It's true! Even good managers can go bad when they go remote. And bad managers — they get worse!

Of course, bad managers weren't exactly a bargain when you had to trudge into the office to experience their lack of wonderfulness. Today, their miserable personalities come Zooming into your personal home. They hit you where you live, and the results aren't pretty.

Claire Cain Miller could help. Her recent article in "The Upshot" section of The New York Times is right to the point: "Remote Work Isn't Working? Maybe Your Company Is Doing It Wrong."

According to Miller, bad managers share a common misconception about our new virtual work world. They don't realize they can't simply duplicate the same dysfunctional system they had when everyone was together in the same office.

"There's a natural pull, even in these times, not to figure out how to operate in this new world but how to replicate the old world in the new conditions," explains Leslie Perlow, a professor of leadership at Harvard Business School.

The solution is obvious. You need to step up and step in.

Where to start?

Meetings are cited as the most frequent offenders when analyzing why good managers go bad when they go remote. Even ginormous companies have learned to change their ways.

"At Microsoft, teams quickly realized that large meetings of an hour or more with vague agendas worked even less well online than in person," writes Miller.

This will be news to many bad managers. They loved large, long meetings because they gave employees the opportunity to spend more time basking in their brilliance. Bad managers also schedule back-to-back meetings, which do not play well in the remote space. Surprisingly, employees need to take a breath between meetings. Or take a bio-break. Or just enjoy a few moments to complain to a co-worker about how little they enjoyed the last meeting and how little they are looking forward to the next.

At Microsoft, the solution was to reduce the number of big meetings and increase the number of teeny-tiny meetings. Other companies have instituted "No-Meeting Fridays." It's an attractive concept, though not as attractive as "No-Meeting Fridays, Thursdays, Wednesdays, Tuesdays and Mondays, So Don't Bug Me and I Can Maybe Get Some Work Done."

Managers should promote social get-togethers, like the Zoom lunch. It's a great way to safely bond with your scariest, wacked-out co-worker. Unfortunately, even the liveliest virtual lunch will never replace the thrill of combing through the break room fridge to see whose lunch bag you can pilfer.

Another effective idea is to "designate time for work and nonwork." Explain to your manager that, after deducting the time you spend playing video games and shopping online, an hour a day of real work would be more than sufficient.

Whatever parameters are set, the experts suggest "people could create rituals to mark the start and end of the workday."

What rituals would be appropriate in your company are obvious. Sticking pins in a small replica of your manager would be a good way to start your day, and dancing naked around your laptop would be a good way to end it. You performed the same rituals before you went remote, but they still apply.

Companies should also be advised to "make clear they don't expect messages to be answered immediately." Six months sounds like the right time to let an email mellow before replying. Remind your manager of all the blunders your company would never have made if no one had acted on their numbskull emails for six months, or ever.

Whatever happens when we can go back to our offices, it is likely that we will have to completely reinvent the way we work once again. If you think it's difficult to work with your managers and co-workers remotely, remember how horrible it was to work with them in person.

Some employees are getting ready by ignoring the Slacky, Zoomy technology we use today and going old-school for their communications. "Co-workers have sent letters or packages in the mail," Miller reports.

This is a scary development.

We must keep our postal and delivery workers focused on what is truly important — delivering 50-pound sacks of whole-wheat flour. They can't be bothered with billet-doux from the nutcase in the next cubical.

On the other hand, if you want to send me a letter, go right ahead. Just tape it to a 200-roll package of toilet paper. I'll thank you when we're back in the office.

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: lukasbieri at Pixabay