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On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

nytimes.com

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Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#111

Post by tectonic »

menloparkbum wrote: post #96
nickb wrote: post #21

The big issue that Google has (incidentally the same issue that MS went through) is the two classes of employees that they now have and the resentment and disconnect between the two groups. The two groups, of course, are those who are millionaires and are 'fully vested' and those new googlers who are not millionaires (and probably never will become millionaires). The latter group relies on a salary to live in a very…

Mountain View is indeed expensive but $110K is $50K more than the average household income in the Bay Area. Aside from packing 3 people to a cube, Google pampers its employees above and beyond almost any other company in the area. There is free food, health insurance, free gym, free laundry, free haircuts and so forth. Taking this into account, a Google employee doesn't have to spend much money on anything other than…

I worked there, the haircuts aren't free.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#112

Post by time_management »

I'm going to comment on a micropoint, since the main issues seem pretty well covered at this point.

Having discovered that Google is not, in fact, the promised land, a number of Googlers have left recently to join start-ups, hotter companies like Facebook — and even Microsoft.

Wait a second... Facebook is "hotter"? That seems unreal. It's not that Facebook is a bad company, per se, but I'd much rather work at Google. I can't imagine top-talent wanting to have Mark Zuckerberg, an arrogant 24-year-old, as a boss. I can't speak for tip-top talent, but even still I'd rather gargle a fistful of nuts and bolts.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#113

Post by blurry »

greyman wrote: post #75
davidw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the parent of a 2 month old, it's a difficult question we're facing right now. Who? How? When? Should my wife, with a doctorate in biochemistry, abandon her career completely and stay home? Should I? I'm not enthusiastic about those options. Should we hire someone? Not wild about that either. I think the best would be to kind of try and switch off, but it's going to require a lot of flexibility, and perhaps earnin…

Hi davidw, Here in Slovakia, the most common way to solve it is that mother will stay at home for two or three years (it is also called "mother's vacation"), and then resume her career. I think that in most cases, this is the most sane option. Some mothers would stay at home for 6 years - but even in this scenario, it doesn't mean the abandonment of the career, does it? Can't she return to work after a few years and…

If you quit your job for 3-6 years, you lose a large part of what it takes to make money: if you are technical, you lose skills, if you are in sales, you lose contacts, etc. The truth of the matter is, in Slovakia (as well as most other places) the men want the women to take care of babies, and the women agree. It has nothing to do with it being "the most sane option", or the "first years being the most magical". If it were that simple, the men would be lining up to quit their jobs for a few years of magic and then come back, no harm done.

In reality, the men are not keen on staying at home, and for good reason - you lose your marketability, and poetic ideas of parenthood aside, it's not all that magical to take care of a screaming, pooping kid who is too young to engage in activities that adults find interesting.

If am probably coming across a little harsh but having grown up female in the Eastern Block, I am predictably annoyed that the men from my part of the world are quick to preach to women what they don't want to practice themselves. If you think staying at home is so great, why do you immediately say David's wife should do it?

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#114

Post by blurry »

cpr wrote: post #18

I know one shouldn't question orthodoxy, but it seems insane to me to have children and then dump them all day, from a young age, with strangers. What's the point of having them if you're not raising them?

I grew up in daycare, and I am not sure why anyone would call taking a kid to play with other kids all day "dumping children with strangers". It's plain fun, and obviously after day one, the strangers are longer strangers.

Implying that only insane (read: ignorant and uncaring) parents would choose to work and leave their kids to play with other kids during the day is just typical conservative scaremongering. I am sure there are bad daycare centers out there, but then there are bad stay-at-home mothers out there also. One is not good and the other is not evil, both are choices made by equally intelligent and caring people.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#116

Post by erdos2 »

It's expensive to raise a family in the United States. The economics and the culture are against it. Add to that the cost of raising a family with someone who turns out to be the wrong person: your expected income after marriage must be reduced by the probability of divorce times the cost of divorce. Children necessarily complicate matters.

The problem would be alleviated somewhat if more and more people owned their own businesses, instead of the situation we currently have, of numerous workers employed by a wealthy class. At some point, these workers should simply refuse to work for anyone substantially more wealthy than they are. The value to an employer of having a large pool of interchangeable labor is calculable. Who created that value? Not the employer: the people. And it is the people who should and who must demand that value they created for themselves.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#117

Post by erdos2 »

schoudha wrote: post #78

I work at Google and this article has a few statements that make it clear the author's sources aren't credible (At least on this issue). I wouldn't take this too seriously and I'm surprised that the Times: 1. Thought Google's daycare policy was worthy of the front page 2. Couldn't find a credible source who actual understands how and why the decision was made.

The Times is usually scrupulous about fact checking--except when it comes to supporting Imperial adventures and warmongering.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#118

Post by dmix »

menloparkbum wrote: post #99
arn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google day care is said to now cost $57,000 for two kids in post-tax money (which means closer to $80,000 of pre-tax money). right?

Yes. It does seem absurd that Google day care costs more per year than attending Harvard. A full time nanny can be hired for half that. Someone with a $110K salary and a working significant other has plenty of options for child care. If they are truly struggling to make ends meet, they are simply mismanaging their finances. I'm assuming the other person works too, which is why they need child care. Thus, their actual…

Then hire a nanny?

People get too used to what they have. Try leaving and seeing how much better plan B is.

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#119

Post by far33d »

I have a 7-month-old, and I believe that my wife has found the ideal care situation. She works, from home, part time. Hours are flexible, she can stay home with our daughter, and get most of her work done during naps or after I get home.

I believe as time goes on, this is going to become more and more common as there are more women in the workforce who are uninterested in waiting until their late 30s to have children and telecommuting gets to be more common.

It's constant hard work for her, but she would never trade her time with our daughter for the extra money from being full-time, even if that extra pay covered the child-care (which it wouldn't).

Re: On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble

#120

Post by davidw »

calambrac wrote: post #93
davidw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put off having kids until things are 'perfect', you may never have any. Even then, something might go wrong - say a serious, chronic illness, a company tanks at the wrong moment, or any number of other completely unforeseeable events. We've thought long and hard about any number of things, but there are simply too many variables. And I think it's extremely presumptuous and unfriendly to go casting aspersions a…

You're broadening the scope of the debate again. I said you should have a plan in place for issues like who compromises their career. How does that balloon into "put off having kids until things are perfect"? Of course, there are extenuating circumstances which can waylay any planning; I never intended to imply that there weren't. Go back and read my post, and you'll see that my criticism was conditional. If you did…

The debate is very broad in scope because many things are interconnected.

My umbrage was anything but false: the idea that we had taken the arrival of a child so lightly as to not consider and plan for the future most certainly implies negative things about me and my wife, especially considering that people here really don't have that much knowledge of our situation.

pg's response was quite astute: we thought and planned beforehand, but things change rapidly, and in ways that are unpredictable. One small, simple example is that I thought at this stage, since our daughter is basically in the eating/pooping/sleeping phase, it would be easy to get back to work, and leave most of it to my wife, since she has to feed her in any case. However, it's quite difficult to concentrate on work, and I really enjoy helping out and spending time with the baby, even if she doesn't do much. There are plenty of other things that aren't like we'd imagined them either.

Basically, unless you have experience with kids yourself, I think that it's not so easy to understand what it's like.

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