP, is an attitude of looking at the next 1-3 months over the next 1-3 weeks.

      I think it’s safe to assume that your employer will accommodate what you need in the immediate short term. This is a major disaster situation with a lot of news coverage. Anyone with sense could guess that you’ll need a lot of flexibility and won’t be able to do your normal workload in the next few days, and anyone who’s thinking about it will understand that the next few weeks are likely to still be disrupted.

      But someone who isn’t living in your community, OP, might not have the context to understand that all of this won’t be fixed (or at least, patched up enough for life to start to get back to normal) in a month. I think it’s worth flagging both your logistical work needs (e.g. a generator, satellite internet access, re-allocating any duties that require tight turnaround times or on-camera presence) and also the timeline (this situation and its aftermath will seriously impact your day-to-day life for several months, you hope to slowly ramp up your work engagement over that period but expect that you’ll be working below your normal capacity throughout, you would like this period to be excluded from your performance review, you’d like to assign clear back-ups for each of your duties in case of unexpected disruptions, etc).

      1. Too Legit To Not Quit*

        Yes, exactly Beth especially with the attention all on Hurricane Milton now. Don’t assume people know, and you may have to remind/update them. I was in Peace Corps in an area with no electricity (ever- not from a disaster.) My colleague had told everyone he had no electricity and his mom still sent him microwave popcorn. Some things are just too hard for most people to visualize if they aren’t experiencing them.

    3. Dancing Otter*

      +1 to the satellite uplink and generator (if power is unreliable).

      Also, could they ship you a case or two of water, gallon-ish size jugs, so you don’t have to go queue for water as often? Any other supplies that are in short supply? (TP comes first to mind) Time you don’t have to spend queuing frees up time for work, so even if they have hearts of rusty iron, they might see the advantage to the business.

      1. KatCardigans*

        The shipping infrastructure in the area is not running normally, so anything shipped would probably not make it to OP’s door in a timely manner. The roads are badly damaged.

        1. KatCardigans*

          I see that OP said below that USPS is running, though, so maybe! Maybe they could catch their mail carrier one day and ask if that sort of stuff is getting through.

    4. Observer*

      You might need a generator or satellite uplink for your computer.

      Honestly, a solar powered battery bank is going to make a lot more sense. Because a generator means you need to be able to get a reliable source of fuel, which is going to be hard. If there aren’t (undamaged) pipelines, tanker trunks are necessary and those are the kinds of vehicles that have the hardest time on bad roads. Even a heavy battery is a one time shipment, if you can then charge it via solar energy.

      It’s one of the reasons that the US Military have been looking into electrification of a lot of their vehicles. They don’t want to have to supply fuel to remote / hard to get to places.

      1. M2RB*

        Agree with this comment – generators that require gas/diesel to run are going to add in a layer of complication (locating, buying, & safely transporting fuel) while removing some complications. Solar would most likely be better in this disaster.

        Signed, Orlando resident who’s hunkering down for Milton.

  13. In HR*

    Depending on your situation, it could be helpful to express that you and everyone in your community is experiencing trauma and you need some time to process to maintain your mental health.

    You need to consider how well resourced the company/organization is and your role. Since you are in a senior role, you are more likely able to get some extended lieu way. Think through what would help for the next two weeks. For example:

    Maybe you can you use vacation time in advance to take off for two weeks …. or work only three days a week for a couple of weeks.

    Maybe you can afford a short unpaid leave – say two weeks — and they will go along with it.

  14. Alexis Carrington Colby*

    No advice, but I’m so sorry you are going through this and my thoughts are with you.

    I went through the 2021 Texas storm, without power for 4 days and no water for 7, in the freezing cold and snow. Afterwards I think I was in a stupor and dazed for about a month. I worked remote so I think if I wasn’t on calls I was on my couch, not working (which isn’t great lol).

    Take care of yourself and don’t force yourself

  15. Goose*

    Hey LW. Things that have helped me:

    1. Don’t apologize (if this is your instinct) for your feelings. Have the conversation once with your boss, reports, etc. and let them know that while you may need to go off screen to cry or get distracted, they should follow your lead in how you react. This trauma will be on-going, and your reaction will be ever changing. Let yourself feel the feelings when they occur.
    2. That said, do your best to compartmentalize. Mute your phone when you need to, delete social media if the doom scrolling gets to you, unplug your TV when you need to buckle down and get work done. Take breaks for your mental health that are neither disaster relief or work. If it helps, put everything you’re doing at home on your work calendar so coworkers know you are getting water and comforting loved ones instead of calling you.
    3. If possible, give your co-workers concrete ways to assist. Direct them to local fundraisers. They are lost and uncomfortable and it can be helpful to hand-off their sympathy to larger ways they can give back so you don’t have to be their one connection to the disaster.

    More thoughts to come as I think of them.

    1. OP*

      The “have the conversation once” thing is such a good point. It’s super unhelpful for everyone to constantly ask me if I’m ok – the last thing I want to do is try to explain what’s going on in a way that someone who isn’t living it can understand. It’s also this weird dichotomy – when I’m interacting with local family and friends, I truly am ok. There’s something about the shorthand we can all use with each other, the baseline understanding, that makes it so easy. I’m not gonna say there haven’t been tears, but there has been a lot more laughter and love even in the face of truly awful things. So while I’m functioning pretty much fine in my community/local life, I’m often caught off guard by how I react to things at work that suddenly feel so not-normal.

      1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

        This is a good time to have a mouthpiece — one team member to whom you can give your personal updates to share with the others. “OP’s water’s still out, and they’re going to get the satellite link by the end of the week. Cash donations to the Red Cross and to XYZ Food Pantry are much appreciated.” Make sure everyone knows who to turn to for that info so you don’t have to shoulder that curiosity burden.

        And if you haven’t done the One Conversation yet, write down some notes. It’ll help control the conversation (and your brain fog) if you can say “Ok, I’ve got 5 bullet points that I need to get across with the clearest explanations I can come up with.”

      2. ThatGirl*

        Well, you sort of have a new temporary normal at home – it’s a disaster, things are awful, but you are truly all in it together trying to help each other get through the day and week. And then you have the “outside world” normal, with people who do not understand it and are certainly sympathetic but have other priorities. I can imagine that’s hard to shift between, and I can certainly understand not wanting to put yourself through the emotional wringer of “are you ok” every day.

        I don’t have much advice to offer, but I hope you can get the flexibility you need, please know my thoughts are with you and your community.

      3. Ally McBeal*

        A couple years before Covid, there was one particular instance of “white cop killing black man for no reason” that impacted my community hard. I had a black colleague who was basically peer level – we collaborated on projects frequently even though we had slightly different functions on the team – and I reached out to her privately, offering to take projects off her plate if she needed to just stare blankly out the window and dissociate for a while. She took me up on that a couple times with gratitude. Similarly, when the pandemic hit, our department was spared from furloughs but many of our coworkers were furloughed or laid off, so we had to take on some of their workloads and keep the balls in the air while it felt like the world was collapsing around us.

        I know it’s a little harder since you’re in leadership – it’s lonely at the top – but if you can identify one or two people you know to be sympathetic, please ask for help.

      4. knitcrazybooknut*

        OP, there are two things I want to mention. The first: Please give your coworkers an indication of what kind of conversation you want to have in the moment about the disaster you’re facing. I often view work as a respite from my various random mental and physical issues, so in turn, I try to ask my direct reports whether they want sympathy or to discuss their family deaths (for instance), or if they’d rather we just talk about work. It helps them to know they have a choice, and even a, “yeah, do you have a minute? I’d like to vent a little” would help someone know what’s going to help you.

        And on the topic of helping, I want to assure you: Your direct reports and coworkers want to help you! When you’re dependable and work hard, it can be really difficult to ask for and accept help. When you do, I promise that people will step up, and the people who come out of the woodwork may surprise you. I’ve gotten help from people who I really thought hated my guts, and it was really startling to me. Like, I thought they despised me, full stop. And they later confided in me some of the similar things they’d faced. It humanized both of us, and while we may have never seen eye-to-eye on work things, it changed how I saw them as a person. People want to help.

        All sympathies to you, and I’m really glad you wrote in. We’re thinking of you.

  16. Magpie*

    You might look into whether your employer offers an EAP that would help you find someone to talk to someone about what you’re going through. Having a safe place to dump all of your feelings might help with your focus and might make it a bit easier to face your workday.

  17. T.N.H*

    Please talk to a financial advisor before you do this, but you can draw from a retirement account after a FEMA-declared disaster. Taking a month or two off could allow you to maintain your high standards of work and professionalism thus maximizing your earning potential long term. Depending on your situation, it may be worth two months of expenses (you don’t have to withdraw your full salary).

    1. Legally Brunette*

      OP, I’m so sorry that you (and yours) are going through this right now. Please know that the world outside of your community cares very much!

      To piggyback on T.N.H.’s point, you might be able to ask your company’s HR to look at something like short term disability through Aflac. Although I’m more familiar with how it works for things like child birth at companies that don’t offer paid maternity leave, I know Aflac specifically can apply for mental health short term disability. You are very much allowed to care for yourself during this time, and maybe this is one pathway that can help you do that.

      Alison is fond of saying that if someone quit tomorrow, the company will need plans to get that work done. They will figure out busy season without you if you can find a way to take paid time – which might help you and the company be more effective in shorter order.

  18. ZSD*

    I’m not sure if you mentioned the annual evaluations because you have to evaluate your reports and that’s a lot of work or because you’re worried that your own evaluation will be lower due to your current mental state. If the latter, might you be able to negotiate to have your evaluation done now rather than next month? If your employer has said, “Just tell us what you need,” maybe they’d be open to doing that for you?
    Then maybe, even if you don’t have the possibility of taking two months off, could you take two weeks off completely? I realize that’s not enough to deal with your trauma, but it’s better than nothing.

  19. Llama Lover*

    I promise this is work-related if you read to the end. The first thought I had was like trying to function at the beginning of COVID in March 2020. I worked in healthcare communications, and I had to cut anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary from my whole life to be able to make it through work days. So friends who were bummed they couldn’t get a haircut or shop? Sorry, I’m losing hundreds of patients a week. Be gone. News that was nothing but doom? Be gone.

    Take a look at things like that in your life to see what you can cut to give yourself more mental energy. So news gets turned off except for the few minutes a day you check in for necessary updates. Friends who are doing better than you and yours have to find somewhere else to complain. Volunteering in recovery efforts? Very noble. Let someone else step up for a bit.

    Holding you in my thoughts. This is rough.

    1. OP*

      Thanks for this – the parallel to COVID resonates strongly. I’ve for sure been scaling back on volunteering stuff and just doing the things that give me energy and resilience. I think you’re right that it’s time to turn off the national news updates; local news is genuinely helpful and informative but the national narrative is a mess and feels super disconnected to the experience on the ground.

      1. I Have RBF*

        … the national narrative is a mess and feels super disconnected to the experience on the ground.

        This, unfortunately, is all too common these days. I live in California and had friends who were impacted by various wildfires. The national discourse on the subject was horrible.

        I had to tell myself that “Those who know nothing will bloviate the most while trying to be important or relevant.” Then I tuned out the national level BS spewers as ignorant know-nothings.

      2. SBT*

        Definitely turn off the news, particularly given Hurricane Milton is about to tear through Florida. I lived in Houston and survived Hurricane Harvey – to this day, coverage of major hurricanes sends me in a spiral. The PTSD is very real. Not to mention as news pivots to other disasters, you’ll feel like everyone has forgotten your community.

        I’ll add some other thoughts down in its own comment below from my experience, but wanted to echo this advice of turning off the news!

    2. just some guy*

      Some social media has a “mute for 2 weeks” kind of option which can be useful if you need a break from Haircut Friend but don’t want to make it permanent.

  20. Jenn*

    I have been in a situation where a personal tragedy had a big spin-off effect at work.

    My primary lesson for you is that a workplace is people, so first of all, let your people – boss, subordinates – know that you are struggling but in the game. For subordinates this might look like “I am not as available for decision-making about XYZ; I trust your judgment on XY, can you flag Z for me?” or offloading some work temporarily – I gave a colleague a stretch opportunity to run a newsletter and she did great, and it was resume-building for her, as another example (I know it was okay as she followed me to another job.) For your boss, talk to them about making sure your performance is rated across the whole year.

    If you feel comfortable sharing your type of work, the collective might be able to brainstorm even better specifics.

    Second, you do need time. I know you can’t take two months off but can you work out a reduced schedule so that you can have a three-day weekend to deal with Apocalypse Shit? Yes, it is a terrible time at work – but it is a terrible terrible time for you!

    Third, if there are policies where flexibility would help – cameras off, on-call availability, etc. – ask for a temporary suspension of those policies.

    Fourth, can your company support you practically by sending you anything? I am really ignorant here about whether delivery is possible to your area but as a colleague I would ship you water and snacks so fast – like no-brainer.

    Finally…I hear the trauma and struggle in your post. I would like to remind you that /even in small business/ if you had been physically injured in this act of nature, the business would survive without you. Thank goodness you were not. But the future of this business cannot rest on you in general, and the short term productivity of business being impacted by this is just the price of small. It really is. I worked in a small business that never cancelled classes in 23 years. Well, over Covid we closed. But when we reopened, people got Covid and we did end up cancelling some classes. It hurt emotionally and financially but literally no one could open the door. That’s what happened. It informed future planning.

    1. OP*

      The three day weekend for Apocalypse Shit made me laugh (and was honestly the most accurate expression of how this all feels that I’ve seen), thank you for that!

      Huh, I honestly have no clue if it’s possible to deliver right now. Haven’t seen an amazon truck since the storm, we’re getting regular mail from the post office, but not sure about packages. That seems worth figuring out! If our HR team wanted to mail me a few bottles of hand sanitizer, coffee filters, and disposable plates/forks/etc., that would save me a lot of driving around time.

      1. Slytherin Bookworm*

        I am probably only about an hour-ish south of you (based on the devastation you’re describing) and had the eye of the hurricane pretty much go right over my area. We weren’t hit nearly as hard as you, but the damage was incredibly widespread, and I was in mental “emergency mode” all last week. It takes so much more of a toll on you than you think it does, so give yourself grace when you inevitably break down and “snap”. That is a normal stress response and not a failure or something to be ashamed of. From someone who went through (a much smaller scale) of the same Apocalypse Shit, you have my deepest sympathy.

        For delivery knowledge – based on what I am seeing from the local folks coordinating helicopter supply deliveries to the more remote towns that were destroyed, Amazon is not able to get into many communities due to roads being destroyed, but since the USPS is still running, shipping things via USPS is the best way to get packages delivered. There are also several local helicopter pilots who are doing daily supply drops to remote towns that aren’t getting the supplies that are going to the larger cities like Asheville. If you are comfortable with connecting off AAM (or going through Alison?), I can see what I’m able to do locally to get your town added to the supply drop list if that is something that would be helpful to your area.

        1. OP*

          Thanks and I’m glad to hear you made it through mostly ok! We generally have access to essential supplies (not so remote as to need the helicopter deliveries and now that the highways and after one particular highway-accessible road opened it’s gotten a LOT less insane over the past 3-4 days), so this isn’t the most needed place to send a supply drop, but appreciate you offering to coordinate that.

      2. DisneyChannelThis*

        Shoot I wish we could just mail you those, I’ve got tons. I’m going to have to look into that, small scale care packages for affected people would be great for people outside the region who want to do more than donate money but can’t volunteer directly.

      3. Observer*

        If our HR team wanted to mail me a few bottles of hand sanitizer, coffee filters, and disposable plates/forks/etc., that would save me a lot of driving around time.

        That’s a really good thing to tell them. Because, given that USPS seems to be working, it’s something that should be relatively easy for them to do, and it’s something that can be surprisingly helpful. And if they haven’t been through something like this, it might never occur to them to think of these “little” things that are not so little.

        Talking of which, has electricity stabilized? if not, another thing they could get you, assuming ability to ship, is a solar powered battery bank. I doubt they could send you one that’s large enough to power most of your house (and, yes, they do exist). But a smaller one would mean that your phone, computer, and communications link should be constantly powered on. And perhaps even one or two other important items.

        1. I Have RBF*

          My mother is likely in the path of Milton, and I just bought her another solar power bank for her phone.

          If postal deliveries are getting through, that would be the best way to ship small “care package” type stuff. Ideally, you’d have like one person not in your area who you have coordinate getting stuff to you, maybe HR.

    2. Dandylions*

      Starlink has been buggy as shit for Appalachia.

      Musk is blaming the current administration for this. You are free to make your own conclusions but I see it as nothing but a stunt to throw shade.

  22. Momma Bear*

    I would at the very least look at what you can delegate to others, what can be put off until after the immediate aftermath is handled, and ask the company for greater flexibility when it comes to when you are online/available. Consider blocking out time on your calendar during the day so you can deal with your immediate needs for a part of the day without interruption. Or take a nap. Or whatever you need to get through the day. I’d tell people who may not know the situation that THAT is where you are dialing in from and while you are online, it doesn’t mean everything is “fine” for you or your community. Also, if you have the leave for it, consider taking some long weekends and really be off the clock for them. Loss of property, security, and life is not insignificant. If your inability to be 100% for a while tanks a business, then they have bigger problems than your workload.

    While you don’t want to make yourself disposable, I’ve seen time and again how not having a contingency plan hurts organizations – and people. If you get dinged on performance during this time, remind them that EVEN THOUGH you had a hurricane/flooding, you were still able to do x and y. Being remote sometimes means out of sight/out of mind, so find ways to humanize yourself with your company. Once you are through this, consider a Continuity of Operations Plan if there isn’t one.

    1. OP*

      I like that framing to talk about performance -thanks for that suggestion! I’m not as worried about the business being in trouble as I am about personal-professional consequences (like, it would be cool if my annual raise were not heavily impacted by this mess).

  23. Evacuated*

    I’m so sorry. I was evacuated for a natural disaster recently which was similar but also different. One of the things that really helped me was putting up an out of office message that explained the situation and listed someone else to contact for non-“me-specific” requests. That helped re-route a lot of non-urgent things, and meant I didn’t have to explain the situation in every work call, since I was also WFH and my coworkers were not in the same situation. The feeling of irrelevance from the world at large that you mention was really hard on me and I really struggled talking about the situation with anyone unaffected, even though objectively I knew my coworkers did care. I’d also really recommend taking as much time as you can away from work completely, and encouraging any staff in a similar situation to do the same. Part time is a good option as well, but at least in the beginning it was really important to be with my community, and away from work, full time. Again, I am so sorry you are going through this.

    1. OP*

      Thank you for sharing your experience! Your description of interacting with people outside your community pretty much perfectly mirrors my experience. It’s good to know I’m not alone in that.

      1. Evacuated*

        You’re absolutely not alone. I am usually extremely even keeled and found it infuriating to interact with anyone, no matter how well meaning. I assume that is a trauma response and I think by working remotely you’re in especially exposed. I would really encourage you to get some emotional support (maybe EAP or something?) if you can– I did not and wish I had!

  24. Katie*

    My managers town has been destroyed by the hurricane and have just been giving her grace for not being around. Her house wasn’t damaged but the rest of her town was, so her energy has been on helping her town/extended family.

    My company has two programs that possibly your company has too:
    -PTO donation. They always have this but in disaster scenarios that make it much easier to give and (probably?) easier to receive
    -They are giving grants to those that have been majorly effected financially

    Perhaps your HR could let you know if they have these programs too.

  25. Dust Bunny*

    For the record, I’m on the Gulf Coast. I personally am far enough inland that I’m unlikely to flood but a bunch of houses in my neighborhood just got destroyed by falling trees during TS Beryl. Sites I care about get creamed by hurricanes every few years and, yes, I have friends who have lost close relatives to storms (I don’t have extended family here).

    Don’t overextend yourself. It sounds like you’re doing a lot and I understand the impulse to Fix All This Right Now but you can’t do it and you’ll burn yourself out trying.

    Rather than seeing your job as an obstacle to all the other things you feel like you should be doing, use it as a sort of anchor of normality–I know I’m going to be OK when I know the roof didn’t peel off my place of work and I’ll have my nice, boring job to go back to once the roads are clear enough for me to get there. Doing whatever you do for a living is part of making life workable again for your community.

    News diet: Curate what needs your attention and what you can tune out. You know how bad it is; unless it’s going to be sort of personal you don’t need to hear it over and over again.

    1. OP*

      Thanks for sharing your experience! There are certainly times when work is a nice escape to “normal,” and other times where it’s so not where my head is. One thing I’m looking into is whether any of our community wifi locations have running water and good enough internet to work from – it would honestly be a huge improvement to my quality of life if I could, like, pee inside (instead of in my backyard) during the work day.

  26. Llellayena*

    Is this a situation where FMLA would be useful? I could see this as a mental health or caregiving issue requiring protected leave. I agree that a discussion with your manager or whoever at your company can re-delegate work is in order with a frank statement of what is still possible and what you can’t take on for now. For some companies, there may be disaster funds available for employees who lost homes or belongings or there may be vacation donation possibilities. I’m not sure if the internet and cell issues are solvable outside of the infrastructure repair that is probably going to take a while and may not have a timeline yet, but businesses hosting local hot spots or satellite internet might help if there are businesses large enough to support that? Maybe they could host “work tents” with internet and desks for people whose homes offices or workspaces are not usable? (I’m not asking that you reach out to organize this, but if you know people who work for large companies maybe they can suggest this?) Also, local medical infrastructure especially in insurance reporting is probably a mess and very slow so anything your company or others can do to push through insurance approvals or front insurance payments would likely be helpful. Many people will need medical attention in some fashion and delays in care due to slow reporting systems can make everything much worse.

  28. Sending support*

    My workplace regularly supports staff in emergency situations as well as staff addressing personal situations. Here are some examples of support I’ve seen:
    – Access to an EARP (this can help with therapy access and logistical things like legal support and researching available services like pet boarding)
    – Payroll advances
    – Asking staff around the company to not bother you with things that don’t need your immediate attention (i.e., you don’t need to be included on all the company mass emails) and having someone triage the things that do need your attention
    – Extensions on deadlines (e.g. do reviews really need to be completed now without affecting raises?)
    – Even senior staff taking extended leave

    Having lived in western NC many years ago, this situation is heartbreaking and sending you and your community love.

    1. OP*

      Ooo I really like the idea of removing me from mass emails. Our workplace culture is excessively email heavy, and seriously I don’t need to hear about cupcakes in the kitchen of the office six states away right now.

      1. Mutually supportive*

        If that doesn’t work logistically (perhaps because of how the lists are generated) would it be possible for someone else to have access to your inbox? They could delete all that junk on your behalf, and perhaps even directly respond to some other emails on your behalf (or forward to others) leaving you with only the stuff that has to be you?

        Basically, someone to triage your emails for you.

        1. Inbox zero only if you don’t look at my filtered folders*

          It will take a moment, but you can set up email rules where if it comes from a group, or you’re not in the “to” line it will go in to a folder. Then even if they can’t remove you you don’t have to see it EVERY time you open your email. I’m a huge fan of filtering emails from my corporate.

  29. TeamPottyMouth*

    Does your company offer paid volunteer time for community service projects? You may be able to spend company time volunteering w the Red Cross or United Way on the company’s behalf. That may make you feel less helpless in the midst of so much chaos.

    If they won’t go for that, perhaps you can at least bring up the possibility of extra donations toward your community’s needs, emphasizing w leadership that the donations are good PR, but also a good way for employees effected by the disaster to feel supported and acknowledged by their employer.

    1. Bruce*

      That sounds like a good suggestion. My company has a lot of volunteer related activities, but I’m not sure if they pay for disaster related volunteer work. If they don’t I’ll talk to HR about it, we don’t get hurricanes but earthquakes, fires and windstorms instead.

    2. OP*

      We do! I took some of our volunteer leave last week but now a lot of orgs are turning volunteers away because so many folks have shown up. There have been offers from my company to make a donation if I can point them somewhere, but a lot of my trusted orgs have been inundated beyond capacity with donations and have shut their systems down temporarily so it’s more of a long game at this point.

      1. Arrietty*

        This could be a specific thing to ask for – that they set a date six months or so down the line to come back to you about donating to a recovery fund of your choice.

      2. JayRi*

        If they are offering a donation I would ask if they would consider sending supplies specifically to you thru the mail or even the nearest Walmart pick up (I know may be hours away)? I know it was mentioned before but be honest of what you needs are. You mentioned paper plates, snack items, etc. Even pet food. I think the more honest and open you are the better.

        And communicate to your reports as well. Just explain that you are struggling emotionally and mentally and you don’t want to talk about it at work but thank them for their thoughts and concerns. And if you come across as short, aloof or otherwise out of the norm it is not personal and it will take time but you will get back to your normal self with them. Be open to them asking for clarification in those times. Be specific of what they can help you with.

        And try to think of work as a way to escape for a few hours. I have not experienced specifically what you are but I have had life changing situations happen and work and people being “normal” felt so odd at times. But if you can change your frame of mind that is is an escape (like reading a good book) that will help you. And I was not honest about what was going on and so when I was called out for being grouchy and negative I realized I needed to let them know I was struggling and needed grace at that time.

        And turn off the news. It and social media can be so addicting and contributes to anxiety as well. You are getting real-time updates for your area and stick to that.

        It sounds like you have a great employer and I wish you all the best. What is going on is not unnoticed, you are noticed and matter.

  30. Luna*

    Can you ask to work half time for a month? I once took two weeks of trauma leave after a horrible event. I was a zombie. It helped immensely. You are dealing with a very serious trauma response and need to catch your breath. Any amount of time off you think you can afford will help. I wish you the best.

    1. Sloanicota*

      I wonder if temporary part time would give OP enough funds; I know she says she can’t take unpaid leave. Note that my org has a minimum hours to stay on the insurance, so I have to work that amount, but it’s still less than 40 hours, which could help at least with expectations (including your own expectations for yourself).

      1. OP*

        Temporary part time could be worth considering! I might be able to make that work once my partner’s unemployment funds start coming in (their workplace was literally washed down the river during the storm).

        1. Brit*

          Reading through this it seems like you might benefit from some funds immediately, if this is the case I think telling your employer would be wise. They will want you to get more stable and not being panicking about income.

          I am reminded of a friend who’s car broke down and couldn’t go to work for over a week until the next pay day as couldn’t afford to fix it. Meant they were out a staff member and she was out earnings and it was baffling to me they didn’t advance some wages to resolve this. It would quite clearly be win:win.

  31. Kate F.*

    Regarding connectivity would your company be willing to provide you with a satellite phone/link? Or could they put you up at an Air BnB that is in a safe area that would allow you to do remote work during a reduced work week (say 3.5 days) and still allow you to travel back to your home to work on the repairs? Sending the best for your recovery.

    1. OP*

      The sat phone is a great idea! I have one but need a subscription so they’d probably be willing to pay for that. I do want to stay at home since my community has been such a vital source of mutual support and positive energy, but I’ll pass the AirBnB suggestion along to a friend who is dealing with a much less flexible company that expects her to be 100% back at work.

  32. FlynnProvenza*

    This is likely uncharted territory for your employer– as it is for you! I would ask them to see if they could accommodate something akin to bereavement leave. You’ve really had the rug pulled out from under you, and need a quiet reset. You do seem like someone who puts the work first, and I would let them know that you are simply unable to do that right now, “Given my current circumstances, I cannot give my normal bandwidth, and I want to be proactive so nothing falls through the cracks.” That shows your commitment to them and to the work as well, while still being realistic. So much of stress lies with the unknown, so by putting things out there, it helps both sides.

    If you have a trusted coworker, manager, or subordinate that you are very comfortable with, perhaps you could have one session with them to go over everything that is on your plate and help you prioritize and reassign those items, so they are not lurking over you. It would be tiring, but once you do it, you’ll be done, and hopefully won’t have that anxiety lurking. Then you are also dealing with one “buddy” and not multiple coworkers and clients coming at you. Once it calms down a bit, you can meet with the “buddy” every 3 or 4 days for mutual updates. Good luck!

  33. Funko Pops Day*

    I’m so sorry to you and your community. If there are any local resources that the AAM community can donate to, please let us know?

    In many ways, what you’re dealing with sounds like the experience of grief after a traumatic loss; if you have any reference points for how your company or others have dealt with that, it good be a good reference point for the kinds of things to ask for.

    I’d be as concrete as possible and overestimate the impact on your work– if you’re able to be more available/do more, let that be a pleasant surprise to your team. For me, that would mean telling my boss what projects/meetings I need to step entirely away from, and what parts of projects I need someone else to be responsible for. (E.g., “Here’s what i think I will need for the next 3 months until basic infrastructure is restored: I’m going to need Charles and Mabel to handle Project A without me. I won’t be on the client calls for Project B, so Oliver will need to manage those without me, but I can still sit in on the internal meetings if you think that’s helpful.” etc.) For me, after a traumatic loss, getting fixed stuff off my calendar was a huge help because it meant I could handle my workload as I was able (unpredictably and erratically)

    1. Camp Staff*

      Not OP, but also a southern Appalachian still living without water/power/reliable service.
      There are some amazing local charities on the ground in WNC; Beloved Asheville (food and water distribution), Deep Time (coffee company providing employment for formerly incarcerated individuals, now doing meals and water), UMCOR (United Methodist disaster relief teams), and Brother Wolf (pet rescue) are some I would recommend.
      Sending so much solidarity to OP – this situation is honestly heartbreaking and mind blowing.

      1. anonprofit*

        A company in the area that mine works with suggests Colaborativa La Milipa, The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, United Way of North Carolina, and Appalachian Funders Network.

  34. ES_APG_DOO*

    I’m also impacted though not boots on the ground; I work remotely from a different state though my team is all in the same place (this water situation is a hot mess) and all our family is in the more rural counties (some may not have power restored for another month). No really advice, just commiseration. This really sucks.

    1. OP*

      Yuck, I hope your family members are safe! I’ve been working with some of the folks in Poplar/Erwin, the Green River Cove, and some of the more isolated parts of the Marshall area and it’s pretty rough out there. Super grateful for the helicopter pilots who were able to reach some of those spots and get supplies in before the state or FEMA could get there. If you know anyone who needs propane, flashlights/batteries, pop-top cans/can openers, or other coping tools for long-term power outages, feel free to add a comment about where to direct that stuff; I’m in touch with a few places that are inundated with supplies they haven’t been able to distribute.

  35. Michael*

    Would it be possible to tell your team, “You can reach out to me from 8-9 for yes or no questions. Anything more complex will need to be emailed. If it needs an answer in less than 48 hours, please loop in X who can offer backup in my absence. Otherwise, I plan on looking at email in the evenings after business hours when I have capacity.”

    It would free up your day when resources, water lines, etc are available and hopefully remove any guilt of not working during the day and let you focus on the day to day without interruptions.

  36. Not your trauma bucket*

    My town got hit bad in 2018, and I was already dealing with a series of set backs before that. I was lucky that my leadership was *outstanding*. They checked on me frequently, told me to take the time I needed, didn’t even think about charging PTO for the time I was out for the storm.
    For specific advice: don’t be a hero. This stuff is deeply traumatic. Lean on your colleagues and let them help. Unless they’re complete glassbowls, they’ll be eager to jump in and take some weight off of you. Also give your bosses a chance to do the right thing. Ask about reduced hours/flexible hours/reduced workload. If you have an idea of what kind of work is easiest/hardest for you while you’re in this state, ask about temporarily reassigning some work. It’s ok. Asking isn’t demanding, if they’re jerks about it, then you’ve learned that it’s time to move on when you’ve recovered enough.
    Sending you healing and comfort. Those of us who live in areas that get hit more often are pulling for you, and we’re rallying to send as much care and help as we can. Your communities have done that for us for years, and we’re eager to repay the kindness.

    1. Rex T*

      Echoing this!!! “Sending you healing and comfort. Those of us who live in areas that get hit more often are pulling for you, and we’re rallying to send as much care and help as we can. Your communities have done that for us for years, and we’re eager to repay the kindness.”

  37. Bee*

    I lived in Manhattan during Sandy, and while I fortunately lived far enough uptown that my home wasn’t affected at all, my office was in the Financial District and had no power for a week and no internet for six weeks while the whole lower part of the island was rewired. As a small, email-based business, this was a big problem: I could answer emails at home but had no way to remotely access our server, and in the office I could handle documents but not send them anywhere, so there was very little of my job that I could do. My boss and I wound up just sort of deciding that there was no way for things to function as normal, we would do what we could and convey the limits to our clients, and they would just have to deal with it until the things that were out of our hands were resolved. So my recommendation would be to just be totally frank with your manager that you are physically and technologically incapable of performing up to your usual standard, you will do what you can and communicate with them regularly about what’s getting done and what’s not, and when things improve you will be able to take more back onto your plate.

    This does depend on your manager/company being reasonable human beings, but I personally cannot imagine expecting someone who told me they would not have running water for the foreseeable future to do more than one task a day.

  38. Strive to Excel*

    Do you have any HR people at your workplace you would be comfortable with? This is a really good time to see what your EA and/or employee benefits package has to offer. We often are familiar with the common parts of the package but not the wide spread of small things the EA may have. I know that HR people are not always in the best view but a good HR person will be happy to work with a good employee to make the best use of the offered benefits package, and will help you look through the plans so you don’t have to do all the executive function planning. Even if your company doesn’t have something specifically useful, a lot of EA plans offer some access to counselors and/or other support with executive function challenges.

    1. Elder Millenial*

      Yes this! Or have your manager go to HR and ask for you and they can relay to you your options. Let them know what you need to get thru the next weeks/months.

      Also, can you have someone read thru your e-mails and weed out anything you don’t need to see so that you can just read the important stuff when you are able to log-in? Sifting thru e-mails may zap your energy for the day and then you don’t end up doing anything productive.

  39. Kim*

    You may qualify for short-term disability leave for mental health reasons. Check your company’s policies and talk to your doctor about supporting your claim. Also look into your company’s EAP for any services that may help you. Take care of yourself.

  40. Aggretsuko*

    Crucial question here: is OP the ONLY one at work affected by this, or is everyone else having the same no-water, town-in-ruins experience? Because if everyone’s having the same issues, optimally the employer may need to make allowances for everyone because nobody’s gonna be in work mode. Whereas if OP is the only one struggling, maybe OP could just go on leave for awhile. But if everyone’s dealing with mess, the business may just have to take a backseat for awhile for all.

    1. Strive to Excel*

      It sounds like most of OP’s company hasn’t been hit by the hurricane. The letter mentions other people who need to negotiate with perhaps less reasonable employers, which doesn’t sound like OP’s company.

    2. OP*

      Yeah just me. Very few people are working right now locally; most of our businesses are just gone.

  41. Aaron Read*

    The two things that come immediately to my mind are:

    1. Look into whatever Family/Medical Leave Act (FMLA) benefits your company offers and/or your state requires. It may be the state you’re in or the state the company is based in, I’m not sure.

    Related: this site may be helpful in giving you information about what the US Dep’t of Labor expects/requires employers to provide for employees during natural disasters.

    https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/compliance-assistance/toolkits/natural-disaster

    And that brings me to the more important thing…

    2. Don’t go through this alone. You are (almost certainly) experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s quite common amongst those who live through natural disasters like this. In fact, it’s normal – and almost certainly the vast majority of people you’re seeing each day are going through it as well. It is nothing to be ashamed of, but it is not something you should ignore and try to “tough it out.”

    If you have access to a therapist already, talk to them. And talk to them about potentially seeing a therapist who specializes in PTSD treatment. Talk to them about seeing a psychiatrist, too – not just a psychologist or a social worker. There are lots of really fabulous prescription drugs out there that can very likely help you A LOT. They won’t magically make the world better, but they can help a great deal about making it FEEL less gawdawful shitty all the time. (psychiatrists can prescribe medication, psychologists and social workers cannot, but they can help you find a good psychiatrist)

    If you don’t have a therapist already, talk to someone you’re close to (spouse, parent, close friend, pastor/priest, coach, etc) about helping you find one. Preferably someone not in the same physical area since they’re likely experiencing the same trauma reaction, but really ANYONE you can trust is helpful here. Again, right now you almost certainly have PTSD; by definition your perspectives are skewed. Having a trusted voice to help guide you and validate your feelings about whether a given therapist is helpful or not is really important.

    And if you don’t have that, go to the nearest disaster relief center and just ask folks working/volunteering there about getting mental health assistance. Eventually you’ll find someone who can guide you to the right place. Or, if you feel like even that’s too much? (and that’s OK if you do!!!) I’m going to quote this direct from FEMA’s website:

    “The Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH) is a 24/7, year-round, confidential, multi-lingual crisis counseling and emotional support resource for survivors, responders, and anyone in the U.S. struggling with distress or other mental health concerns related to any natural or human-caused disaster. You can call or text 800-985-5990 to connect with a trained mental health professional.”

    https://www.fema.gov/disaster/recover/faq
    (filter by “Emotional & Spiritual Care”)

    You are not alone. How you feel is real, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

    1. Olive Hornby*

      I just want to push back on this a bit. Most people who experience a traumatic event do not experience PTSD. That’s not to dismiss or diminish the suffering of those who do, or to say that people who don’t get PTSD are not suffering. And I’m a big fan of therapy, too, whether or not someone has a diagnosis–and of drugs, in the right circumstances! But I don’t think it’s helpful to suggest that the OP’s perspective is too skewed to make decisions right now. There’s no indication of that in the letter, and it feels condescending to suggest that OP’s first port of call should be emergency therapy.

      1. Aaron Read*

        “Most” is a very strong word. Current estimates are that anywhere from 5 to 40% of survivors of a natural disaster experience PTSD. So yes, that means usually at least 60% of people do not experience PTSD symptoms, and that is “most”. But that still means a hell of a lot of people are having it!

        https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2019/after-natural-disaster-economic-help-reduces-ptsd/

        The LW said, and I quote, “I’ve dealt with trauma and loss before, but this is different – both in its enormous local scale, and what feels like irrelevance (or even unawareness) to everyone outside the region.” That sure sounds like it could be PTSD to me, and while I am not a licensed therapist, social worker, psychologist nor psychiatrist…I do have a degree in psychology so I’m not completely off-base in speaking with a modicum of authority here.

        But more to the point: I wasn’t exactly suggesting “emergency” therapy. It’s more that in the current climate, there’s not many services being offered under any rubric by “emergency” level. Equally important: not once did the LW mention getting emotional, mental or related help/therapy. That’s a red flag for me, because it’s not uncommon for PTSD sufferers to eschew trauma therapy. And what many of us take for granted? Folks suffering from PTSD need to be told (kindly, and respectfully, and I hope I was doing so) that “there IS help available, and you DO deserve it.”

  42. nee: email settings*

    For the time off, can you see if your employer would advance you a certain amount of leave for you to then pay back over time, via the leave you would otherwise accrue? That’s something we can do at my federal agency. Obviously the scale is different but that could buy you some time, literally.

    And then I echo what others have said about having a direct conversation with your boss, being clear that you’re needing your employees to bring you more complete work (that will require less of your involvement rather than just your sign-off), trying flexible work hours, seeing if there could be a temp brought on at a lower level to support the higher level people needing to do more.

    Also, consider taking your leave intermittently rather than in a big chunk. IDK if you’d prefer one way or the other.

    Finally, do you want to consider updating your email signature/Teams status? Maybe to something like “I am dealing with continued personal challenges from Hurricane Helene, including no running water and spotty internet. I am doing my best to keep up with work but I appreciate your patience.” This would remind people that it’s very much not over for you.

    And my sympathies–I work with a bunch of people who were devastated by Hurricane Maria in PR, and it’s a very long fallout.

  43. It's me, hi, I'm the comments, it's me*

    The two things I can think of that haven’t been suggested:

    *Ask your manager if your upcoming annual review can be based on the ~10 months before the hurricane and not include the time since. I don’t know how much this is possible given the metrics that you use, but it seems pretty fair, considering that you are pushing through an incredibly tough situation for the company’s sake instead of taking some sort of personal leave.

    *Is there someone you trust, who you can ask to be completely honest with you? Tell them that you’re doing your best, but you know that you’re being short and snapping sometimes, and that’s going to continue happening to some degree. But you need them to let you know if you’re crossing a line or burning through goodwill. Basically, a lot of people are going to give you some leeway under the current circumstances, and I think it will be easier for you to accept the grace that people are offering if you also know that, if that ever runs out, someone will tell you.

    1. OP*

      That is such a good idea on the second point. I am concerned that I’m getting a lot of leeway right now while there’s tons of national news, but that I will get less over time as everyone else forgets about it. I have a trusted mentor who also has some ties to the region (i.e. she’s hearing about it from people other than me, so she “gets it” a little better) who could play that role for me.

  44. Museum Witch*

    We had a similar thing happen where the Executive Director of our very small (2 person) organization got injured during a very busy time. We simply couldn’t shift deadlines and there was no money to hire replacements. She was able to work part-time (maybe 50%). What got us through was:
    – Take an initial short time off (i.e., 1-2 weeks). You need to recoup yourself mentally and your organization should have at least a minor “hit by a bus” contingency plan. Also, people will understand “Jane got hit by a bus and is away for two weeks, get back to us after that” more than “Jane’s at 50% the next month” and it’ll force people to acknowledge your hardship.
    – Quantify and tell people about the constraints on your time (waiting for water, making deliveries, etc.). People likely have no idea and it’ll help have honest conversations about realistic expectations.
    – Identify your current capacity and tell your employer. This could be on the day or week level. It’s easier for them to come up with a plan if they know you can only do 50% of your normal workload than if it’s a moving target. Check in regularly about where your capacity is at.
    – Triage every existing and incoming thing as either has to be done by you, can be done by someone else, can happen later, can happen in an amended way, or can be scrapped entirely.
    – Hand off and/or amend as many responsibilities as possible. Maybe you still have to do the assessments, but they can be done entirely by email and in point form. Maybe someone else can put the finishing touches on reports you dictated over the phone. Look to trim, not eliminate; people are more receptive to letting polish go or being a bit flexible than to totally rearrange things.
    – Since you mention only being able to do one “big” thing a day; define what is a big thing and ask to only have 1/day. This is a really good tangible thing to ask for.
    So sorry this has happened and hope you’re able to find a way through.

    1. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      I agree with giving people the practical picture regarding waiting for water and the toxic mud and shower and the other dire aspects of the situation – I’ve found people give more leeway when they can picture the situation in such detail.

    2. ariel*

      I’d also think about time off – would one day a week away from work be helpful? Or maybe shortened work days (for the one thing)? Ask for that. I think it’s clear WNC has a lot of recovery time coming to it, so building in a new flexible schedule for the forseeable future – to visit in three months maybe – would help me feel like I was doing what I promised to do at work, and also give me time to get water / go to therapy / cry in a pillow / help friends.

      For folks with less flexible bosses – ugh, so frustrating. In that case, I might try to go FMLA for mental health / family care, or take a big chunk of PTO if they are able. And just be relentless clear with messaging, planning, and of course documentation what they are able to do and what they aren’t able to do, and why – “it’s my day to go get water,” “my family has this need and right now it takes 2 hours to get there,” etc. Unfortunately, disasters are out of sight out of mind and I know even as an unaffected North Carolinian I’m finding it hard to know the best ways to support and be mindful of what my friends to the west might need.

  45. I just really can’t think of a name*

    FEMA’s website links to the Disaster Distress Helpline, which provides “confidential counseling, referrals and other support, 24 hours a day, seven days a week”. I have no personal experience with it, but I wonder if their counselors can help you coordinate things like benefits to which you’re entitled (but don’t have bandwidth to research), language to use with your boss, FMLA protected leave, etc.
    https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline

  46. MKL*

    Temporarily dropping down your hours seems like it could really help here – giving you a few hours of work and a few hours of (extreme) surviving admin.

    If you phrase it as “I only have about 3-4 hours a day that I can bring my best self to work, plus I’m needing to find time to queue for water(!) during daylight hours, so could it be possible for me to long on from 8-11 (or whatever) for the next few weeks, but be able to be reached by phone in the afternoon if needed?

    That seems like it might tick boxes on all accounts. I am not in the US so have no idea how amenable an employer might be to that, whether it would affect your insurance, etc.

  47. Person from the Resume*

    I’ve lived in New Orleans for 9 years and I am very lucky to not have to deal with extreme examples. My biggest piece of luck was I left for a planned vacation the day before Hurricane Ida arrived and I returned home a week later a few hours after power was restored so that was regular PTO for me.

    Give yourself grace. Mentally maybe you need to not work. I can’t imagine how you are capable of a full days when you have no running water (and likely won’t for weeks), cell service is spotty, WiFi access is inconsistent, waiting in long lines to get drinking water, supply runs for isolated friends.

    You have eliminated a lot of the options. If you really want try to continue working full time, you could relocate and work from hotel room, Air B&B, friend’s house.

    If you remain in a place with spotty internet, cell service, and waiting in lines for water, you cannot be expected to work a full day. If a coworker suffered trauma and loss, you would allow them the grace to work at less than 100% capacity.

    I think you need to decide on the amount of work you can do per day. Be realistic, if you don’t have regular utilities and infrastructure normal work could be nearly impossible from home. Be realistic about how much you can do. For example if you can work 4 hours a day make a plan with your boss about what you can do and what work you need to transfer to someone else for the duration of your PT schedule.

    I think you need to forget about upcoming performance assessments and assume/hope that you’re judge on what you accomplished before you were hit by a natural disaster.

    I’m not sure about the other part. I work for the federal government; we get generous amounts of leave. One thing they say is if we can work during a “snow day” we have to and don’t give leave. They accommodate a type of leave for disaster, but I don’t think it lasts for months on end. At some point you need to figure out how to work either from some place else (if there’s still no power or internet at your home) or take regular PTO.

    Stingy companies. Companies without generous PTO policies. Small companies. Companies that are small and simply cannot afford to pay an employee who cannot work for months … I’m not sure what you can do. Find out the maximum PTO allowed, see if you can take unpaid Time Off, see if PTO can be donated from colleagues. Temporarily relocate somewhere where you can work from since you need money from a job to help rebuild your life.

    Give yourself grace. Count on your reputation and understanding from your bosses and colleagues that you are going through something right now and are not 100%.

  48. Hyaline*

    You are 100% correct that people outside the region really have no clue what’s going on unless they’re very involved hunting down that information themselves–I only am aware because I have friends in the area (and had to explain several times to others why it’s not “over” yet even though the waters have receded). So–assume your manager is likewise clueless, and even though it takes emotional labor on your part, consider it an investment long-term to explain why your usual work will take longer, why you cannot accommodate new requests, or how it’s going to be more difficult to navigate typical processes.

    I’m taking you at your word that taking unpaid time is just not an option. So–I think do whatever you can do redirect unnecessary tasks and prioritize what your employer needs. Try to be honest with yourself so you can be honest with your employer about what you can reasonably get done in a given day/week/whatever make sense, and then communicate that. Ask for clear, specific priorities that are manageable (“I can finish either the Monthly Report or develop the new proposal; I cannot do both. Which should I focus on?”) It sounds like having people who report to you temporarily report to someone else might make sense, or asking them to email rather than call so you don’t have to redirect bandwidth if it’s necessary they talk to you, or whatever you find less taxing.

    And maybe take a couple days off after working up the bandwidth to hash all this out and communicate it–that’s hard work.

  49. Nicole*

    Given the small-business nature, folks might be up for creativity. Could you take any sick leave you’ve accumulated and could others perhaps donate leave to you and others who might be similarly affected?

  50. Carrots*

    A well-functioning organization does not need everyone to be doing A-level work 100% of the time. B-level work is actually completely acceptable and even NECESSARY in order to produce A-level work on the highest priority items. And in times of illness, crisis, etc., C-level work gets the job done just fine.

    In a nutshell: Just try to average a B- over the next two months. Throw perfection out the window.

    2. OP*

      I’m not a perfectionist on my best days, so C-level is about what I’ve got right now. Or maybe more like D+…but hey, it’s still passing, right?

  51. Somehow I Manage*

    OP, I’m sending you all the best wishes.

    I’d talk to your boss. While sometimes we suggest not disclosing things, this is a time that you could probably benefit by disclosing some anxiety around all the things. Then maybe you and they can determine how to prioritize things. Can you both talk about things that others on your team can handle? Are there things you can do sporadically as you have service, or that can be done offline and sent back to home office later?

    And then I saw your comment above about emailing just simple yes or no. Knowing that cell service can be spotty and wifi unreliable, is there one person on your team you and boss can deputize to be your point of contact? You and that person can touch base a couple of specific times each day on the phone or camera-less Teams and you can provide additional answers and support.

    But bring this to your boss. This is a situation that is unique, but not unlike other scenarios that could happen at some point to others – medical emergency, fire, etc.

    1. atalanta0jess*

      Yes, I wondered this too – is there someone who can even triage your emails for you and redirect as many as possible, and help prioritize the others?

  52. Bookworm*

    Specifically ask if your company would be willing to pay for a Starlink terminal and service. Personal use (aka not for a business) plan is $120ish a month. Not sure what the cost for the terminal itself is.

    As for spotty cell service, if you have an iPhone 14 or newer with iOS 18 downloaded, you can text via satellite. Just google for details.

    1. hypoglycemic rage*

      it’s a shame services like this one are only available for specific models. i get it, and i’m sure there’s a reason.

      1. Bookworm*

        Technology for the specific phone. iPhone 14 and 15 could text to emergency services or AAA via satellite. The ability to text anyone via satellite is new with iOS 18 and has been available for maybe a month at the most.

  53. Forrest Gumption*

    When I went through hurricanes Irma and Maria in Florida in 2017, with a remote boss who didn’t understand the mental and physical trauma and how severely it impacted my day-to-day life, the thing that worked for me was having a come-to-Jesus talk with her. I scheduled a one-on-one minute meeting, and explained the situation on the ground in DETAIL. It took a while, but I managed to show her that this was an unprecedented type of emergency and that there was no playbook for what recovery would look like. Therefore, we would have to work together to find a way forward where I could get what I needed, while the business (mostly) got what it needed. We ended up going with a part-time schedule with reduced pay for a few weeks until things started to get back to “normal.” If she hadn’t been a fairly understanding and flexible person, I don’t know what I would’ve done. But I like to think that our conversation (with all the gory details about how utterly disruptive the hurricanes were to the entire community) was the key.

    1. OP*

      That is definitely worth considering! I have a bunch of photos of the highway collapses/landslides, the water line situation, the buildings less than a mile from my home that were completely underwater (including some video footage of a house literally floating down the street I used to drive every day and pinning on a bridge pylon), and some of the toxic sludge we dug out of the creek behind my house (don’t worry I’m on a trained crew that knows what we’re doing with biohazards). I thought about sharing that and some of the posts from the county government about the water situation etc. so my manager would understand what I’m seeing every day.

      1. Observer*

        Yes, do share that.

        Especially the pictures. You want this to be *real* to people, and this is a g good way to make that happen.

      2. Jess*

        Agree with this! New Orleanian here who has been through 20 years of storms. I stayed in town for Ida and lost power for a week. Coworkers who LIVED in New Orleans but evacuated got annoyed that they weren’t able to connect to the server in a building with no power. It’s amazing how hard it is for people to understand the stress of living in it day-to-day when they aren’t in it. I had to tell people the one opportunity I had for cool air was driving to the grocery store with a generator nearby – I was just irritated all the time from the heat.

        Plus the mental load of having to plan for your water access, food access, and other things to live each day, not to mention the trauma of trying to envision what your city will look like once the media attention dies down and you have the slow process to rebuild. It’s a LOT. The important thing is to give yourself grace.

        https://www.leehealth.org/health-and-wellness/healthy-news-blog/health-hub/after-the-storm-how-to-recognize-deal-with-mental

      3. Anne of Green Gables*

        And if you do go this route, consider sharing some of the details you’ve included here, if you’re comfortable. “It’d be lovely to pee somewhere other than my yard during the workday” gives a much more realistic (if graphic) description than “without running water.” Same with what you said about driving to find a shower after being exposed to toxic mud. Really spell it out in no uncertain terms.

  54. Chairman of the Bored*

    I am in a very similar post-Helene situation as the LW, as is my spouse.

    Our plan to manage this is focused on setting *realistic* expectations for the people we work with.

    That is, we have explicitly told our colleagues that we’ll do what we can when we can but there will be days that work is not our #1 priority – or even our #5 priority.

    They should expect delays, day-by-day changes in our availability, dropped calls due to infrastructure problems, etc; and this will likely be the case for weeks or months.

    We figure it’s better to have conversations about this now when we can pick more favorable timing/circumstances than deal with it in the moment when the situation is perhaps already contentious or difficult.

    There’s nothing we can say or do that will make an colleague OK with the reality of our situation if they are otherwise not going to be, so our target for this sort of message is the ~90% of them that are reasonable.

  55. Princess Pumpkin Spice*

    OP, I’m so sorry this happened to you. It’s truly a devastating thing.

    With regards to work only – would it be possible to work some kind of split shift temporarily? I know for me, when BIG THINGS are happening, I can work in small bursts but not marathons. If your role isn’t customer facing, maybe you could work your 8 hours in chunks. 7a – 9am, break until noon to get supplies. 12p-3p, then break til 4 to get eat something. 4pm – 7pm, to wrap up and reset for the next day. That way if you have internet issues, you can maybe shift your breakaway times accordingly. Or, if you need to run out ASAP, there’s flexibility. It may also help you get more tasks complete, if you think of work “chunks” instead of “this day is long and overwhelming and its all too much.”

    I’ll keep you in my thoughts, OP. Good luck.

  56. Magnolia woods*

    “What feels like irrelevance (or even unawareness) to everyone outside the region.”

    I’m from Louisiana and this feeling is so real. My advice from experience limit time on social media and media in general. In the end it doesn’t matter what someone you’ll never meet is saying or not saying. Focus on loved ones. Most important prioritize self care. I know it’s the 1st thing to go by the wayside. Thinking about the scale or future is overwhelming. Focus on what’s the most important thing I need to do today. Everything else will come in time.

    1. OP*

      Yeah social media from the rest of the world is kind of insane right now. The amount of falsehoods and politicizing that are being spread around by people who aren’t here… the good news is the social media response of local folks has been incredible, and that’s what 99% of my feed is.

  57. Just another commenter*

    It seems like the review is adding to your stress. Can you talk with your manager about moving it back 2-4 months? I feel like with a small company you might have more leeway.

  58. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

    One thing that helps me is when I am working (or thinking about how I should be working) is to notice what I’m feeling toward myself or toward my work, and seeing if I can introduce ease around any of that.

    For example, if I’m beating up on myself about the fact that I can’t seem to get started – I say ‘you’re going through a lot, can you take a breath? You don’t have to do the whole thing, but can you hit the on button on your laptop and see how you feel about that?’

    Basically just introducing ease into your process and (ruthlessly) getting rid of any shoulding on yourself.

  59. Ceanothus*

    If you are senior, and you can afford/manage it, and it’s something your company truly needs, you might want to commit to a point a couple of weeks down the line where you’ll travel to somewhere that isn’t in the path of the storm and work from somewhere with reliable power, wifi, and supplies for a week — it wouldn’t be ideal, but once the first round of recovery has passed it’s reasonable to give yourself a moment to orient.

    I might also compile a document of issues you’ve encountered and some things that worked to address them (with your copious free time!) and talk to your management about having a policy/plan in place for other people who encounter natural disasters.

    1. OP*

      Definitely trying to get one- or two-night breaks from the chaos, but we’re prioritizing weekends so we can do things we enjoy during that time instead of working. (Sadly my main hobby is on indefinite pause, so we’re trying to head to safer places to enjoy that hobby when we can.)

  60. Blue Ridge Kid*

    Well, if you work remotely then chances are your company culture stems from a major coastal city and embraces the sort of ethic where results must be delivered come hell or high water—and you are kind of dealing with hell AND high water! So first I want to say, remember that in another culture (like the one you probably reside in!), one where we say we will do things “God willing and the crick don’t rise,” when the cricks do rise, we give each other grace…all to say, I hope you do not stress too much for the sake of your company’s culture. If they are overly results-driven, work with them but inwardly look at it like an anthropologist and think to yourself, “what a curious approach to life!”

    Anyway, since you need to keep the job… :)
    If possible, set defined tasks/outcomes for each day or week with your own manager, defining them so they are clearly “done” or “not done.” It is great that you can accomplish one thing a day!! Tell them that and ask them to prioritize what that one thing a day will be, or to OK how you have prioritized. That way they know you will come through on what they MOST need—and you can avoid adding to your stress by wondering if you have done enough.

    Can you work a reduced or flexible schedule, maybe 4 days a week for now, so you can go offline for days at a time and focus on recovery? (Could look like 4 days/week with longer hours those days, or 4 normal days/week using personal time the 5th day.)

    If subordinates report to you, ask if your company’s “support” can involve others temporarily stepping in as their manager and temporarily shifting chain of command. If your internet and phone access is spotty, you can make the argument that due to circumstances wholly outside your control (infrastructure, and an understaffed federal emegency response agency!), it is not fair to them or efficient for their work to remain reliant on you during this time. This doesn’t even need to be about you recovering from a disaster; this is you as a leader thinking about what your people need to do their best work during busy season.

    If your bandwidth will be limited for many months, and you are concerned about eventual performance reviews, is there one (small!!) thing you can accomplish before then that you can realistically do, and where you will shine? Like, give one excellent presentation. Just pick one thing your company/boss will care about and do that one well. Think best case scenario. Assuming they are on your side, that gives them something to point to to say, “wow—this is the quality you bring—I know you couldn’t do it all for the past few months, but you clearly still have that ‘it’ factor and I am recommending you for promotion/bonus”.

  61. Rex T*

    Can you harness the goodwill of your company and colleagues to hold a fundraiser? I would be happy to donate to a good cause that is connected to someone I know. This way you can take some comfort in the fact that a group you influence has contributed to aiding your community. Note I’m not only referring to soliciting donations from your team members (regular readers know why) but ask your company to do broader outreach to the area their headquartered in, vendors, consultants, etc. The idea is you ask your employer THEY do the work to run it as you don’t need anything else on your plate!

    1. OP*

      The company has offered to make a donation, but figuring out where to send it is more than I can commit to at the moment (a lot of our trusted local orgs are maxed out/can’t absorb any more resources in the short term). I’ve asked them to sit on the money for a few weeks because there will be a lot of long-term needs after the immediate energy subsides.

      1. Observer*

        I’ve asked them to sit on the money for a few weeks because there will be a lot of long-term needs after the immediate energy subsides.

        That’s a REALLY wise response. Right now, it seems to me that the issue is not resources per se but the ability to get them where they can do some good. And the ability to use some of it till some of the infrastructure is back. But there is a long road ahead, and donations will probably dry up fairly soon. So having that coming in, in a few weeks would be great.

        LW, if this is your “D Grade” thinking, you’ll be fine.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Very much so. It’s the logistics of trying to get to people right now–later funds are going to be needed for everything from rebuilding to diapers.

  62. Lbkwrm*

    Things that helped me work remotely while triaging a life encompassing event (though not a natural disaster): establishing that I didn’t have the bandwidth to talk about the details of my situation, providing need to know updates to my manager only and asking him to relay information to the team, getting permission to drop from calls/meetings as needed to take care of urgently arising issues, and prioritizing the tiny moments of peace I could find over the job. I mentally shifted all the day-to-day triage of what was going on to being part of my “job”.

  63. Hurricane Harvey Survivor*

    Hey there, OP.
    Been there, done that. I’m also in a senior role and have worked remotely since 2015. When Harvey hit in 2017, we lost everything. We were fortunate that we evacuated before the second wave of flooding happened (read about the ‘released bayous’) but the house and everything in it was toast.
    The only thing I could do is tell my boss, “I don’t know when I can work again.”
    My company was very understanding. They gave me four weeks paid leave and my co-workers donated about $2K that went to immediate needs like hotel, food, and clothing. While we were insured and FEMA and Red Cross were on the ground, there are just some things you need right away and the trauma of it all can mess with your decision making.

    Please take time for yourself and be kind to yourself. If you can, see if you boss will allow you to take some leave, whether company granted or FMLA. (Mental stress/mental health is allowed!)

    Do know that it will get better.

    1. OP*

      Thank you for sharing your experience, and I’m sorry that happened to you! It’s great that your company was understanding. I am definitely feeling the “messes with your decision-making” thing… weird little things like “we shouldn’t spend this company money on this obvious investment because what if we need it later” are creeping into my brain I think because of a general resource scarcity mindset. Objectively I know it’s ridiculous, but everything at work takes longer when I have to step back and do a logic check on normally quick and easy decisions.

  64. JPalmer*

    I think taking leave is a reasonable step, especially when you frame this not as something that reflects upon you as a candidate.

    Rough draft:

    “Unfortunately, I think the best path forward is for me to take a leave of absence. Physically, my home and my body are fine. But when viewed on a community basis, everyone I know has lost everything, dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane eats up large portion of my time. I feel mentally drained and I know it will negatively affect my work output and other’s perception of me. This is not a type of emergency we plan for, none of this was my choice. What is my choice, our choice, is how we want to respond to it. I think the best course of action would be to step away from work for a brief period, I enjoy working here and would love to be back at my best, but need to focus on responding to the unprecedented disaster and don’t want this to turn into a source of burnout.”

    Alternatively, you could ask to work reduced hours, so things don’t fall through the cracks, focusing on delegating and training the non-senior work items.

    You are risking burnout if you keep working. You’re either going to do damage to your social reputation or feel slighted if they perceive you negatively when your entire community got obliterated and you reasonably feel not okay with it.

    Your workplace has a choice and any smart workplace knows that giving you two to three weeks off is WAY cheaper than replacing you if you burnout or stop caring about work. Lets say your workplace gives you three weeks off and you spend those three weeks getting back okay. You will feel immensely grateful and appreciative. That will translate into positive interactions with your coworkers and higher productivity. The only reasons they will say no is they are stupid or they’ve over leveraged themselves.

    It’s also worth suggesting to workplaces ‘I would like a paid leave of absence for X weeks and I will take Y Time of my own vacation time’. This wasn’t a planned thing for either party, and this says that you’re giving something up as well and not solely leaning on the job. This is about making it more palatable.

    I hope this helps and that your community recovers. This really sucks.

  65. WondHRland*

    For the logistics of working, could your company provide you with a portable hot spot, so that your ability to log into systems is more consistent?

    Could you arrange to work PT, only on critical matters for a couple of weeks? Can they arrange a consultant or temp (in another part of the country unaffected by the hurricanes) to temporarily pick up some slack?

    1. Observer*

      For the logistics of working, could your company provide you with a portable hot spot, so that your ability to log into systems is more consistent?

      If cell service is spotty, it’s not going to make that much of a difference. However, if you get a hotspot from a *different* provider than your cell phone’s, that might help a bit as each one might be going down or getting over-loaded at different times.

  66. Honeycocoa*

    I am so sorry. I lived very close to the epicenter of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, in 1989. It was useful to have a couple brief concrete examples of what was going on – my disaster cliches- so I could update people without getting overwhelmed. “We were able to recover most client files when they demolished the building, we have aftershocks every single day, all my kitchen cabinets are taped closed with duct tape”
    Just a couple clear facts. The weather may have changed but the disaster is still happening. I encourage you and yours to do what you can to focus on basic self care. Distracted people forget their meds, fall down stairs and run through stop signs pretty easily. Take good care, I’m so sorry.

    1. OP*

      That’s a great idea to have a couple brief examples! Obviously we’re still living through a disaster that deserves to be taken absolutely seriously, but sharing some of the comically ridiculous things we’re doing to conserve water both demonstrates the gravity of the situation and keeps the tone a little more light. (Like, have you ever strained pasta over your toilet bowl so the water could be re-used to flush? I sure have!)

  67. IwishIcouldthinkofaname*

    To minimise the bandwidth, maybe move as much as possible to email? I use Outlook, so my mail gets downloaded onto my laptop – if you can do that, and write up anything you are doing in one or more emails to be sent when you are on-line, then maybe you can work mostly off-line and send and receive as and when you can (power, water supplies, trees and other phenomena permitting). If you need a meeting – ask them to put it in an email as well or instead. Send things out as and when you can, remembering that both you and the internet have to have the energy to work.

    And a suggestion for anyone who has colleagues in any of the afflicted areas – share this thread to people outside the area so they can gat an idea of what it is like, and support people who need it.

  68. His Grace*

    Are you under any hard deadlines at work? Maybe one of them can get extended.
    Also, can you put in for emergency leave?

  69. Elliot*

    Ugh, I am so sorry you’re going through this.

    I think the key with remote work all the time, but especially when you’re struggling, is communication. Is your company/manager the type where you could basically say what you wrote here? If I were managing an employee going through this, I would not know what they needed and would appreciate them laying this all out.

    I’d also gently suggest asking for some help in delegating some of your tasks temporarily. I know you wrote that you’re senior, and you not being able to focus has real business implications. Try to think though – if you had lost your home and still couldn’t work, or had been seriously injured, or were otherwise unable to work – would your small company cease to exist? Or would they find someone who could help take on your tasks? The company can find ways to lighten your load and fill gaps. I think the biggest thing is that you need to communicate exactly where you are, and make the ask.

    Again, so sorry this is what your life looks like right now.

  70. Anon for this one*

    I am from Santa Rosa, CA and considering today is the 7-year anniversary of our fires (Tubbs and Nuns) this is a very poignant question today. While there are different issues with wildfires than with hurricanes, there’s one thing that was really hard for me that I think it’s important to acknowledge. People from outside the region WILL NOT GET IT. It is beyond frustrating. I still see horrible comments on photos of things that happened because people had less than a minute to flee and Someone On The Internet thinks they could have done it better. It sucks, but it’s not super effective to try to convince people of how bad things are if they’re determined not to believe it. Look for the emotional support within your own community rather than outside it. I did not do that and it was to the detriment of my mental health.

    Be realistic about what you can and cannot do right now. You don’t have to do everything. Communicating with management about practicalities (i.e., no running water = I need time during the day to replenish our drinking water) can be much more effective than talking about the emotional toll of things if folks don’t get it. Ask for protected time (outside of PTO) to do things like that, or to attend town meetings about what happened, talking to your insurance company, etc.

    1. OP*

      Yeah, that’s so real. My company is based in California and there’s a culture of a very condescending attitude toward Appalachia in general. It’s always bothered me but right now I really do not need to hear comments about how backwards the region is. My coworkers are talking about how Trump is manipulating all the locals and I’m like…y’all, no one here is paying any attention to what Trump is saying, our TV’s and internet don’t even work well enough to see it!

      1. I Have RBF*

        My company is California based, but has branches in multiple states, including NC, PA and IL. We have an (unwritten) policy not to discuss politics, and only offer support to victims of natural disasters. We have people in the LA area who have had to evacuate the offices/labs due to wildfires – it’s actually in one of our training videos!

        I have one person in my online social group who was out of contact for several days due to Helene, and they are still digging out, etc.

        In general, I don’t listen to “reports” from people who aren’t there on the ground.

        I’m sorry that your California coworkers are insensitive clods who don’t know anything about Appalachia. (Most of what I know is that it’s a very pretty area that has some places that are pretty remote and hard to get to.)

        1. Observer*

          I’m sorry that your California coworkers are insensitive clods who don’t know anything about Appalachia.

          I think it’s worse that not knowing. Because even if they were factually correct about some of this, it’s just impossibly out of line. How does a functioning adult say such stuff at such a time?!

          Like, maybe safety standards need to be improved, for example, but when someone is literally trying to dig out from the rubble is NOT the time to talk about that. You don’t get into an argument with a building owner about not being up to fire code while there are people in a burning building. etc.

          I’m not saying that these folks are actually correct. I’m saying that what makes them “insensitive clods” is not lack of information about Appalachia, but lack of empathy, lack of sense, lack of respect, and lack of knowledge of common courtesy.

          1. I Have RBF*

            True. I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt in saying their callousness was out of ignorance.

  71. Anon-e-Mouse*

    1. Even if it’s not realistic for you immediately, consider the possibility of arranging to work remotely (or even from a company location) that is not affected by the hurricane, for a week or two, and either for a crunch period in your work or as respite after what you’ve gone through. (Ask if the company would consider covering part of the cost, if the relocation relates to a critical work period.)

    2. Ask the company to consider, as a wider initiative, helping employees in higher risk areas purchase equipment that will help them operate if affected by weather events. This would be similar to what some companies did in the pandemic: mine covered 100% of the first $500 of essential equipment (eg printers) and 50% of useful but not critical equipment up to $2000 (eg monitors, desks, ergonomic chairs). Maybe your employer could support the purchase of generators, signal boosters, etc for employees in certain zones and get those items to employees in advance of the next disaster.

    1. OP*

      Southern Appalachia would never have been considered high risk for this type of devastation from a hurricane before, approximately last Tuesday! That’s part of why we’re such a mess; this was truly a biblical-level, completely unanticipate-able event. As context, our primary river had surged to its second highest flood level in recorded history two days before the hurricane even arrived in the region – it was a million-year confluence of events that caused the destruction.

  72. Rep (taylor’s version)*

    Hugs OP. I went through something similar with a horrific flood. My job gave us two whole days (eye roll) to deal with flood related issues. My boss, thankfully, just said to let him know what i needed. I recommend asking for either unlimited leave or extra leave for at least the next year.

    Once cell service is more stable, maybe you could ask for a mobile hotspot? Though i do know of a few that work off satellites that vanlifers use.

    Is your company also local? If not, can you meet them somewhere for weekly food drops? For both you and your community?

    I do recommend to think about yourself first. You cannot save the world without saving yourself. Maybe limit volunteering for a bit? There’s really no need to take on the extra mental load of others right now—there will be time for that, i promise.

    Best of luck.

  73. Sauron*

    All I want to say is, same OP. I did evacuate as I have family close by but I have no focus and won’t for a long time. I just want to be in my home and helping so I’m doing what I can. Be easy on yourself and don’t feel bad about taking the time you need in any way you can to process this.

  74. Yesterwynde*

    In the aftermath of the earthquake in Mexico city in 2017, a building in my street almost fall down and having the sense of “normalcy” that came with doing my job was amazing to take my mind off all the chaos that was happening outside my window. Keeping my boss on the rest of my team (in another country) on the loop was really important to receive the support I needed in shuffling priorities, moving deadlines and some colleagues even took tasks off my plate for a few weeks until I was in a better mental space.

    I still volunteered where I could and offered my house as a hotspot for people to recharge their phones, use the bathroom, and in the case of a friend’s son who has no relatives in the area, as shelter until he could go home. I also had to accept that there was no way we, as a city, could go back to normal as fast as we wanted and to slow down in how much I could do to help rebuild the community to prevent burn out.

  75. stemmy*

    As a senior person in management, if I was managing you I would offer taking personal leave, if that is available. I would want an honest assessment of how you are doing, and whether continuing to work is better for your mental health (distraction) or worse for it. For now the decions and actions would be very short term focused, not let’s plan your work life for the next year. Instead, let’s figure out what works best now, and then reassess in a couple weeks (if that makes sense). I would offer flexibility, meaning if you wanted to work I would want to know what tasks you want to take on vs not. I would also want a list of tasks that you have been doing that can be sent (temporarily) to other people. The underlying assumption here is that your company/boss wants to support you, and that they are decent humans. I hope/expect that for the most part, this is true.

  76. LovelyTresses*

    Hey OP — sending you lots of good vibes, glad you’re safe and so sorry to hear about your community.

    Are you remote or in person? If you’re remote, is it possible to explain to your employer that due to the heavy logistics of just surviving in your community right now (water lines!), you have to pace your work to the speed at which some semblance of normalcy throughout your community? So you have a few hours a day when you can get internet and deal with the most crucial things, the rest you’ll delegate to your team. And I second the idea of an OOO message! If your colleagues aren’t physically in your community, they may understand how bad the storm was, but don’t understand the details of how incredibly arduous recovery is and will continue to be, especially since we’re now turning our attention to another hurricane. If I was your colleague or boss, getting a clearer picture of what you’re going through and what kind of flexibility you need because of that would be really helpful

  77. restingbutchface*

    I’m so sorry. The footage coming out from the aftermath is like a horror film. I’m glad this letter was published because I bet lots of other people are googling the same dilemma.

    Lot of good advice already, but one I haven’t seen is thinking about letting your company tell people why you are working shorter hours/not available. I couldn’t tell you where half my remote working colleagues live so I bet some of the company haven’t put two and two together.

    This isn’t begging for sympathy, it’s resetting expectations. I’m thinking of when my mom died last year and my boss refused to let people know. He “couldn’t be bothered”. What stung the most was my friendly, nice colleagues asking how I was or how my weekend was. Then they would get short with me as they had no idea what I was going through. I wish that my company had supported me because I couldn’t actually write the words “my mother died” myself.

    Best of luck to you, friend. I am thinking of you and your community.

    1. OP*

      Yeah that’s a good point – My boss sent something to my immediate team when I was out last week but most of my peer colleagues probably have no idea.

      1. restingbutchface*

        Resetting their expectations is a gift to them as well as you. Nobody wants to be the person who was chasing down a report update from a person going through a natural disaster.

        Let people help you- right now everyone feels utterly useless, that’s why you might hear “let me know if there is anything I can do…”. Delegate, reprioritise and cut down your to do list appropriately. People love helping people during a crisis like this, honestly.

    2. Random*

      wish that my company had supported me because I couldn’t actually write the words “my mother died” myself.

    3. Random*

      wish that my company had supported me because I couldn’t actually write the words “my mother died” myself.

      I get that grief is terrible, but notifying other members of your team is something for you to do. It’s not on your boss.

      1. restingbutchface*

        Okay? I wasn’t talking about my team, I was talking about my internal stakeholders. As a manager, I wouldn’t think twice of doing this if I was asked by a member of my team, and I’ve seen it done dozens of times. It’s such a tiny expression of care and good business practice to proactively let people know when someone is out.

  78. stemmy*

    As a senior person in management, if I was managing you I would offer taking personal leave, if that is available. I would want an honest assessment of how you are doing, and whether continuing to work is better for your mental health (distraction) or worse for it. For now the decions and actions would be very short term focused, not let’s plan your work life for the next year. Instead, let’s figure out what works best now, and then reassess in a couple weeks (if that makes sense). I would offer flexibility, meaning if you wanted to work I would want to know what tasks you want to take on vs not. I would also want a list of tasks that you have been doing that can be sent (temporarily) to other people. The underlying assumption here is that your company/boss wants to support you, and that they are decent humans. I hope/expect that for the most part, this is true.

    If this resonates, I would reach out to your company asking if they would be open to the above. sometimes providing a direct solution makes it much easier for boss to implement and meet your needs.

  79. Rachel*

    Working remotely, and dealing with nor’easters, the best thing I could do for myself was find more unusual, not at-home-places to work from. My home internet connection was too unreliable and I couldn’t fault my neighbors (or concentrate) during clean-up and construction. The coffee shops and libraries near me were too crowded and also impacted by wireless outages. Better places were the off beaten path places like the local hospital’s cafeteria, a nearby community college, hotel bars/lobbies, and a Dunkin’ Donuts that strangely had the fastest and most reliable internet I could find. I told my team that I needed to work adjusted hours to account for my different locations and it really helped my mental health.

    Timely apologies that own any outbursts/problematic behavior go along way, too.

    1. OP*

      Yeah, once some of our community hot spots open back up and the roads improve this will be easier. Right now it’s hard to leave my neighborhood because of the road situation, and everything in my neighborhood is closed due to no water.

  80. We still use so much paper!*

    If you filed an insurance claim at all, is there anything in your coverage for lost wages? Maybe that would take the sting out of unpaid leave.

    Hugs to you as you navigate this process!

  81. TooTiredToThink*

    I’ve read through some of your comments; but not all. If you have a laptop and you are near enough an airport – would the company be willing to fly you to HQ – or somewhere not affected – so that you can work someplace else for a week and not have to deal with the main stressors – and maybe do this one week on/one week off during the busy season? That way you can focus for a solid week and then will have to go back to reality for a week; but gives you time to help with the rebuilding; etc… that you wish to be a part of.

    Or would the back and forth be too jarring?

  82. Someone Online*

    After some natural disasters in our state, my job offers annual-leave sharing to support fellow employees who have been impacted. I don’t know off the top of my head the logistics, except it is similar to our sick-leave sharing program.

    Take care of yourself, OP. Big internet hugs.

  83. Lucy P*

    I’ve been through a major hurricane where my parents lost their home (and we almost lost one of my parents), the majority of my relatives lost their homes (or had major repair work); and during the evacuation time, I kept meeting people whose houses were not just damaged, but completely missing.

    Having said, that, if you can take time off of work to recover, do it. I did it. In fact I refused to return home until my power was restored. My employer called me many times wanting me to come back and to help with internal recovery efforts, but I had to do what was best for me and my family. I needed any sense of normalcy I could get. In the end, my employer was OK with my delayed return and nothing was hindered by my 4-week absence.

    At the time, my state was offering emergency unemployment which would not count against my employer. You may want to see if your state has that option and if you would qualify for it.

    I’m sorry you are going through this right now. Things may look bleak for quite some time, but keep looking for any positivities, even in the little things. About a month after the hurricane hit, someone found a sunflower that had sprouted out of the sludge that the hurricane left behind. The local paper published a photo of it as a reminder that things can and will get better.

    1. OP*

      Thanks for sharing your experience, and I’m sorry that happened to you and your parents! Good question about the emergency unemployment; that may also help my partner whose workplace literally washed down the river.

  84. Delta Delta*

    A lot of folks have some really good ideas here. I’ll add another bit to consider. I live in the northern part of that same mountain range and we had some really horrible flooding last year; it was on a scale somewhat less than what you have, but devastating nonetheless. You may have some lasting trauma from all this. I know it’ll take some time to sort things out, but it may also be worth it to look into finding a counselor or other mental health professional so you can also take care of yourself.

  85. LinesInTheSand*

    OP, I feel for you. Here are my suggestions, as someone who has worked with colleagues in the middle of natural disasters:

    1. Take some period of time – maybe a day, maybe a week – to step back and assess your own situation with an eye toward understanding what’s possible. If you know your internet is spotty, maybe this isn’t the time for lots of teleconferencing, for example. Look specifically for things on your plate that are no longer possible or likely given your current reality. Work with your boss and coworkers to reprioritize anything that still needs to get done, and cut everything else. Your success is going to depend on wisely allocating your very limited resources, and you don’t want to burn a bunch of mental energy thrashing on stuff you can’t possibly complete. This is the moment for one of those “we need to have a clear-eyed assessment of our new reality” discussions with your boss. As you point out, your reduced capacity has real business impacts. That’s life, and the sooner your company leadership accepts that reality, the more well positioned they will be to adjust and mitigate.

    2. You have direct reports. Be very clear in your own mind about *what you personally need to do* vs *what needs to get done*. Put as much as possible in the second bucket, delegate it all, remind your directs that performance reviews are coming up and this is their time to shine. Bonus points if you can delegate the delegation so that you don’t have to personally assign tasks, you just assign someone to assign out tasks that you identify as high priority.

    3. I’m sure you’ve noticed already that your emotional resilience probably isn’t what it used to be. That’s ok and expected. Get very comfortable saying, “Excuse me, I need a minute”.

    Good luck. You’ll get through it.

  86. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

    My heart goes out to you my fellow Appalachian. I’m in central NC and much of my family is in the disaster zone, though thankfully everyone is physically safe and whole for now.

    I only have one thing to add to the excellent advice given already – if money is an issue for your your company, they should consult with their insurance broker as well as review the many, many disaster recovery resources offered by various branches of government which may cover or reimburse the company for the expenses of outsourcing parts of your work or providing equipment like a satellite phone. Also, it’s fair and reasonable to ask your company to do more of the work in deciding how to help you. “Let me know how I can help,” is such an unhelpful thing. If you feel secure enough in your position you can ask them to make specific offers instead. There’s a glut of information available on this topic and they can make some educated guesses about what they might themselves find useful in your shoes.

    If the affirmation helps, you are going above and beyond for your community and for your employer and it’s not grace to extend whatever temporary flexibility you need right now. It’s just good business. Replacing you would take longer and cost them more than letting you operate at 10% capacity for a few weeks, even if it is peak season.

    Thank you for all you’re doing for the community. I hope your workplace takes this as a sign that they need to have policy & procedure for disasters in place before the disasters happen. I hope for a speedy and thorough recovery and healing for you and yours. I’m not in the zone with you, but you are not forgotten even with a new storm bearing down on the Gulf.

    1. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

      Let me also add that I know crisis counselors from throughout the Southeast have been deployed to the various shelters set up across the disaster zone. If these folks are in any way accessible to you, consider seeking them out. They can function as case workers which might be a relief to your very heavy mental load right now.

  87. Fern*

    OP, I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this and I am thinking about you. One thought (and if someone already suggested this then I apologize) is if there are things that could be done in non-peak hours. Like the expectation that x y and z are done within two weeks, but you may put in a few extra hours on a Saturday morning. I know that this can slide into working all the hours, so that’s the risk. During covid, we went to fully remote and had two young kids with no childcare, and there was an understanding that some things may not happen until kids are asleep, and that’s okay. For me, it helped take some of the pressure off to provide a finished product by 5pm, knowing that I could steal away a few hours at 7pm to get the work done.

    I also think transparency with your team and supervisors helps, both mentally and logistically. If your team knows that you’ve had bad cell service, or you’re rushing to the public shower, it helps set expectations for everyone.

    And good luck with the coming weeks/months.

  88. Observer*

    You’ve gotten some excellent advice.

    One thing I have not seen addressed is that you say you are “short” with people. That’s a real problem, and you do need to find a way to rein that in.

    I get it, I *really* do. I’ve been through personal tragedy, Superstorm Sandy in NYC, and the onslaught of Covid, which hit NYC *hard* and was not handled well by either the City or State. I’m not saying that they are “the same”, as each disaster is it’s own unique thing. But yeah, the levels of stress are off the charts.

    But the thing is that you will get a LOT more grace and cooperation if you can manage to not snap or be short with people. I’m not saying that you need to be effusive or apologize a lot for your lack of availability. Reasonable people *will* understand as long as you try to be as transparent as possible. But a lot of that understanding and recognition of good faith will evaporate if you perceived as rude or *personally* annoying.

    If there is any chance that any of the people you are dealing with also have family or loved ones in the disaster areas, that’s going to go 100x over.

    PS I realize you don’t have bandwidth to deal with “thoughts and prayers” or good wishes, I’m sending those your way, but I *totally* realize that it’s not reasonable or realistic to expect any response.

  89. Long Time Fan, First Time Caller*

    -Put up an automatic reply on your emails, explaining that your region is recovering from Hurricane Helene.
    -In that auto-reply, state that your access to WiFi is spotty, slow, and irregular.
    -State that your availability is reduced as a result.
    -Then detail who else can be asked for help// work. Delegate, delegate, delegate your work.
    -Thank people for their concern and patience, and tell them that you will address their concerns as soon as you are able.

    TLDR: To the greatest extent possible, hide behind the “spotty WiFi” reason, and take the time you need to recover. Sending you all the very best.

    1. Olive Hornby*

      Yes, I second this. You want to underpromise and overdeliver–so that means taking great care not to fall into the trap of “well, if everything went perfectly today, I could get xyz done.” Not the same circumstances, I know, but when a report was dealing with a flareup of their chronic illness, it was tremendously helpful for them to set minimum and maximum expectations. As their manager, I was able to assign work assuming the best while planning for the worst (building in cushion on deadlines, making sure I was available to step in where needed, etc.) Something like: “Given how much time I have to spend dealing with basic hygiene/safety/food, I will be able to work a maximum of four hours a day. Best case scenario, I can work those hours with the understanding that my wifi will be spotty and slow, making on-camera calls impossible but voice calls possible. Worst case scenario, I will have to drop everything to deal with a falling tree or will suddenly have no internet access.” The key is to be realistic to the point of pessimism about the maximum. If you’re actually able to work six hours some days, great! But you don’t want that to become the expectation. Take the number of hours you think you can ideally work and subtract at least 25%.

  90. Anonymoose*

    One thing I did when I had a month of unpredictable availability was to appoint a person to manage all communication for me (Program Managers are great for this kind of stuff) — I set my out of office message to direct people to contact her.
    She handled all of the questions from my team and any outside groups we could get to comply; she’d compile it all in a shared document daily with higher priority things at the top. As I got free minutes, I could power through and answer everything I could.
    It was so helpful to know that I was spending the cycles I had on the stuff they really needed me for, and it also gave me a channel to figure out what less-important work I *could* take on without blocking people.
    I’m so sorry you’re going through this — it must be exhausting.

  91. m0rgan*

    There are a lot of great suggestions here, I would echo something similar with coming up with a list of tasks and sitting down with your boss to see what the priorities should be. Especially with things out of your control (like wifi or cell service) and the uptick of responsibilities to literally just survive (I imagine it’s not as easy as running out to the grocery store when you need)… it is totally reasonable to come up with a working plan based on tasks to accomplish rather than hours per day worked. This can be phrased as physical limitations to your working environment (i.e. limited wifi, cell service, access to resources, etc.) instead of getting into what your mental bandwidth is. I think if you are proactive and a part of creating a plan and sharing your situation, that goes a long way with management. If you don’t share your situation, then they may think everything is okay and will expect work to return back to normal quicker than you are able.

    I’m sorry you’re going through it – sending prayers your way!

  92. LL*

    Does your company ever offer Administrative Leave? Mine does for certain things: company-wide mental health days, snow days (pre-pandemic), a few times when electricity was out in the neighborhood our building was in for no reason, etc.

    We’re 100% remote now and I know that they still offer it on an ad-hoc basis in very specific instances. So if you have something like that, you can see if you can use it now. Or ask if they’d be willing to do something like this for you now. You don’t even have to use it for entire days, you can just use it for a few hours each day when you can’t work.

    An

  93. JSPA*

    I hope this doesn’t land really badly, but when I’m at “one task daily before breaking” (for whatever reason) I can sometimes get two days’ worth of function by giving in to a deep nap of exhaustion–not caffeine and a candy bar and power through (which is the other option). It can feel like giving in to defeat (and it can even put you in an unsafe circumstance depending where you fall asleep) but if you can safely nap, and have not been, it can make the difference between feeling (and being) “work-useless” most of the day, and being “work useful” at some point in the morning and at some point in the afternoon, which often registers on people as being far more available and engaged.

    Beyond that, all I can think of is speaking–GRAPHICALLY– to any reporter you can find about specific reasons people are not “showing up” in their remote work roles, and how companies are not being understanding. Bodies, bloating, blow-flies, babies, blood–don’t hide what “we’re still missing people” means.

  94. Ex-Teacher*

    Could your company hire some additional temporary staff to absorb some of the work? Either an assistant for you to help parse the urgent from the non-urgent and routine, or someone who can complete some of the tasks that don’t require your senior-level expertise? This would hopefully ease not only your workload, but also to ease your mind that requests aren’t being ignored during times you can’t really handle working. An assistant like this would also be able to help smooth out the interactions where you feel you’re being short with colleagues.

    Alternatively, perhaps some temp folks to handle these kinds of tasks further down the chain, which would allow existing employees who have enough knowledge to absorb some of your work to do so.

    I’d also encourage you to spend some time thinking about just how accommodating your employer is, and how your tenure and reputation will support your reputation. I see your concern about performance reviews coming up, but if you’ve been there for a while and shown that you are a competent, effective employee, then I’d hope any decent employer would extend some slack during this apocalyptic disaster. I know it’s easier said than done, but if your reputation is strong and your employer is decent, then hopefully you would not have to worry about them penalizing you for being human during this disaster.

  95. Pandemic Parenting is Miserable*

    I’ve gone through many huge life traumas, always while working full time without stopping at all, and I wish I’d just stopped and taken time off. I would take as much as you can afford up to two weeks, fully clocked out. Five days sounds like nothing – I wanted two months too – but it will make a difference. Take the paid time off you have or the paid leave available, and just give into grief for a week. Given that you have serious logistics (getting water!) to deal with a week to manage this seems very reasonable.

    I agree with you that professionally people only tolerate 1-2 weeks of distracted performance before they lose patience with you. (My business partner and beloved friend died unexpectedly three years ago and our clients were shocked and patient for about 2 wks and then I just had to act like everything was fine again. I will never be the same!) I think time fully off work serves you better than dialing it in and having sustained diminished performance.

  96. FionasHuman*

    Hopefully Alison reads this: sometimes reporters contact her for leads when companies are behaving badly. This is a prime opportunity to name and shame companies into treating their remote workers in these areas with the respect and care they deserve. Sadly, I’m a reporter, but I cover a far more niche area and can’t help.

    2. OP*

      FWIW, I think my company is genuinely doing the best that’s realistic to expect them to given our size and location of most staff, and inexperience dealing with disasters at this scale. Many of my remote-worker friends are in far worse situations, with some of them at risk of job loss because they haven’t had internet for almost two weeks now and have no paid leave left.

  97. She of Many Hats*

    First talk with your benefits team to find out what options and resources like ERPs are available. There’s a good chance that they can connect you with mental health resources, disaster relief resources, and colleagues who may be nearby if you need them.

    Then work with your manager and HR about flex-time to deal with any recovery-efforts you need for you, your family, and your community. See where some of your tasks can be reallocated so they don’t get lost while you rebuild what you need from buildings to mental health.

    Above all, allow yourself Grace feel Not Okay. Accepting help can be so hard for many of us and allowing others to give Service by helping you is a Gift to both parties.

  98. Abogado Avocado*

    I work for County government along the Texas gulf coast in “hurricane alley.” By law, we can’t pay people for days they don’t work, unless, of course, they have vacation or comp time. So, when hurricanes make it impossible to work from the office and take down the internet, making it impossible to work from home, this is a real problem. Fortunately, the County is good about policies that advance comp time during disasters, meaning that employees can use that time to take time off and pay the comp time back once the world is put together again. So, that’s the financial part. It’s not ideal, but it’s what works for us.

    As for the psychological part post-disaster, all I can say is that it’s tough and I’ve been there more times than I want in the past six years. The best I can advise is to go with the flow. Don’t make yourself crazy by trying to right everything all at once. When our house was without power for 8 days post-Beryl, I cleaned up the downed trees limbs, etc. as much as I could before the people with gasoline-operated tools arrived. Then, I’d go to the office, work as long as I could, go home and survey the damage, remedy what I could, call the adjuster again, make a dinner of sandwiches (because no electricity) and then settled into a routine where we went to bed when the sun went down (because no electricity and the rechargeable lantern thing gets old after a few days). No, life without refrigeration or A/C sucks (especially when its 90 degrees and 110 percent humidity), but it was do-able because our neighbors were having the same crappy experience and we were all in it together.

  99. kay*

    OP, I am so sorry. My small town in Vermont was hit by devastating floods last year and then again this year. In my case, my work is in that same small town, so it was very obvious to coworkers, but most people did not live there, so did not really get it. By the end of the first week, I ended up leading the volunteer response and that took an enormous toll on me both physically and emotionally. It was months before things were semi-normal again and to be honest I’m still not okay.

    Some things that I did with my boss that I think would map to remote work:
    – really, super-duper explicit about what was on my plate, what I was not getting to, and how important each thing was so we could make plans and I would get a warning if something was especially bad
    – taking time for myself, even if that was just 20 minutes to do something that was not work or mucking out or responding to urgent needs. it did not matter to me if this was during work time. if I found myself on the edge, I would try to step away and breathe. sometimes that meant lying on my back on my office floor listening to a 5 minute guided meditation. sometimes it meant a total emotional breakdown.
    – I was proactively grateful to coworkers and my boss about their understanding, kind of putting them in the situation of having to be jerks about the fact that my town had been destroyed. maybe not entirely fair, but it worked.
    – I found opportunities for my coworkers to help – we all trooped down to pile sandbags together one day when it rained again. There may be opportunities for remote help that crop up. We used people remotely from the other parts of the state to call through our lists of people who needed help to see what their status was. Some local orgs may be doing that.

    Again – I’m so sorry. I have been where you are, and I know how much it hurts.

  100. Gingerblue*

    It sounds like the “how long are people going to be understanding” part is a major stressor, which it would be for me too. One thing that might help here is frequent communication: if you can keep people updated on where things are, even if it’s just that nothing has changed on a project, it keeps them aware of how much you’re doing and what you’re on top of. Essentially, make sure you’re getting credit for all the stuff you *are* getting done right now.

    Which sounds like the opposite of taking stuff off your plate. But–and this suggestion might be useful or totally not depending on what your work is like–can you set up a very minimal way to update people daily? Like, an email template with a grid or bullet points on the status of different projects that you can blanket send to everyone you need to work with every day, where you only need to update a line or two as things change? You might be able to write up something that takes barebones effort to update and mail each day but gives you the reassurance that people still see you on the job and as on top of things as you can be. You might even include a section with brief status updates on your own situation (“Water expected back on by next week; internet still irregular”, etc), which could give people a baseline for what you’re still working around. A quick daily form check in could win you credit with coworkers out of proportion to how much effort it takes.

    You sound like a conscientious person who probably has a lot of built-up goodwill at work. I’m so sorry you and your community are dealing with this.

  101. Long Time Fan, First Time Caller*

    This post is not for OP, who is at her limit, but for all of us who have gone through similar storms: It does not have to be this way.

    Our government has better options than to just abandon us to plywood and sandbags and our own generators, and leave us to clean up the mess while working full-time jobs with no federally- guaranteed emergency recovery leave. OP does not have to be going through this stress alone.

    The Cuban model shows us that the state can take a much larger role, and save thousands of lives, despite dramatic hurricanes. (I.e., In the seven years between 1996 and 2002, six major hurricanes hit Cuba, yet a total of only 16 people died.)

    I urge you to read the Oxfam report about their model, here, and to urge your elected representatives to stop this systematic neglect of our communities in the face of increasingly deadly national disasters.

    Here is the report: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/cuba-weathering-the-storm/

    Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

  102. Just Thinkin' Here*

    “let us know what you need and we’ll work with you”

    You ask for time off. Paid if you can get it. And use it to get both your house in order and whatever you need until the adrenaline subsides, the stress reduces. Even if you don’t think you need it, take it. Everything you do over the next month is going to take 10X longer than normal due to environmental conditions. A week or two or three off will make a world of difference.

  103. Corporate Goth*

    OP, does your company conduct any charity work you could ask them to leverage into good publicity for them/potentially help the chaos? They might be able to help with disaster relief funds, generators, or water runs – things that would ease the distraction burden for you and others in this horrible situation.

  104. Undercaffeinated Jen*

    Hi OP – I haven’t experienced anything like what you are going through, but had a recent family crisis that similarly impacted my ability to be present and focused at work. My manager and I established a kind of gatekeeper/liaison system that I found tremendously helpful. She triaged incoming requests on my behalf and only passed along whatever she prioritized, and either reassigned the rest or told the requestor no. I also gave her updates on my personal situation that I was willing to have passed on to my coworkers, but didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to talk about multiple times over.

    Wishing you all the best. Please be kind to yourself and give yourself grace as you get your feet back under you.

  105. Aisling*

    I’ve been through community disasters as well – tornadoes in my case, where water and roads were out and electricity was faulty. In my case all of my onsite coworkers and I were impacted, and one thing we did was to triage work: what had to be done right now, what could wait a bit, what could wait until next year. This was the biggest help when we all had smaller bandwidths to work with. Concentrate on triaging and don’t worry about the rest right now, if you can. This too shall pass.

  106. Harper*

    I think given what you’ve described, OP, it’s totally reasonable to ask for 2 months of paid leave to get your head on straight. Or a month, or whatever maximum length of time you think might have a chance of being approved. This is assuming you work for a generous company, and their willingness to pay you may depend on how many employees they have who were impacted by the hurricane. But it’s not an unreasonable thing to ask if you have a supportive manager. And if I were your manager, I’d go to bat for you on this. Anyone in your shoes would be barely functioning. And anyone with a brain and some human compassion would be able to understand that. I wish you the best and I hope things get better soon.

  107. Silverose*

    Take advantage of your employer’s offer of “tell us what you need” – and anyone else around you whose remote employers are saying the same should do likewise. It sounds like you in particular need a satellite internet connection shipped in to you (with the plan on the employer’s dime), a bulk supply of potable water, shelf stable food, maybe a camp stove and bulk fuel for it, flexibility in your daily schedule (including response times for phone/email/chat), and help prioritizing and delegating tasks until the emergency conditions are over, however long that may take. Be honest with your employer that the entire region is still surviving under inhospitable conditions, so for you to not take a leave of absence on short term disability, those last couple items are non-negotiables.

  108. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Stress leave can fall under FMLA. It does require the extra bandwidth of finding a doctor and appts to document the Stress leave. But I currently have a couple of coworkers out for stress leave because of personal hardships.

    I like this less but this is also the kind of thing that some companies will allow other employees to donate sick or vacation time to allowing extended paid leave.

    A lot may depend on how much you trust your manager and your past reputation. Being honest about how bad it is and what you are dealing with can go a long way on a good team. Being upfront about your limited bandwith and access during busy season can actually be better as the company can reallocate tasks, not just keep finding your tasks undone. I missed a month of work during our busiest season and everything shifted seamlessly to accomodate and shifted back when I returned. Because I have a good manager.

  109. fhqwhgads*

    A few years ago, I forget which hurricane it was, but a junior colleague had just purchased a house less than 6 months prior, and it ended up with 4 ft of water in every room. He was the only employee in the area destroyed by that storm. He was definitely the only one in his state. As I recall, my company basically gave him unlimited PTO to deal with it. He was extremely communicative about when he’d be in or wouldn’t. And everyone just sort of…ran with it. The message from the CEO was very clear: as long as Joe (not his real name) kept his manager in the loop about when he’d be in, or not, he had leeway. I think the company may have also put him up in a hotel or some other temporary accommodation for the first two weeks after it happened.
    I don’t know how likely it is to convince another employer to do that, but that’s what they did, and Joe was very overtly thankful to all of us for helping make any small bit of his life not something he had to worry about.

  110. TheBunny*

    OP, first I’m so sorry. That’s all awful.

    I went through a personal emergency while remote a couple of years ago and found setting focus time helped me. It let me deal with work things in allotted blocks, and then personal, swapping back and forth. It helped mentally knowing I was doing what I was “supposed” to be doing. I did get some flexibility with my work too, which helped. I was no longer expected to work certain hours as long as things were done by deadline.

    Please remember that you are going through a real trauma. Even though you are physically fine, you are dealing with A LOT. Please give yourself grace to fall apart. I know I’d be a mess.

    Hopefully you find a way through this that allows you to feel like you are supported and being supportive where you need to be.

  111. Powerpants*

    We lost power FOR WEEKS after Beryl. There was hardly any working going on for us. There just wasn’t the bandwidth. We were in a disaster. Work should accommodate.

  112. Mutually supportive*

    Would it be possible for someone else to have access to your emails and triage them for you? Delete the junk (mass emails, newsletters, spam), answer the straightforward stuff, pass on anything that can be passed on to others and so only leave there the items that really do need you, specifically, to answer?

    Even better if you can also have a semi-regular catch up call with them to let them know how to deal with the rest as well!

  113. teensyslews*

    Some thoughts:
    – see what flexibility they can offer you in your schedule. Is it easier for you to coordinate the real-life activities if you start and end much earlier or later than normal? Could you work 4 10’s and have that extra day? If you have PTO remaining, can you dole that out in any increment required to have that time offline?
    – have a real serious conversation with your manager and direct reports about what is necessary, what’s optional, what can be handed off, and then stick to only what’s necessary. Can a senior IC take on some of your work temporarily (and ideally receive some money or extra PTO in return)? What decision making can be delegated? Get it all in writing and then only do what’s necessary.
    – can your company procure something for you to make internet access more stable? A satellite internet connection, a satellite phone? A generator if power loss is an issue? Depending on distance/ability to be away, maybe 1 night a week in a hotel? Obviously logistics will be tricky, but if they need you to be working, see what they can do to make the technical portion of that easier.

    Best of luck to you in this situation – hopefully you can get the support you need.

  114. DefinitiveAnn*

    Hurricane Katrina (2005) evacuee here. We left.

    At the time, I was unemployed, and my husband’s employer, a university in New Orleans proper, was under 10 feet of water for weeks. Here in the ‘burbs, far enough from the lake, our house was fine because we didn’t flood and a tree didn’t fall on it. We had a barely-six year-old who had no school to go to, my husband had no functioning employment, and I was out of work, so we bailed.

    I stayed with my parents for five months and got a temporary gig with a previous employer. My husband went to work at a temporary gig at the uni where he got his doctorate (there was grant money). We lived apart and visited for Halloween and Thanksgiving. My son enrolled at the same elementary school my brothers attended.

    Local employers were extending lots of grace. Remote employees were not so fortunate.

    Of all the things going on in your life right now, what’s happening with your employer, senior as you may be, are the very least of your problems. (I didn’t even read through what you said is coming up in the next few months, because they don’t matter. At all. Even a little.) If you need to stay in your community, don’t commit to more than 1-2 hours a day AT MOST until you have power and running water again. And if you MUST be available to work more than that, you need to figure out a way to get to a location that has what you need to be able to do your job, and to stay there for the long haul.

    I am so sorry.

  115. Troubadour*

    I live in a city that was devastated by an earthquake – a lot of what you talk about sounds very familiar and yeah, your focus is going to be shot and your brain and moods will not work as well as usual for a while.

    If it’s not practical to take a long leave (and/or if you find it helpful to focus on something ‘normal’ for a bit) can you ask for reduced days/hours for a while? Take some time to think about what’s going to work best for you-as-you-are-right-now – eg you might want to do half-days in one chunk, or you might want to work for an hour, take an hour break, work for another hour, etc.

    With the big stuff going on, is there a colleague involved who (if/when tech/comms are working) you can work together like a study buddy to help keep you focused?

    If not, can the “one big task you can focus on each day” be broken down into smaller tasks which may reduce the cognitive load and let you do a bit more (with brain breaks in between each)?

    Think about if there are things you can delegate?

    And conversely, are there little tedious jobs that would be suitable for your level of brain focus that you could take off someone else’s plate?

    Re finding yourself being short with people, it may be useful to be upfront with them that you’re dealing with ongoing trauma, you’ll try to manage it but sometimes you’ll slip up and you apologise in advance – depending on your relationship with them maybe you can ask them if they notice it to point it out so you know it’s time for a little timeout.

    [Some commenters have mentioned PTSD. Not a mental health professional but, y’know, earthquake, and my understanding is PTSD isn’t diagnosed until months later. Right now what you have is ‘just’ ‘normal’ trauma responses – your brain doing its best to deal with the abnormal which takes a *lot* of energy. For most people, it will slowly get better over time as either things go back to normal or you adjust to a new normal (horrible term, but, well). If it doesn’t or gets worse or if you think it would help anyway, definitely seek professional guidance, but in the meantime mostly your brain needs a lot of rest and energy.]

  116. Dancing Otter*

    This isn’t immediately actionable, but every company should have disaster recovery plans not just for damage to the workplace, but also for things affecting the workers. (You’d think after COVID, but…) Hurricanes and tornadoes and blizzards and floods are not unprecedented phenomena no one could ever have imagined.

    Do you know what’s in your company’s contingency plans? Is there anything there that might be helpful?

    And for other readers – what’s in your company’s plans? Do they have any? When was the last review?

    1. Observer*

      Ha! This is something that should have been on the line for every organization in almost every part of the country. I’ve done a lot of disaster recovery / business continuity work. And one thing I keep on telling people is that it’s true that you cannot predict any give disaster but if you assume that SOME kind of disaster could hit, whether just your organization or on a wider scale, you’ll be ok when the unpredictable and unexpected stuff happens.

      I’ve been through several major disasters in my time and we’ve come through pretty well, in part because of the measures I fought to put in place, especially after 9/11, where some of the stuff we had going weren’t really *planned* but showed the potential.

      The example I have used was not 9/11, for a number of reasons. The one I used was tech columnist and editor Paul McNamara, whose internet was taken out by ants – twice! several years apart. For some reason I had it in my head that it was anteaters, which is funnier, but even *ants* are NOT something most people worry about when it comes to their internet! But if you plan for more mundane stuff like cable cuts and idiots setting off dangerous fireworks near a junction box, etc. those plans work just as well for ants.

      Same for everything else. Of course it also helps if the local municipalities have their acts together, never mind some planning.

  117. Rob Moss Mob Boss*

    OP, i don’t have any advice, but i wanted to say i’m really sorry this happened to you.

  118. Lois*

    “My life has become a series of long lines to get drinking water, supply runs for isolated friends, endless news (both actual news and 1-1 news from people I care about) about how bad things are, weeding through extensive disinformation on social media, volunteering on emergency response teams, etc.”

    I respectfully suggest that if you’re primary concerns are at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid — getting water, making sure friends have supplies, and emergency response — that maybe reading social media ought not be at the top of the to-do list.

    1. OP*

      Well for several days, person-to-person news via social media was one of the few ways anyone could find out what was going on. That has improved, and my social media use has scaled back, but it’s still the most accessible way to get info about where things like water distribution and supply pickups are happening.

  119. FlexibleSchedule*

    If it’s possible, a flexible schedule will help. It will let you work when you have the spoons to do it and stop for a bit when you don’t.

  120. Bike Walk Barb*

    Thinking about your direct reports and how they can support you, you have several good suggestions above about things like having one person triage emails and create a summary that will be a fast download and easier to process than the individual emails.

    I’m thinking about how you might suggest to your team and/or supervisor that this will yield professional growth opportunities for your team, and treat it as an unexpected learning/stretch opportunity.

    You may already be doing this. It will take more time to think it through, but if you can structure hand-offs and delegation such that people get to step up and stretch, and so that you truly have delegated and don’t have to think about it, you’re growing their capabilities while meeting the organization’s needs.

    This is instead of handing off pieces while still keeping the mental load on your own to-do list. So on project A if you would have overseen all the implementation and reviewed details, can someone else do that and send you their summary with their recommendations and specific items they want your feedback on? You’re still connected at the end if you need to be, but you move the item onto their plate.

    You don’t redo any of their thought process or work. You accept that work is going to get done their way rather than your way, with whatever effects that has. Your supervisor needs to be on board if this might mean some reduced speed or quality but they said to tell them what you need. You need to delegate completely. Your team needs to know you trust them and rely on them. You get to learn something about how they rise to an occasion like this and what they’re capable of. Those are good things, not bad things. This reframing might help your mental energy level a bit.

    Thinking of you and hoping you can give us an update in the Friday open thread **as you feel like it and are able to!** because we’re not another item on your to-do list.

  121. Charles*

    If you’re not a major part of a local rebuilding effort, and your own house is in good condition, could you shut off the water, lock up, and take a week or two away to work at your company’s headquarters? It sounds like an emotional struggle with what likely to be a long rebuilding process; maybe a business trip to HQ or a customer site will at least distract you and put you in a better frame of mind.

  122. Smurfette*

    This sounds awful, I’m sorry. Some suggestions:

    – Take your company at their word! >> My company has been accommodating through the first week, and has given me a blanket “let us know what you need and we’ll work with you” offer << and let them know what you can and can't do. If you don't, they will assume you're coping, AND they will not make contingency plans

    – Ask management to prioritise what has to be done right now, and what can be set aside for later, or done by someone else

    – Figure out how much time you can realistically spend on productive work right now, and how much of that can be during "work hours" – maybe you can work 4 hours a day and 2 of those hours can be during office hours, so that's when your team can get time with you

    – Instead of relying on real-time synchronous communication, see if you can move some of your meetings into a chat format

    – Think about whether someone in your team could step into a team lead role, or at least a coordinator role – you need someone who has an overall view of what the team is doing, can give you consolidated updates, can look after some of the day-to-day operational stuff, etc

    – They probably have no idea of the reality of your situation right now and it might help if you explain it the way you did in your post – long lines to get drinking water / supply runs for isolated friends / volunteering on emergency response teams; send them some photos if you need to

    I'd also stop worrying or even thinking about performance assessments. It's out of your control. And no decent company would penalise you for not putting in a productive 40 hour week right now. As long as you communicate about what you can and can't do, you should be okay on this front.

    Take care xxx

  123. RagingADHD*

    I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this.

    This perennial fave “How to Tighten Up Your Game at Work When You’re Depressed” has some good back-to-basics reminders of stuff that can help you keep, if not on top of things, at least not completely underneath things at work when you are dealing with big life stuff. Not everything is applicable to remote work, but some of it can be helpful, like tips on communciation and taking time to organize and document.

    If you wind up not being able to take leave (which I agree is probably the best thing if possible), then hopefully you can keep things puttering along as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

    https://captainawkward.com/2013/02/16/450-how-to-tighten-up-your-game-at-work-when-youre-depressed/

  124. Araxie*

    This is similar (but not the same) to my situation after Hurricane Ian two years ago (and hopefully not a pending repeat with Milton). Luckily my company told me to step away completely until I was ready to return to allow me to focus on remediation and managing my mom’s care. When I came back after two weeks, they found me a flexible coworking space about an hour away, and paid for that for 6 months so I would have reliable internet and just another place to be that was a bit away from the damage. Not having to worry every day about whether my calls would connect, etc was a huge help and being around other people working really helped my focus. Good luck.

  125. Bear Expert*

    If your work has someone who both knows the benefits situation deeply and is willing to be creative and helpful, grab them and see if your work has any paid leave options that make sense here. This is going to depend on your specific workplace, and your work’s benefits vendors. I’ve had companies end up switching short term leave vendors because they were refusing any leave that wasn’t maternity or car accident based, and I have had companies who had good support processes for mental health or chronic/intermittent conditions, it varies widely.

    If your boss/team can be flexible, ask to shuffle work around to things that you can do with low focus and completely offline, if any of those exist. Package work to be able to completely delegateable/hand off, or set yourself in a “I will review output offline and give comments back every Tuesday” pattern. Asynchronous work methods as much as possible, and anything you can delegate to get yourself out of being a blocker to other people, do so. (If you have an hour a day of work focus, and can spend an hour today to write up a rubric for how to review and approve something you’re usually in the approval flow for, and then give that to someone else, that is a GREAT day’s work.)

    If your boss is decent, be completely honest with how you need to spend your time right now – standing in line for water, helping people survive and caring for your own continued survival. I struggle to conceive of an office job that outweighs human life. Tell them what you’ve delegated/handed off, what you’d like them to delegate/hand off, what you are dropping and when you’ll check in next. That will be more than enough to discharge your professional responsibility.

    Anything time sensitive needs to go to someone else. Let your boss figure out who. If you had been in a car accident, your boss and your company would figure it out.

    1. Bike Walk Barb*

      “I struggle to conceive of an office job that outweighs human life.” So much this. They may need occasional reminders about humanity and humaneness but in their hearts they presumably agree with this and can flex their “needs” to prove it.

  126. Drizzle*

    This is heavily dependent on your workplace and bosses, but sometimes people are willing to do a lot off the books.

    When people say “let me know what you need” we take it to mean either 1) get some sympathy and flexibility but no real change to my work or 2) I can look a official avenues (insurance, leave) and they’ll be understanding. There’s a whole 3rd option which is: my team makes space for me to take time off and be away without it counting in official systems.

    I’ve been on a team where myself, coworkers, and senior level managers had major issues at different times. The team quietly found workarounds for people to be away for chunks of time, be part-time on and off etc. I have no idea if this is an option, but it may be worth laying out what you can do and seeing what your bosses offer as solutions.

    I definitely recognize this is not possible in every workplace. So sorry for what you’re going through.

  127. Dandylions*

    I can’t even look at a picture of Asheville without crying. Cant imagine how it feels to still live there. My family was further west and in a county that didn’t have a lot of damage. Power and cell service was restored in 3 days. But it was a looooong 2.8 days when my sister was unaccounted for before she was confirmed safe.

    I hope it brings some comfort to know that a lot of folks outside of the region have not moved on. Many companies are setting up relief drives, doing company matching, and I’ve been heartened by how much national attention WNC is still getting. WNC never gets attention!

    Specific remote things you can do:
    Outlook rules – right click any message you are made copied on and click rules > creat rule. You can make rules by subject line, from people, to any distribution list etc. I normall move all (I should be informed but have no actions) emails to a folder to skim when I have capacity.

    Out of office response:
    I live in [town] which was decimated by Helene. I may take longer then usual to respond as I navigate basic life needs like potable water as well as power and internet outages.

    For X question speak to John
    For Y questions speak to Jane

    Otherwise I will respond as soon as possible.

    Deputize direct report(s)
    Determine what’s a true priority and let 1 or 2 direct reports take the lead. This is a stretch opportunity for them to show they can take on leadership responsibility.

    Put these people in you OOO response.

    Substitute rule:
    If you start to feel guilty that you didn’t finish X or Y try substituting one of your direct reports. How would you treat John of his home was destroyed and his performance decreased? Well give yourself at least as much grace as you would give John.

    Performance reviews:
    Assuming you’ve kept your team up to snuff on their performance, tell your team the scores you plan to give them by metric and ask them to send you any blurlbs they would like you to include for those. Thank them for their hard work and understanding that writing thoughtful performance blurbs just isn’t in the cards for you this year but you see their great performance and look forward to working together next year on Y strategic goals.

  128. mbs001*

    A lot of good suggestions but for many people, they can’t afford to take unpaid leave — no matter how long their company will allow them to take off. FMLA isn’t paid leave — it’s only guaranteeing you’ll have a job to come back to when you can return. And many companies simply can’t afford to pay people who aren’t working for an extended leave. That’s where the government aid should come in.

  129. Jaina Solo*

    Hi, OP! I live nearby and while my area was hit, it wasn’t as bad as yours. We’re getting back to normal life things now (although some of our community are still w/o power/internet), but I’ve noticed that my community is also struggling with the mental load–part dealing with work/life and part feeling grief at what happened to your community and another part just a bit of guilt and disbelief that a neighboring community has been decimated.

    If you’re not going to take leave of some sort, then my other suggestions are below, but I love what others have suggested about taking leave as that is probably going to be most effective.

    For work, one thing that’s helped has been access to therapy/coaching. My org already has a system in place for anything, so just talking to my person about all the things was a huge relief. It helped with that mental load and also reminded me what I can focus on personally and professionally. Your job probably has an EAP you could use but ask if there’s a coordinator who can help you get signed up and everything–usually there’s someone who handles the admin stuff and especially now, you’re not going to have space for more than talking to someone and getting support.

    Beyond that, I’d say, if you can carve out an hour of no interruptions and plan to do this offline, I’d create a list of what you think you can reasonably handle. And I’ll advise that you probably remove a few things because the tendency is to overdo it in situations like this. Then have a second list of all the other things you can’t get to and who you’ll need to handle them. I’d send it to your team, copy anyone outside of that group that you’re delegating to, and let them know if you’re able to provide support on their items, when a good time to reach you is. Then stick to that time each day as your “work time” but give yourself grace if the internet cuts out and communicate when you’re back online. You may not be able to show up every minute and on every call, but you can still provide your genius as the infrastructure allows, and I’m sure your team will see that.

    Most importantly, remember that you’re living through a trauma right now. The hurricane was a moment in time, but you’re still experiencing trauma each day. Be kind to yourself. We’re sending you all the support we can from where I’m at so I hope you feel seen and cared for. We haven’t forgotten you–promise.

  130. WNC Strong*

    I just came here to say that I’m here, too — likely not too far from you. And it has been rough trying to work remote. In the last 48 hours, I feel that the fog is lifting the tiniest amount, in part because some of the unrelated family stuff we’ve been juggling has stabilized for now, and in part because I was able to access a hot shower and good sleep last night. Today I told myself I could only check social media at particular times because it’s been too easy to be sucked into the news.

    One thing that helped earlier this week was talking to a colleague whose community was affected by catastrophic flooding last year. Even being able to say, “This experience is super weird, right?” was comforting.

    So, not so much advice as solidarity. What we’re dealing with is real, our emotional roller coaster is valid, and we’re not alone. I didn’t read all the other comments, but I hope there are things here that will help — and you better believe I will be revisiting when I hit my next low on the roller coaster!

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