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Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

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Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#31

Post by PeterisP »

ll931110 wrote: post #12
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

I am a middle-aged adult with no children who's worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the "resentment" of those without children have for "benefits" those with children get strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy. This is time off specifically to take care of children, something now that has become exceedingly more difficult in Covid times. What's nex…

The problem is, people without children are told (or required) to pick up the workload left behind when the coworkers having children taking (multiple) weeks off. For once or twice that might be okay, but if became a chronic problem, no wonder they are not happy.

Well then, direct the anger at those who do the telling or the requiring.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#32

Post by Decker87 »

pyronik19 wrote: post #9
rblatz wrote: post #2

A lot of this feels like people looking into their neighbor's bowl to see if they are getting more than them. Love him or hate him Louis C.K. has a great quote here “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Times are tough, don't blame the parents for what they have to do, blame your management if…

There is a team of 4 people. 2 have families, 2 don't. The ones that don't picked up the slack for the ones that did. Work quality was equal, but output was greater for the singles. The team has 2 slots for promotion. Do you ignore the fact that the single people put in more work or do you factor it in in the promotion decision?

Can't speak for everyone but for the way I handle promotions it's pretty simple: Impact is what matters.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#33

Post by olliej »

codemac wrote: post #5

Personally, I struggle with these feelings as well. It seems nuts that someone working 50%+ less than someone else is going to keep all the same equity, vacation, and salary. Then again it seems nuts that they don't. All employees who had children or family members to care for before or after COVID get none of the same support. I don't think backpay is coming for those who were forced to take leave or even quit their…

But once your children get to a certain age they can take over a large amount of the work that childless people need to do themselves.

In America it seems children are also expected to support their parents in retirement, which would mean the employers should be providing more retirement support for childless employees.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#34

Post by calvinmorrison »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #20

This reminds me of local retirees who are resentful that their taxes are paying for public schools. They seem to have forgotten that someone paid for them to attend school. Regarding parental time off, it's conceivable that their own parents never had that support. Maternal/parental leave is taking decades to roll out - perhaps as long as it took for public schooling to become universally available.

Ignoring the fact the education costs have skyrocketed since they went to school

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#35

Post by Ductapemaster »

goldenchrome wrote: post #6

I sympathize with the parents but this is just how life goes. If you have kids, you’re going to be more occupied than people without kids since we all have limited time on this Earth. And of course your career will be negatively impacted. There are good things about having kids and bad things. This is one of those potential bad things. If you don’t want to deal with this possibility then simply don’t have kids.

I don’t have kids, but this strikes me as lacking empathy in the current climate.

Choosing to have kids or not pre-COVID came with a set of expectations, risks, and choices that were fairly well defined. Parental leave, childcare, proximity to family and friends, school, increased costs, medical treatemtn, etc. Parents could evaluate those based on what their employer offered and the experiences of their peers going through the same processes.

Now, with COVID, the entire world has changed. School is no longer school. Childcare doesn’t exist. Friends and family are socially distanced or inaccessible due to quarantine. Parks and beaches are closed. Vacations are extremely limited. Any social interaction has become a risk. None of these were risks that a reasonable parent would consider, and even for the paranoid ones, it is highly unlikely that anyone considered it all at once.

Given the extreme change we are going through, the “if you can’t handle it, don’t have kids argument” is just not realistic. A pandemic isn’t “just how life goes”.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#36

Post by matz1 »

pyronik19 wrote: post #9
rblatz wrote: post #2

A lot of this feels like people looking into their neighbor's bowl to see if they are getting more than them. Love him or hate him Louis C.K. has a great quote here “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Times are tough, don't blame the parents for what they have to do, blame your management if…

There is a team of 4 people. 2 have families, 2 don't. The ones that don't picked up the slack for the ones that did. Work quality was equal, but output was greater for the singles. The team has 2 slots for promotion. Do you ignore the fact that the single people put in more work or do you factor it in in the promotion decision?

There is of course trade off for having family as well as being single. One of the trade off of having family may involve lower chance to be promoted. Those who choose to have family can't expect to have the cake and eat it too.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#37

Post by ChuckMcM »

strictnein wrote: post #22
pyronik19 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a team of 4 people. 2 have families, 2 don't. The ones that don't picked up the slack for the ones that did. Work quality was equal, but output was greater for the singles. The team has 2 slots for promotion. Do you ignore the fact that the single people put in more work or do you factor it in in the promotion decision?

Neither. The failure is with the team's manager. The team's leadership should have reduced the workload of the team. It starts at the top. I work at a (non-tech) Fortune 50 and the message from the CEO on down has been the same: take vacation, take care of your family, some priorities/projects for this year will not be met and that is fine.

+1000 for this. If you're manager can't manage you're screwed.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#38

Post by [deleted] »

liability wrote: post #21
rblatz wrote: post #2

A lot of this feels like people looking into their neighbor's bowl to see if they are getting more than them. Love him or hate him Louis C.K. has a great quote here “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” Times are tough, don't blame the parents for what they have to do, blame your management if…

I generally agree with that sentiment, but I'm not sure it's persuasive when expressed by somebody who will never have to worry about his bowl being empty (e.g. a successful celebrity like Louis C.K.)

[deleted]

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#39

Post by codemac »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
codemac wrote: post #5

Personally, I struggle with these feelings as well. It seems nuts that someone working 50%+ less than someone else is going to keep all the same equity, vacation, and salary. Then again it seems nuts that they don't. All employees who had children or family members to care for before or after COVID get none of the same support. I don't think backpay is coming for those who were forced to take leave or even quit their…

They are working as much or more. Just not on the same things. It's not as if being a parent somehow translates into more free time, in fact it translates into substantially less free time if any at all.

Completely agreed.

But in the US we don't pay stay at home mother's for their time either.

These companies should help their employees, I'm saying that there is a much deeper problem in our society in how we handle individuals who are not profitable.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#40

Post by mdoms »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

I am a middle-aged adult with no children who's worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the "resentment" of those without children have for "benefits" those with children get strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy. This is time off specifically to take care of children, something now that has become exceedingly more difficult in Covid times. What's nex…

You're comparing your parenthood with cancer, but it's the others who lack empathy?
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