Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by extrawork99 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

Ductapemaster wrote: post #35

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…

A pandemic is exactly how life is. Do you know of anything that happened outside of your timeline-bubble?

There is and will always be the risk that those safety nets go away. Society changes. Family members die. Childcare is expensive. Hospitals get overwhelmed or fail.

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

#152

Post by aaomidi » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

What I find short sighted about these policies are they don't realize that people without children can also feel stressed and need more time off.

e.g. if you're single during this time, you are completely isolated from the world, and your colleagues. This can be extremely difficult mentally and on an individual level can be much harder than just someone with a kid. These policies shouldn't be "oh if you have kids you can take this time off" and more "this is an unprecedented time, please take time off if you need it for any reason."

Trying to make judgement calls on who needs the time off and who doesn't is the major cause of this issue.

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

#153

Post by wayneftw » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

tbatchelli wrote: post #57

How much of this issue is related to having a part of the population think that people having children is solely a private question? "You had children, why should I bear your burden!" If none of us had children there would d be no economy to support anyone's life in, let's say, 40 years from now. People making and raising new sane and healthy people should be considered a social and common good, for the sake of all,…

I’ve always thought that people should need to get a license to have a baby.

You need a license to pull fish out of a river or to plant bamboo in your own yard, but any moron is allowed to make new people. How does that make any sense?

With a baby license, hopefully we would actually only make new sane, healthy people - currently that’s not happening because the world is chock full of unhealthy idiots that I don’t want to bear the burden of supporting.

It’s not a perfect idea, but if it’s a societal concern as you said, why shouldn’t we regulate it?

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

#154

Post by usrusr » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

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.

By that measure, one could get the absurd idea to expect getting paid time off for that woodworking project. It even has "work" right in the name. Nobody does expect that though. Better arguments should be easy to find.

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

#155

Post by bluejellybean » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

Ductapemaster wrote: post #35

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…

I disagree with your last bit.

>'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”.'

Maybe not a pandemic but it shouldn't be any shock that children make things much more complicated. It's, most of the time in the US today, a choice to have a child. The unexpected nature of a pandemic isn't really an excuse for me. One knows unexpected things happen with children, if you haven't prepared for those unplanned contingencies, that's on you as a parent. Should the same benefits be given to parents who maybe have to stay home more because they feel their kid a slightly larger burden than others? What if the child becomes autistic and you are required to spend more time with them?

Any situation like this sucks but at what point should it really be a businesses problem and when shouldn't it be? I think these are really interesting problems under normal circumstances, the Covid part is just businesses having to deal with them all at the same time rather than individually on a case-by-case. To show that this isn't just Covid, let me share with you a story about a few nurses I met who have been exploiting a hospital system for personal gain (and brag about it!), something that could ruin a small business with relative ease.

Big hospital near me has a policy of maternity leave for nursing staff, something like 6 months off, no questions asked whenever you have a child. Sounds fantastic on the surface. Well, this small pack of nurses all knowingly do the same thing, they have children as much as humanly possible, think on the order of 8-13 children. Because of their constant pregnancy and child birthing, they are effectively able to work only 6 months out of the year, 6 month vacations. Everyone else at this org, maximum time off in one stint is 3 weeks. This means, under this hospital's policy, the only way that I can take a month off is to either work at least 1 day each month. Say goodby to taking months of in winter to stay in warmer climate, say goodbye to benefits otherwise. These nurses though, who are easily able to save their salaries to cover their yearly costs, get all company benefits like healthcare. Is this 'fair'? As someone who isn't physically able to have children, I would argue no, it's not completely. This isn't to there should be nothing for these parents, I don't really know what the right answer is.

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

#156

Post by all_blue_chucks » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

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…

Employees are not neighbors. Employees are responsible for negotiating their compensation (both monetary and non-monetary). It is absolutely appropriate to use information about others' compensation when negotiating for your own compensation.

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

#157

Post by extrawork99 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #79

Shivetya wrote: post #23

Isn't it just bizarre how people can have children and not expect it to disrupt their lives. They are children, they require your engagement, this is part of the deal. Tech companies should offer the same time off to all employees whether they have children or not. Children should not be allowed to be bargaining chip to obtain more from others. Your choice. To be honest having children out weighs any negative impact…

Nobody expects having kids to be free or easy. But nobody expected to have a global pandemic that completely disrupted and in most cases eliminated the entire support structure that parents have in place either. Right now companies that are offering more support to parents are doing so because they recognize that parents are much more impacted by current events than non-parents, and also because this is expected to b…

> Nobody expects having kids to be free or easy.

Lol. Yes. They do. They expect handouts from friends and family, both in time and materials. They expect tax breaks. They expect parental leave. They expect the world to fall inline with their desires, all because they chose to have children.

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

#158

Post by user5994461 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #139

user5994461 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming all 4 people want a promotion, there are only 2 slots. It doesn't take a genius to understand that there isn't a solution to fit all ;) The job of the manager is precisely to get them to swallow the pill. Classic excuse "We didn't get enough promotion slots this year, we will get more next year". More importantly the initial assumption is wrong, not everybody care about promotion. Some employees expect to be…

> Assuming all 4 people want a promotion, there are only 2 slots. It doesn't take a genius to understand that there isn't a solution to fit all That's the point: which two are promoted? The ones that did more work or the ones that did less work? > More importantly the initial assumption is wrong, not everybody care about promotion. "Let me take your hypothetical situation and inject a bunch of fantasy to solve it". T…

You should realize that the trolley was never a trolley.

I don't know you but I will take a guess that you're young and on the initial ramp up in your career? HN is certainly filled with high competent high achievers.

That's not the case for everybody though. Many employees are happy to chug along and get a regular paycheck, doing work but preferably not too much work.

Either way, careers will slow down significantly after a decade (if you go up aggressively enough), you're senior and paid relatively well, there is no easy path up anymore. You don't mind much whether you will get this year's award and 5% raise that comes with it, that's no factor in deciding what to do of your life and where to work.

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

#159

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #121

marbletiles wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they should be unhappy about that: at their managers. Not at their colleagues attempting to care for children during a pandemic. I've heard a related thing about US workers resenting colleagues for taking paid time off for similar reasons, and it's just as weird to my European eyes. The difference a decent labour movement (or the legacy of one) can make to industrial relations is stark

But they are unhappy about their managers' decision to favor their colleagues. If you give a tax rebate to anyone who's last name starts with A, are the other people not allowed to be annoyed, given that they have to pay more taxes to make up for the rebate? "Why can't you just be happy for the A people?" feels weird. Just pay those not taking time off for the time they would've taken off. It's not a complicated conc…

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by nicbou » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

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…

I don't fully agree with you.

Back when I worked in retail or fast food, smokers could step out for a 5 minute smoke break every once in a while. As a non-smoker, I wasn't allowed to just sit there for 5 minutes. At the end of the day, we got paid the same, but smokers got 30 minutes off, courtesy of the non-smokers who picked up the slack.

Likewise, parents are excused from work because they have children. I fully appreciate the difficulty of being a parent and the necessity for those measures. I don't think we really have a choice. It's either that or we watch them slowly crack under the pressure.

That being said, they chose to have children, and I chose not to. Whatever I have going on instead can't have priority over my work schedule. Whether it's a side hustle or a little league baseball team, it has to wait.

To be clear, I want those parents to get the time they desperately need. However, if this arrangement is to last, then childless employees should also get time for their personal obligations, whatever they might be.