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Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

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Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#21

Post by akudha »

d357r0y3r wrote: post #15
akudha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw others over? How the fuck is this thing even legal, let alone ethical? Makes me so mad

Nah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit rule to prevent the abuse in the future. I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's extreme…

denying them commissions they have already earned

The key word is here "already earned". Denying that doesn't make any sense, any which way we look at it.

Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#22

Post by smt88 »

akudha wrote: post #7
sethammons wrote: post #3

> Some companies have policies that can discriminate against people who are on protected leaves by denying them commissions they have already earned Wtf? How can that possibly be a thing?

Do these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw others over? How the fuck is this thing even legal, let alone ethical? Makes me so mad

> Do these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw others over?

Yes, they literally do (or hire consultants to do it).

I went to school with lots of people who ended up in management consulting. One in particular worked at Deloitte and specialized in "human capital".

Most of their projects were to figure out how an organization could drastically reduce pension/retirement benefits for existing workers legally, while also offering much worse plans for new hires that looked good on paper.

They were paid around $1,800/day/consultant for all of these cost-cutting projects.

(This is not at all an uncommon story in the enterprise consulting world, by the way.)

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#23

Post by d357r0y3r »

akudha wrote: post #21
d357r0y3r wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit rule to prevent the abuse in the future. I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's extreme…

denying them commissions they have already earned The key word is here "already earned". Denying that doesn't make any sense, any which way we look at it. Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

> Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

Yeah, I agree. Just pointing out that this stuff rarely comes from mustache-twirling villains and more often is just a misguided attempt to solve some other related problem. Cutting off commission that has already been earned sounds pretty bad.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#24

Post by nthnh »

fghorow wrote: post #14

Just in case there are other bereaved parents (of whom I am one) reading this. I want you to know about an organization called The Compassionate Friends, composed solely of family members of a deceased child. https://www.compassionatefriends.org/ "You need not walk alone."

Thanks for sharing this!

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#25

Post by itronitron »

d357r0y3r wrote: post #15
akudha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw others over? How the fuck is this thing even legal, let alone ethical? Makes me so mad

Nah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit rule to prevent the abuse in the future. I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's extreme…

From the company's standpoint, any employee that quits is simply a cash giveaway and a huge loss.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#26

Post by falcolas »

fghorow wrote: post #11
ttul wrote: post #8

I had a baby that died. It was an excruciating experience and nobody around us knew what to do or say. From personal experience I can say it should be treated as a grave mental health issue and companies should be forced to provide a great deal of leave to both parents. Whether leave is paid or unpaid, this should be treated in the same way as any disability or health related leave. IMHO it would be cheap for compani…

I am also a bereaved parent, although my child died at age 25. I utterly agree about the grave mental health issues being caused in the parents. May peace be unto you. (Ping me if you want info about an organization called "The Compassionate Friends" specifically for bereaved parents.)

Those folks have been around forever, and I'm thankful for them. Not for my own sake, but because my mother had 3-4 miscarriages and one child who died of SIDS (this was in the early 70's). They most likely kept her sane.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#28

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

akudha wrote: post #21
d357r0y3r wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit rule to prevent the abuse in the future. I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's extreme…

denying them commissions they have already earned The key word is here "already earned". Denying that doesn't make any sense, any which way we look at it. Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

I'd bet money that the policies don't literally say "we will claw back commissions you've already earned if you go on leave". The scenario is almost certainly that there's a specific point where commissions are earned as a matter of policy, and that policy doesn't align with the informal understanding of when you earn a commission or the timeframe of the work that earned you the commission.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#29

Post by kick »

curiousgal wrote: post #10

She got six weeks instead of eight. How dare they. She could've applied for more days based on her psychological state. Also how dare they not pay her commissions earned by her team while she was away. I think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more "Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!". Just my $0.02…

I think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more "Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!".

In most circumstances I agree with this viewpoint, but what happened in this case is something that less-policed societies would see business owners killed for.

The "Here's why you shouldn't do it" is both morally and economically obvious, and any corporation or C-level who can't see that is completely without morals and common sense, along with basic human emotion, seemingly.

"How dare you be so inhumane to your employees that most European countries would see you fined or imprisoned, and that every religion would see you in the worst possible afterlife!"

The press you'd receive alone is reason enough, and anyone with any intelligence whatsoever would see that this would be more broadly controversial than more or less any other possible evil action.

Re: Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died

#30

Post by salawat »

curiousgal wrote: post #10

She got six weeks instead of eight. How dare they. She could've applied for more days based on her psychological state. Also how dare they not pay her commissions earned by her team while she was away. I think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more "Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!". Just my $0.02…

Don't much care your gender, but I think that viewpoint is a bit deranged, with all due respect.

There are things you don't do, whether it makes fiscal sense or not. You think very carefully about accepting it as a possibility, because doing so drops the standard for everyone else around you.

If for some reason you do, you especially don't do it unilaterally without getting buy-in from the other party out of respect. It's like people have completely lost any sense of civility around actually finding out what people are okay with.

I vehemently disagree with the economic argument being given primacy over some level of social decency and civil decorum.

It's one of those "honor" things. We do it not because it's the easiest, but because it's what makes us human. Shouldering some extra burden when someone else is suffering from a much greater one foisted through no fault of their own is just how it should work.

Of course no one in business likes that type of sentiment because it doesn't fit on a balance sheet.

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