Tech Firms Face Growing Resentment Toward Parent Employees During COVID-19 (cnet.com) 413
Over time, as Silicon Valley companies had to change the way its employees work during the COVID-19 pandemic, "an undercurrent of resentment has bubbled up across the tech industry against those splitting time between work and family, and it's spilled out in public on employee message boards, company chat software and on social networks," reports CNET. From the report: At Facebook, the pushback has forced COO Sheryl Sandberg, a parent herself, to defend the company's policies. "I do believe parents have certain challenges," Sandberg said in an August meeting, according to a report in The New York Times. "But everyone has challenges, and those challenges are very, very real." Meanwhile, some employees at Apple, Facebook and Uber say they're barely making it all work. More than half of 1,000 people surveyed by Care.com said they felt like they'd let down their colleagues due to juggling children and work during the pandemic. Of the respondents to the survey, published in August, 52% said they hide their childcare issues because they worry colleagues won't understand. And 45% believe their career advancement has suffered because they're juggling work and kids at home.
As the pandemic spread, many tech companies expanded policies to help parents deal with the sudden responsibility of caring for children while also working full time. Some, like Google and Microsoft, extended paid time off. Companies like Apple, Facebook and Uber also emphasized willingness to allow for more-variable work schedules. [...] Other tech firms express the same sentiments to caregiver employees and to the press. But some employees say the companies haven't successfully woven those feelings into their hard-charging cultures, which, before the pandemic, often included the expectation that people would endure long commutes to the office so they could be at their desks, working into the evening.
It's led to surprising clashes within tech companies, where parent employees are learning that some managers and peers resent the benefits and flexibility parents are getting. Many parents are also reporting they need more time to finish tasks, in part because of the regular interruptions caused by children. A July survey of 1,726 active job seekers by the recruiting site ZipRecruiter found that mothers at home with school-age kids expect work hours to reduce by 9%, while fathers say they expect a drop of 5%. Taken together, these new working arrangements have led some nonparent employees to accuse the parents of being treated better by management while failing to pull their weight.
As the pandemic spread, many tech companies expanded policies to help parents deal with the sudden responsibility of caring for children while also working full time. Some, like Google and Microsoft, extended paid time off. Companies like Apple, Facebook and Uber also emphasized willingness to allow for more-variable work schedules. [...] Other tech firms express the same sentiments to caregiver employees and to the press. But some employees say the companies haven't successfully woven those feelings into their hard-charging cultures, which, before the pandemic, often included the expectation that people would endure long commutes to the office so they could be at their desks, working into the evening.
It's led to surprising clashes within tech companies, where parent employees are learning that some managers and peers resent the benefits and flexibility parents are getting. Many parents are also reporting they need more time to finish tasks, in part because of the regular interruptions caused by children. A July survey of 1,726 active job seekers by the recruiting site ZipRecruiter found that mothers at home with school-age kids expect work hours to reduce by 9%, while fathers say they expect a drop of 5%. Taken together, these new working arrangements have led some nonparent employees to accuse the parents of being treated better by management while failing to pull their weight.
Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
No one chose to have so many roles that need to happen simultaneously. Its difficult and expensive. You have no idea until you live through it.
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
You have no idea until you live through it.
Yeah.
Then again, these same people who have kids and do remote work, almost certainly expect that the Amazon guy will deliver their Amazon stuff during this pandemic. Or the people at the grocery stores will be there to run the place. Or all of the people in those supply chains. Or the people running the machines that make all the stuff that goes into those supply chains.
Plenty of those people are parents and they have somehow figured out how to do that despite having to physically show up so get everyone can get their stuff. So hard for me to muster much sympathy for people who spend their days working Jira tickets from their couch "barely keeping it together".
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife and I both have 'essential' jobs where we have to show up at the office. We also have kids at home and going to school remotely. I'm not asking for sympathy, I'm not asking for break, I'm asking that you are not an asshole about this situation that just happened to all of us.
Going to work is actually easier than working from home with the kids. When I'm home with the kids there are constant interruptions and its hard to get anything done at all. At least when I show up at the office I can focus on one aspect of my life for a while.
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Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Informative)
I got complaints from colleagues about working odd hours so that i could spend time with my kids during the day. I was working two shifts 7am till 11am and then 6pm till midnight that way I could spend time with my children in the afternoon and it meant they didn't interupt my work. Several people who don't have kids lodged complaints that i was ending emails late at night. My manager called me up and basically said he doesn't care but to try and please them to avoid it. I now just write all my emails in the evening and send them out first thing in the morning.
I don't understand why people can be jealous of making the best of a bad situation! Really made me understand people can have weird motivations sometimes and how ruthless they can be if they feel threatened!
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Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Having the kids go to school and get an education helps everyone, whether I pay for it through taxes or in cash. Yes, I get help from professionals when it comes to educating my children. I think society as a whole benefits when we educate our children. No one 'raises' my children but my wife and I.
The local public schools here have completely abdicated and tell parents - you are the teacher. My job tells me that if I want a paycheck I have to work. Its really difficult to do both, which makes it expensive.
All I expect is people like you to not be assholes when things come up as they inevitably do.
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I never asked anyone to carry any load for me. No one does my job for me when I'm not available to do it.
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I have no idea what you are rambling about.
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We start from the premise that we need a number of children.
Given that, we can assume that there is a balance to be struck in sacrifice between the meeting of the biological imperative (having children) and society providing resource.
The older system used to be that a primary worker would be given a salary for work which would enable a carer to tend children. There was almost no cosideration given to the primary worker. Society has for a long time given free education (in many countries, also free healthc
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Interesting)
This is kind of a weird story Normally it's the other way around 75+% of employees normally seem to be parents, and those who are not parents or (gasp) single are looked on as the weirdos. I can sort of understand resentment if there is unfairness in the work assignments or expectation (ie, the single people being the only ones asked to work late or on weekends), but hopefully that is rare. If a work place is that competitive, it's a good idea to start telling upper management that there's a problem, and if it's not addressed then polish that resume.
Benefits should be fair though. If Bob gets shorter work hours then everyone should get shorter work hours. And in a "tech firm" most jobs are salaried so that hours are mostly irrelevant. Everyone should be getting flexible hours. Even single people have issues to deal with given that they're home all day, and management in most countries cannot legally grill their employees about what their relationships are or whether they have kids or not or what sort of odd living arrangements they have. Maybe they've got a pot smoking bongo playing roomie that makes it hard to work; maybe mom has had to move in for extra care purposes; and omg I've got a new kitten I can't ignore the kitten let me show you my pix1!
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Even in Silicon Valley? That's the focus of the story.
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Well, story was "tech companies", which could be anywhere. But yes, even in Silicon Valley. Granted, I've never worked at one of those IT-only or web companies.
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My employer has been giving everyone an optional 10 hours of PTO per week that can be used for any kind of pandemic-related self or family care, no questions asked. It seems to be working out pretty well, and it avoids privileging people with kids in any kind of special way.
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You didn't choose to be a parent? Did you report this to the police?
IT support Re: Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:3)
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Who, exactly, chose to have a pandemic that required parents to be home working and being a teacher at the same time?
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Where will you turn when something goes wrong in your life? Mommy and Daddy no doubt.
You are obviously a child.
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Or maybe those people chose not to have kids because they realised it would get in the way of other responsibilities they have?
Having kids is a choice, it's difficult and expensive.
Having a classic car is a choice, it's difficult and expensive. Should i receive special treatment because i choose to drive a classic car? Should i get extra time off work to perform maintenance? Should i receive leniency when i'm late for work due to the car breaking down? Should i receive extra pay to cover the higher fuel usa
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Comparing humans to automobiles shows how heartless you really are. Pandemics and stay-at-home orders that may or may not happen in one's lifetime and that one could never predict are not reasons to avoid having children. If you think those are real considerations when having children you are crazy. Its perfectly reasonable to expect to find available child care when one is having children.
Do the world a favor and don't ever have kids.
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You sound like an incredibly stupid person. It's rather unlikely you could ever have a tech job that is affected by those who chose to have children. You're more likely to be the guy cleaning their puke as you do your rounds.
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You can't ask if someone has kids in a job interview
Have you ever wondered why ? Not all laws have logic, but some do, including these. This is the logic that avoids turning society into shit in medium to long term due to the tragedy of the commons.
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No, parents are simply people. Some will stand up, some won't. They're more likely to find the constraints of a situation more limiting to what they can do, so more likely to complain they've hit these limits.
You seem to have a really narrow view of non-parents that is frankly just a straw man argument, thus invalid. Parents have those extra responsibilities through choice. COVID is simply separating out the parents who planned to be a resilient family (thus making sacrifices of some kind) from those who
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However, trying to develop a culture where productivity is not sustained in order to have children is also a path to failure.
Pretty much every single successful society has managed that balancing of productivity and reproduction. Changing the balance changes the outcome.
We're only a few decades into the experiment of whether both partners can work full time at demanding jobs as a scale solution. Jury is still out as to whether it's viable (especially with global competition).
The short termism is an orthog
The difference is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The US has a negative growth rate, if you exclude immigration. The US is not suffering from too much child birth.
Re: that's an idiotic thing to say (Score:3, Insightful)
You're working until 8pm or even midnight? Sounds like you're the stupid one. Work the hours they pay you for or find another job or accept your choice and stop whinging and taking it out on others.
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Wrong, read TFA. It's the ones without kids that are complaining.
Re: that's an idiotic thing to say (Score:2)
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:4, Insightful)
> Should i receive special treatment because i choose to drive a classic car?
Does the very survival of the human race depend on you owning a classic car?
Having kids is an obligation of a lifeform, not a luxury. Everything you depend on in society requires people to have kids.
Re: Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:2, Insightful)
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Maybe, but I'd prefer if the people opting out weren't the rare sorts of people who can do the kind of work done at tech firms. Maybe encourage those types to have more kids, and the types who live off public assistance to not have so many?
Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
The world is overpopulated, and that is getting worse. Having kids is not an obligation when there are already too many of them!
Every child brings a carbon footprint that the entire world must endure. By having children, you are imposing that cost on the rest of the world! In the current too-much-pollution-already environment, that is not a moral virtue. It's a vice.
Parents often "feel" like they have undergone some kind of moral enlightenment when they have kids. It is a natural neural shift that helps them be effective parents. But it also makes them very egocentric, seeing the world as revolving around their kids, and imposing that on everyone else. Sorry, but the rest of us are not buying-in.
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The world is overpopulated, and that is getting worse.
Maybe, but what is even worse is to grow older in a retirement home, no youth, no joy, no hope, only the smell of coming death. And too late to have children.
seeing the world as revolving around their kids
Normal, because kids are the future. Best investment ever, because most of time children pay you back.
, and imposing that on everyone else
This is what all living creatures do.
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If you make someone else responsible for your happiness, you set yourself up for suffering. You expect that when you are in your 80s that your kids will have nothing better to do all day but obsess over you? This is a losing proposition!
Seriously, the attitude you are expressing is very immature. "I can't be happy; I need someone else to make me happy!" This attitude leads people straight into dysfunctional relationships! If you want t
Re: Wrong. (Score:2)
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That is nonsense. Egocentric people are egocentric even when the extend their ego to include their children. People who are not egocentric don't suddenly become egocentric j
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
Population is leveling out or negative everywhere except Africa. Unless you're telling this to Africans you're preaching to the choir.
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Even if you want to reduce the population you still need kids to avoid civilisation collapsing. You will have to reduce the population slowly at a rate that doesn't cause an economic and social catastrophe.
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It is, in the US. If you exclude immigration.
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Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:5, Insightful)
That choice also contributes quite literally to the future survival and health of the human race. If you make a similar choice that requires many years of personal sacrifice and has clear benefits for society then you should absolutely be supported. Maybe you want to volunteer as a regional firefighter? It would be unpredictable, might cost you some money, might have a negative impact on your health and would definitely interfere with your capacity to work in a time of community crisis. I think most (all) of us would be happy for you to be afforded some flexibility and support while there is a wildfire threatening lives.
Re: Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:2)
Aside from the awful human as car analogy, just agree that from now on you will no longer receive any goods or services produced or provided by anyone born after you. Either that or have a little understanding and quit being a whiny leech on society. Not even the most well-prepared parent can plan for every possible scenario the universe might throw at them, including various aspects of a mismanaged global pandemic.
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Or maybe those people chose not to have kids because they realised it would get in the way of other responsibilities they have? Having kids is a choice, it's difficult and expensive.
Having a classic car is a choice, it's difficult and expensive. Should i receive special treatment because i choose to drive a classic car?
The classic car won't be a healthcare provider changing your diapers in 30 years
Should i get extra time off work to perform maintenance?
The extra time isn't devoted to making sure someone is around to write your prescriptions in 30 years.
Should i receive leniency when i'm late for work due to the car breaking down?
The leniency given for a car breakdown doesn't help produce pharmacist to give you your drugs in 30 years.
Should i receive extra pay to cover the higher fuel usage?
The higher pay for fuel usage doesn't result in a nurse wiping your drool in 30 years.
Should my colleagues who have modern reliable and efficient cars be subsidising my choice of vehicle?
Your choice of vehicle won't result in someone making you food in 30 years.
You made choices that incur costs and risks, now you have to live with those costs. You should have considered these things *before* you made the choices, and you should have had appropriate plans and contingencies in place.
Society considered the cost of not having people around keepin
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If they are taking a year-long vacation, they company should lay them off. But they aren't, and you're just a retarded pile of shit.
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Well, no, as members of a society they do have responsibilities, parents just have more, your choice, your responsibility and only theirs to a degree, as they are not taking up that responsibility to society, they pay more taxes on the same income. Parents, especially the arsehole ones, have no claim on single people, NONE, they pay more taxes, that is their additional responsibility and also and never to forget ON A PLANET OVERPOPULATED WITH OVER SEVEN BILLION, they are foregoing their reproductive right t
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There's also people like you: neckbeards who can't get laid because you spend all your time on the internet being angry and telling people to commit suicide. But it's not a choice in your case, it's involuntary, right?
Re:Parent, teacher, bread winner (Score:4)
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It's unprecedented for a lot of people. One member of all the two-income families should quit so they can stay at home and look after their kids, and their job can go to one of the newly minted zero-income families. Then the incomes are spread around more evenly, all the kids are taken care of, AND nobody has to "have so many roles that need to happen simultaneously."
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Who chose to ignore the virtual certainty of a pandemic? Your question comes with an implicit attempt to avoid responsibility.
The virtual certainty of a pandemic is not the issue. It is the pandemic hitting some households at a tougher time than others. A household with just a 25 year old tech worker feels much less pain than a household with a newborn and 1st grader. And a family with a sophomore and senior in high school would be mildly inconvenienced but mostly not much worse than the 25 year old. None of this has anything to do with choices they made, any more than a victim of a drunk driver chose to get in their car that day
good god we need better labor laws / more unions! (Score:5, Insightful)
good god we need better labor laws / more unions!
Not managers who want 60-80 + an week with NO OT.
It's time to play for the team. (Score:2, Insightful)
Two sides to the coin...
Management needs to be setting realistic goals for the current situation, taking into account the new variables.
Kidless employees need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that everyone at the company is in this together and it's time to play as a team.
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Kidless employees need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that everyone at the company is in this together and it's time to play as a team.
So..... It's now partially my responsibility to work harder to compensate your life choice to have kids? Great, so when this is over, I should be able to make life choices and you'll help foot some of the bill. We have to play as a team here, no reason one should get preferred treatment over the other for life choices.
Re:It's time to play for the team. (Score:5, Insightful)
Having kids is team play!
Those who have no kids pay their fair share of taxes. Those who raise kids pay their fair share of taxes, and create future taxpayers who will pay even more into the system.
Yes, maybe their getting less done now. But their kids will be paying the taxes supporting your social security checks when you're older. Do you really want them to skimp on their duties?
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Yes, maybe their getting less done now. But their kids will be paying the taxes supporting your social security checks when you're older. Do you really want them to skimp on their duties?
And yet, whenever it's a single mom invariably the calls go out, "She should have kept her legs closed" or "Where's the father?"
So which is it? Either we're supposed to help those with children, all those with children, not skimp their duties, or we tell those with children they should have planned better. If having kids
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Bingo! This is why Social Security for everyone is a thing we should all act towards. A once-in-a-lifetime virus has finally shown some of us that, in fact, caring for those who need it ultimately benefits everyone.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Let us know when you next make a "life choice" that literally determines the future of the human race and requires multiple years of personal sacrifice. I'm not even being facetious. It would be quite fair that if e.g. people decided to take 5-10 years out of their career to dedicate to a philanthropic or charitable cause that they be afforded some kind of compensation or support.
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I took twenty years out of my career to go to go to grad school and then do health research, all of which was freely given out for the public good. I got paid 25% or less of an industry salary for my trouble, AND wasn't working my way up this corporate ladder thing.
Sounds like society owes me a few mil.
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you just described the life of a stay-at-home parent. they don't get paid either
I wonder how this would play out on the East Coast (Score:2)
I'm guessing both sides would state their respective complaints less circuitously. Or maybe the culture of working yourself to death at a tech job after 5pm in any family situation is less prevalent. Or maybe it's the same.
Everybody discovers kid need taking care of (Score:5, Insightful)
Before the virus, working parents could park their kids at the daycare center, kindergarten or school and forget about them for 8 hours a day. And that was already tiring and hard enough to manage.
Now they're all rediscovering that there was a reason why one of the two parents' full-time job (usually the mother's) was raising children at home when nurses and private teachers were the preserve of the elite.
More pay for more work (Score:5, Insightful)
If the non-parents are producing more, they should be paid more.
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Not sure why modded troll. This is how it works, these whiners are just full of shit. If they are indeed heroes covering for all these "breeders" (as I imagine they call them) then their performance reviews should reflect it. If not, and in fact they are just nobodies with no talent who work on e.g. managing the Code of Conduct for their company and imagine themselves put upon while the people who do the real work are busy watching kids sometimes, then not sure why they're crying.
As the digital intermediate social media paradigm officer I feel it's unfair that Joe, the engineer who keeps our fucking servers running, is out of the office from 2-4pm! Why, I'm, uhh, working more now or something!!!
I don't love it (Score:2)
In an ideal world this would be how pay worked, $ based on the amount of work you did as a % of the revenue generated. 99% of people would love that idea
This is basically how sales works, where the revenue is generated.
I doubt that support staff (IT) would love the idea, as they don't directly generate any revenue.
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that way IT could should a revenue
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And then it would be replaced by an outside contractor whose fees were cheaper than the salary and overhead of the IT staff. And then they'd complain about the service and start hiring back staff and bring the work back in house, where it doesn't generate revenue again. And the cycle reoccurs.
The moral? The OP's simply in someplace that's in a particular phase of the corporate cycle. He shouldn't get cocky.
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I'm a parent, I don't think he should be modded troll. He's right - if you're working harder than you used to and not getting more pay and better reviews then sucks to be you, find a better job where you're more appreciated. Surely this "extra work" they imagine isn't all in their heads, so must be those parents taking advantage of them lololol.
This is so true (Score:3, Informative)
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Your performance is not suffering, you are still completing your job and then hitting a blocker that's out of your control.
You just need to ensure that this is taken into consideration whenever your performance is being evaluated.
It is your supervisor who is failing to perform.
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Because we're all in this together? Because your part of an organization rather than running your own company? Because you accept the socialism of your company when it benefits you, but are unwilling to support the same when it costs you? Because your manager may show more judgment in his currently available hours than you do in your five hours of work a day (after Slashdot time is figured in) making him worth more
How convenient (Score:5, Informative)
An opinion piece [cnn.com], citing the same New York Times article, argues childless workers are being exploited.
If the paid work that parents can't manage falls to the childless -- who already had full workloads, especially at big tech companies that have long erased the distinction between work and life -- of course there is going to be resentment and anger. That's not a lack of empathy or a sense of entitlement. It's a correct assessment of the fact that your workplace is exploiting you because of your parental status, and pitting parents against non-parents instead of solving the problem at hand: Too much work and not enough people to do it.
I can speak from my workplace that absolutely there is too much work and not enough people to do it. It's a known issue which, for various reasons, won't be resolved any time soon. And yes, those without kids are bearing a heavy workload.
As I have repeatedly said, corporations took their tax cut and wasted it on frivolous purchases of stock buybacks and executive salaries instead of doing something useful such as raising employee salaries or, as this article shows, hiring more people. This is the very reason salary growth was almost non-existent in this supposedly "booming" economy. Employees are worked harder for the same pay and they're not willing to relocate because they have kids. The childless were able to move more easily, but that only gets them so far until they're back bearing the workload of their coworkers.
If companies are saying that people with children get special treatment such as additional time off or more flexible hours, that same consideration should be given to everyone. If you don't, morale will plunge and resentment will boil over. And the only ones to blame are those at top.
As an aside, in Japan, a company said those who don't smoke get six additional days off [fox5dc.com] to make up for the people who take breaks to go smoke.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Minimum wage was enough for a family. (Score:5, Insightful)
you can still have a single income household, you just can't have the dual income lifestyle.
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Re:Minimum wage was enough for a family. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The smaller houses largely don't exist now. Because the cost of permits has risen, , it's not worth it to build small houses. The costs of phones, cars, and TVs has plummeted as a share of income, so those things are irrelevant.
If the federal minimum wage were a living wage, it would be at least $15/hr.
If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with employer compensation, it would be over $30/hr.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Parents and non-parents (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fascinating how easy it is to sort out the parents and the non-parents by reading this thread.
Re:Parents and non-parents (Score:4, Interesting)
I looked at the title and said to myself "bet there's gonna be a lot of libertarian sociopathy on display there" and man, I have not been disappointed.
Re:Parents and non-parents (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember when i was young I use to look up to such people as socially, culturally and politically mature, they always seemed to be very clever and edgy. Now as a grown man i can see a lot of people support similar tenets, are of similar levels of intelligence but just keep their head down, raise their family and do the best they can without feeling the need to rub it in everyone's faces how great they are. I am almost embarrassed that i looked up to those obnoxious nerds, and pity that they seem so stuck in their ways rather than developing and growing over time.
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There's a fair number aunts and uncles without kids who nonetheless support the flexibility offered to parents. Probably some school teachers without kids who know exactly how hard it is to manage a classroom come off sounding like parents, too. I'm going to guess that anyone who is actually plugged into their family instead of living alone in an apartment focused on nothing but their job and dating life is going to be defending parent flexibility right now.
Drag is well known concept in tech companies (Score:3)
The concept of "drag" and "drag coefficient" has been a part of the tech companies hiring and retention since at the 90's. That's why many companies recruit right out of university. They don't want drag like spouse, children, and community responsibilities. Some tech companies want the whole employee, all the time. The company wants evenings and weekends that might otherwise be spent dating or pursuing outside interests. That's what you sign up for when you work for tech slave drivers.
I've heard some pretty creative excuses why a co-worker had to leave the office "early", at 8-9 pm. Another co-worker actually got fired for having the gall to make weekend plans and was unavailable to work during the "crunch" that was not really a crunch. Glad that is behind me.
Yes, I Am a Parent Working From Home (Score:2)
We are living through a 100-year pandemic. It will probably be less than a year before vaccines have it under control. And some employees are complaining that parents have it too easy?
How stupid to turn on each other like that.
Correction: Big Tech firms filled (Score:2)
Says the self employed old guy that needs to remind himself to get home from the shop every few days to make sure he's still married
Easy solution, all get same benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
There is zero issue with people feeling parents get special treatment, if they don't get treated differently than anyone else...
Parents do have it rough, but if you think about it single people have similar kinds of issues, with stuff that needs to be taken care of, juggling personal life issues with work.
So be flexible for everyone, then people don't complain about what everyone else gets. Let all workers have flexible schedules to be able to deal with whatever. Have understanding that anyone may have an emergency that requires slight shifting of schedules. It's not really that hard to accommodate most people.
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But that's... inefficient!
Why hire you when you have to take care of a family when I can bottom-barrel some lowlife who cares nothing for others let alone himself for the almighty dollar!
Labor unions just might make a comeback during this pandemic, and for this I'm not upset.
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This is about managment, not parenting (Score:4, Insightful)
The team I work for now has about 50 people on it, with a 60/40 split of parents/childless (empty-nesters I count as childless here). Our management team recognizes that the parents on our team are struggling, but they didn't try to zero-sum the team and make the childless work harder. They simply said, "This year will be a little leaner, we won't be as productive, but we'll use it to focus on what matters the most."
Thanks to principled leadership, the entire team has rallied together. The parents feel supported and the childless feel free to be generous with the parents when appropriate. Its been hard but really good.
Note: I should probably also mention we're in a state that has open schools, which certainly makes the whole situation easier. I've got no idea how Californians are living through this with Gov. Gavin 'lockdown forever' Newsom.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Note: I should probably also mention we're in a state that has open schools, which certainly makes the whole situation easier. I've got no idea how Californians are living through this with Gov. Gavin 'lockdown forever' Newsom.
We're doing quite well. Per your comment, it is about management and the trust people have with that management. People here trust Gov. Newsom. He has been leading the effort here, is very pro-active and has always been upfront with us on what he's doing and why he's doing it. Which is a heck of a lot better than some states (Florida, I'm looking at you). Is it a major hassle? Yes, yes it is. But if you look at the COVID statistics on our state, we are the most populous state in the union (almost 40 million
Modern world shouldn't need two breadwinners. (Score:5, Insightful)
-work work work. what about living a life and not working it away?
Sure, why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
FUCK!
Things are tough all over (Score:3)
In the long list of things that suck massively in 2020, this probably doesn't even make the top ten.
I mean, right now it is clogged with wildfire smoke outside and there is this pandemic and stupid yahoos who won't wear masks and a possible civil war...
As long as you are breathing easy right now you should be grateful. Literally. As long as most of us are still alive we might even be able to get out of this partially intact.
Productivity differs massively any way ... (Score:2)
Productivity differs massively from employee to employee and in most jobs that is hardly reflected in pay. Why worry about parental breaks ... if they have 10 IQ points on you than you they probably still outperform you, if you have 10 IQ points on them it just got a tiny bit worse.
Just throw it on the pile of the "injustices" of job remuneration.
Whiners. (Score:2)
This is a non problem because it will sort itself. If you are such a superstar that you are covering for yourself and those slacker parents, then your reviews and pay should match this. If not - find a new job, you aren't being valued properly.
But like most things about "inequity" people are full of shit and imagine themselves to be super capable and "deserving" of the same or more pay than some other guy "just because".
Add "parentism" to the huge list of *isms people delude themselves into thinking is resp
They'll pay my pension (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Personal life decisions (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, there have been a number of studies proving people who work the longest hours often aren't the most productive workers. There comes a point where efficient, hard-working employees who actually have lives outside the office harbor justifiable resentment towards asocial drones who spend 18 hours a day at the office, most of it unsupervised. And they tire of hearing those same pathetic, emotionally stunted creatures portray themselves as somehow more valuable because they have chosen lives that are loveless, meaningless and sterile.
Re: (Score:2)
This also is not the fifties being replayed. Legallly you really can't give parents bigger raises or more time off. But legally, tech firms are big abusers of the laws anyway, given that they often implicitly expect you to work more than 40 hours a week without additional compensation. It just feels weird though if this the double standard that had been all but extinct is resurrected.
On the other hand, the double standard might not actually exist. This resentment may be false, it may just be a few loud
Re:They are pulling their weight (Score:5, Insightful)
It is possible to both have sympathy and yet feel cheated. Sympathy because someone is in an extremely difficult situation, yet cheated because they have to do extra work because of someone else's choices.
Raising children can be viewed as doing a service for society because the world needs children. It can also be viewed as only a personal choice because the world has enough children. It depends on your philosophy on where we want the world's population to end up. Do we want 8 or 10 billion people, or would we be better off ramping down to say 3-4?
If someone chooses to produce free public art, done for the common good, should they be allowed to spend less time at work due to their public service? Is it different if they are volunteering a a firefighter? What public services deserve that break, what don't?
There is no easy answer. I think that the reality is that right now, parents need a break because they are being stretched to the breaking point and there is no other option. I fully support giving them all the time that they need to take care of their kids. But afterwards, should their career paths represent the reduction in time they had to do their jobs? Or should they owe vacation time?
In the end, I think its best if businesses judge their employees by their long term performance in their jobs, not by any outside activities, no matter now vital or noble.