Those were some of the first words I heard when interviewing a young IT worker who had been working from home for the past 6 months. He was one of the first study participants we talked with as we examined how trust and psychological safety is built in the remote workplace…and he was frustrated.

No matter what he did, he felt like his manager was never satisfied. Keep in mind, they had never met face to face, and he had never actually asked this leader if she was upset.

As we talked, I asked how he knew that she was angry. 

“She is always short in her Slack messages,” he responded. “She doesn’t answer online questions, she skips meetings with me, and in the post-client debriefs, she is usually in a hurry and just spouts off short feedback that I don’t really understand.“

The assumption? It was his fault. He was messing up.

That’s what happens in the remote workplace. If we aren’t careful, we send the wrong message. And when there is so much missing context, so many holes in our narratives, team members are forced to fill in the blanks in a way that fits with their own insecurities.

The remote workplace requires a different approach to communication. Busyness, cryptic messages, and ghosting will always run the risk of being misinterpreted. That means we need to do 2 things:

1. Pay attention. Be aware of what we are communicating beyond the words we use.
2. Overcommunicate. Online communication takes more time and more energy. Period. Sometimes we need to take the extra time to check in, provide clear feedback, be emotionally present, listen, and create predictability by doing it over and over.

That IT workers didn’t need a perfect boss.

He needed a human one. Someone who showed up with clarity, presence, and just enough warmth to remind him he wasn’t alone.