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

cnet.com

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

#161

Post by gones00n »

mc32 wrote: post #45
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 agree. Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole. Those children the parents are taking care of now will be the ones who will provide for the one complaining now via taxes as well as services rendered to them. If anything, companies should be providing more childcare so that more women (as well as some men) will have less of a burden balancing career and caregiving. I see these people as being…

"Benefit society as a whole" sounds good in theory but rarely works in practice because people are inherently self-interested. A simple counterargument is that someone's kids may not turn out at all to be productive members of society.

Fundamentally corporations are different to the government. So whereas government can tax and progressively tax to soften wealth inequalities, corporations ultimately need to be profitable and revenue-positive to survive. A corporation can create benefits for certain employee demographics but there are financial limits.

A dystopic result would be the separation of employees based on their parental status: most non-parents work for Company A, and most parents work for Company B. I wonder which of the 2 companies will be more successful (at least financially) in the long run.

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

#162

Post by jacquesm »

usrusr wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Woodworking is a hobby. Raising kids is a full time job, no time off, no pay, no changing jobs.

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

#163

Post by usrusr »

aaomidi wrote: post #152

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…

I agree with your assessment about how social distancing is in some ways worse for singles, but I fail to see how time off would help.

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

#164

Post by jacquesm »

luckylion wrote: post #150
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They are working as much or more. Just not on the same things. The same can be said about anyone with a hobby though. They are working as much or more. Just not on the same things.

Kids are a hobby?

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

#165

Post by nicbou »

aaomidi wrote: post #146
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

> Yes, they should be unhappy about that: at their managers. Not at their colleagues attempting to care for children during a pandemic. Why are you assuming it's not that?

The article has many pretty unambiguous quotes about it

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

#167

Post by tyldum »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #133
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'm a parent and a cancer patient. I have no problem if someone complains about the time off I take. Though I don't think anyone would complain. I keep it to a minimum, and I make up for it when I can. Some people are going to sacrifice their personal life, and their health for their careers. I decided a long time ago that I was not going to do that. I accept that others may climb the corporate ladder faster than me,…

I feel those who complain fixate on other people's benefits, but neglect their own. By not being at work, those people lose out on opportunities within the company.

And don't underestimate the stress generated by not working 100%, but there is nothing you can do about it.

Not to mention trying to pick up the slack after the kids are in bed, after you've done homework/homeschooling.

We all do our best with the current situation, it's not like we go home to slouch on the couch and laugh about the suckers at work without kids.

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

#168

Post by mc32 »

ng12 wrote: post #147
mc32 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Parents are making sacrifices which benefit society as a whole. Those children the parents are taking care of now will be the ones who will provide for the one complaining now via taxes as well as services rendered to them. If anything, companies should be providing more childcare so that more women (as well as some men) will have less of a burden balancing career and caregiving. I see these people as being…

What I've seen is the complaints are largely coming from couples that want to raise kids while both parents work full time jobs. Asking for fewer hours so you can continue that lifestyle is asking your employer and fellow employees to subsidize your second income, not your ability to have and raise children. My coworkers with SAH spouses aren't feeling the burn anywhere near as badly -- it's just an extended summer f…

I would definitely agree the ones hit hardest would be the single parents and would deserve the most flexibility. That would be tough. With regard to dual income parents. I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things. I’d hope they’d be able to trade roles during their respective busy times. As I’ve said before... it’s very rare anyone performs above 50% of their time “working”. So it’s not like WFH (or office) is like hamsters in a hamster wheel all day long. If they can coördinate switching on and off they should be able to pull it off with exceptions.

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

#169

Post by nicbou »

WWLink wrote: post #74
ll931110 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah that's the "they have x, why don't i?" attitude that causes a lot of problems. It should be an "everyone should have x!" attitude instead. At the end of the day, everyone's human, so there should be a little bit of slack in the staffing - long term - so that when someone's unavailable, nobody is drowning.

That's the argument I made above. If they get paid 100% of their salary for 80% of the output, so should everyone else. I compared it to smokers taking smoke breaks while non-smokers aren't allowed to take random 5 minute breaks.

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

#170

Post by treeman79 »

eyesbear wrote: post #73
treeman79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have small elementary age kids. It’s rough. 8-10 interruptions the first couple hours of work. Then meltdown over being hungry. Then afternoon interruptions because they are bored. Lots of crappy reasons, but also because they want me to spend time with them. Also dealing with my own chronic illness. I was managing to cope/hide before Covid. Between it all is a sense of guilt of not getting enough done for work and n…

Did your kid like the cat you drew?

Cat in question https://ibb.co/ZVfjzB3
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