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

#281

Post by asveikau » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

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?

You're wrong that success comes from the individuals always and never the team dynamic. This is a very common mistake I have seen a lot.

You can't measure the amount that the 2 "slackers" are influencing decisions by talking to the 2 putting in more hours at a keyboard. A side conversation nobody bothered to document with could save weeks worth of work. Sometimes the ones who put in more hours contributed less. You may not be able to measure that.

I'll come right out and say it: Fixed number of seats promotion budgets and performance reviews based on individual achievement are usually bullshit. The entire game is false. Unfortunately it's religion for many people.

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

#282

Post by harshalizee » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #153

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 wa…

Because it is a violation of very basic Human Rights? Not to mention the can of worms that will open. Who gets to decide who's worthy of procreation? Based on political, social, economic values? This is like codifying systemic discrimination into fundamental human rights.

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

#283

Post by RHSeeger » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #185

jansan wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? My 12 year old son would be able to cook for himself if it was required. Of course the kitchen would be a total mess. With instructions like the video below everybody can learn how to cook within a few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_Ze9zIafM

As someone who loves to cook, I don't fully agree. 60% of cooking is logistics: knowing what to eat, setting time aside for grocery shopping and meal preparation, and keeping food waste to a minimum. In my opinion, this is a lot harder than the actual cooking. If you've never done it before, it's surprisingly hard. Cooking in a well-organised, well-stocked kitchen is very different from starting with an empty pantry,…

I have a hard time agreeing with this. Cooking things like hot dogs, dogs and beans, pasta and meat sauce, etc... that's relatively simple for anyone. And it can be done for the time being until they figure out how to cook better things; things that will make them happy. The ability to ease your way into cooking for one's self should make it relatively trivial.

Honestly, compared to figuring out how to work from home without losing 50% of your productivity (for someone that wasn't already setup for it), the food part seems easy.

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

#284

Post by ajford » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

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?

Failure seems to be on management for not allowing the people with families to flex their work schedule and work outside of normal hours. Or is this a specific example where the individuals are not able to perform their duties outside a specific window?

As the parent article was specifically about Tech firms, I find the likelyhood of a position with rigidly fixed hours low.

Anecdotal, I know, but I work in the tech field, and am a parent of two small children. Luckily, I've been given the ability to flex schedule, and often work two or three hours "after-hours" if I needed to go afk to parent during normal "office hours". I'm rather confident that my productivity has not dropped by any measurable margin since my flex scheduling has started, and has probably increased, since I more often take on late-night deployments or maintenance tasks since it allows me to trade hours for day-time parenting.

Now I'm sure there are people who are taking advantage of the system, or perhaps are unable to flex or work after hours and may be unable to shoulder their full workload, but I think that group is being blown out of proportions.

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

#285

Post by satyrnein » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #265

rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

> I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. Yes, some things come with downsides. I'm sure a lot of people would also want to trade places with you during the happy times you have with your kids. But you can't usually get the benefits without the downsides.

I think the current situation falls outside the bounds of the regular ups and downs. Most prospective parents were (reasonably) assuming school, childcare, etc would continue to exist.

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

#286

Post by MacsHeadroom » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #25

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…

Only after having a kid did I fully realize just how much time and freedom I had.

Freedom to go to bars (closed), clubs (closed), trips (not happening), concerts (canceled), conventions (postponed indefinitely), festivals (closed), etc...

Most things childfree people get meaning out of are canceled until further notice. You still have your parenthood. What do we get? Extra work for equal pay? Great, that'll make the pandemic suck less.

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

#287

Post by nicbou » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #194

nicbou wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that nobody can even define output accurately. I know people who output more in 25% of the time than some of their peers manage at 100%. But that's not how compensation in this industry is structured, so it is moot.

Sure, but it's fair to say that if someone has 75% availability and must miss meetings because of external events, their output is affected.

Besides, I am talking about a drop in output for a given employee, so the comparison to other employees is pointless. If my productivity dropped by 25%, I'd hear about it pretty quickly, and I doubt my explanation would matter much in my performance review.

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

#288

Post by Mirioron » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

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…

>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.

>when these complainers will be asking for benefits and services that would be unavailable without future adults.

But that's not the deal society is giving you. Society is forcing you to pay taxes now so that when you become old society will take care of you. The promise is unrelated to those future children. Society doesn't even give you the option to opt out from that.

People aren't committing a noble sacrifice when they have children. They want to have children, it's a pretty strong drive for virtually any living being.

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

#289

Post by umeshunni » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

johnjj257 wrote: post #251

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.

The problem with this analogy is that everyone uses the school system at some point in their life, but not everyone is a parent at some point.

But everyone was a child at some point

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

#290

Post by vmception » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #265

rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

> I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. Yes, some things come with downsides. I'm sure a lot of people would also want to trade places with you during the happy times you have with your kids. But you can't usually get the benefits without the downsides.

Yeah, I have the most ideal bachelor penthouse and terrace, living alone during phase I lockdown, but that didn't feel ideal after 2.5 months either.

I'm aware of the high chance of having a roommate/partner/children you begin to resent, and that was a useful rationalization given what nurses and police and articles were telling me.

But that 5% (or maybe much greater) chance of a fulfilling live-in companion was pretty enticing too.

But yes, the upsides rarely come without the downsides.