Life with two working adults(both in higher level tech roles) and a toddler is absolute hell in covid. For the people complaining I wish they could spend a day in either me or my Wife's shoes and see how easy they have it. WLB has gotten so unbearable we are thinking of quitting one of our jobs and just going solo income. It was one of the main reasons we sold our house and left the bay area early this year so we are not trapped in a 2 income house payment.
Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
311–320 of 1001 posts
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
Someone has to provide the goods and services you'll consume when you're old. Those people are today's kids, whose parents are doing you a big favor at considerable expense to themselves. Raising children isn't like smoking, a hobby, a side hustle, or other miscellaneous personal obligations. It's more like military service and jury duty -- an essential service that some people perform to ensure that society as we kn…
Then is it cool if I skip a few meetings to volunteer to help the homeless?
We already heavily subsidise child-rearing through taxes and other benefits. As I said elsewhere, there are mechanisms for supporting parents already. If you tried to let any other charitable endeavour take over your work schedule, you wouldn't expect your compensation to remain unaffected.
I'm not resentful at parents. It just seems completely unfair to make childless employees subsidise this adventure, as if they didn't already do it through 40 years of tax contributions.
Besides, let's not pretend that people choose to have kids as a service to humanity. I've never, ever heard anyone claim that. People have kids because they're fun, and because making them is fun.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#313I 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…
1) I think you are ignoring that it is possible for non-parent employees to be negatively affected by the pandemic as well. You seem to be dealing with it very well (which is great!), but others may be stuck working from noisy, cramped apartments and may be getting little to no social interaction. This is can definitely cause health issues and degrade happiness.
Those employees look at the large amount of family leave parents are getting and ask "why can't we get a little extra help as well?". If parents get 10 weeks of leave, how about you give non-parents 1 week of extra PTO or leave. It doesn't need to be exactly equal, but the pandemic is hard on everyone.
2) I think the non-parent employees are saying the company is showing little to no empathy towards their struggles. I really think it's less of "how dare that parent take extra leave" and more of "how dare facebook give parents all this extra leave and give non-parents nothing to help them cope with stress."
3) You choose to have children, but you do not choose to have cancer. I think your comparison there is misguided.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It starts to approach eugenics pretty quickly, which we as a society have pretty much rejected. But we do regulate the raising of children, to a certain extent. For example, we regulate school curriculum to install a certain set of values and knowledge in children. As a society, we also attempt to regulate certain kinds of parenting, by making certain forms of child abuse and neglect illegal.
Well we tolerate eugenics in some ways though. Look at the prevalence of Down's syndrome children now vs. the advent of accurate prenatal testing
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#315Earlier 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…
In this example people who’s letter starts with a basically lost a major social safety net but got a small perk instead. It’s like saying sorry you don’t qualify for social security anymore but here is 600$
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#316There is a fairness problem, and I don't see a solution except to allow everyone to work less. Working less is not a bad thing.
As a manager, I've always accommodated parental (or other family) leave requests. I even encouraged hesitant parents or other care-givers to take paid time away from work. I don't remember ever refusing leave or pressuring anyone to return to work. This was sometimes contrary to the employer's stated policy. Had I been asked about it (and I never was) I would have made the case that it is in the employer's interest and my interest as a manger to be flexible.
I never had a request for more than a few days at a time. Obviously, requests to take an extended period (months or years) are another matter.
I remember very few requests for non-vacation, self-care time off, just the rare "mental health" day.
In my experience, it really is true that parents and other care-givers take more time off than non-care-givers. In partial mitigation, I have found caregivers to be somewhat more efficient in completing work at the office, compared to single people, especially single people under 30. Parents don't have time to waste!
EDIT: I see two fairness issues, caregivers getting more time off than other employees. And, not all managers are the way I was, and it is unfair that "my" employees had a better situation than others.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just keep in mind, those people working two full time jobs might be barely making ends meeting in Silicon Valley. Maybe one is a tech writer earning 5-figures and the other is a nurse with a schedule they don't control and that doesn't give them real benefits (this is all too common). They can't afford to quit and now they have to juggle kids, too. Everything worked fine when the kids were in school and they could pa…
I hate to say "move", but if dual income is super hard to make ends meet in SV, it's time to move out of SV. The US is huge, there are tons of places with decent tech scene, but affordable housing on a 5-figure salary without needing dual income (Texas, Utah, etc.).
It's easy to say move, but much harder to actually do it. A lot of people flat out cannot afford to move half-way across the country, period, full stop, nor can they afford the added risk of getting new jobs. Plus, odds are good their salary where they're moving to is less, so it's not clear that they'll easily now be able to survive on a single salary anyway.
Plus, this solution isn't highly scalable; only so many people can do it.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a mid 30s childless man I completely agree. We essentially sent people home on a Friday, told them to figure out a work from home situation, and then they were told welp your kids aren't going to school either, and whatever childcare you had lined up has now vanished too- and this is all happening in the course of a few days at most. So now you have kids to worry about all day, home schooling to oversee, focusing…
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…
(Edited to clarify my intended meaning)
> I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now.
For those childless co-workers that wish they could accept the other end of this deal, this phrase is both common and quite painful to hear. Please consider not using it unless you really mean it, which you don't, as you actually wouldn't give up your kids for anything.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
With this I think there is a unique take: typically those who feel comfortable having children are better off. Those who are better off get rewarded for having children. So it can be a "rich get richer" problem. If you are currently childless you might end up subsidizing your coworker's choice to have children to your detriment.
And in non-pandemic times, they're subsidizing the continuation of society for the childless, to their own detriment (less free time, less self time, less money, less social life, less sleep; the list goes on and on and on).
Except children benefit their parents. Before social security, children were your social security. This mechanism hasn't disappeared. Childless people already pay more taxes that are used to subsidize other peoples' children, but they don't get nearly the benefit from that that parents do.
Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone has to provide the goods and services you'll consume when you're old. Those people are today's kids, whose parents are doing you a big favor at considerable expense to themselves. Raising children isn't like smoking, a hobby, a side hustle, or other miscellaneous personal obligations. It's more like military service and jury duty -- an essential service that some people perform to ensure that society as we kn…
Except that the children disproportionately benefit the parents (unlike jury duty or military service). This is a heads-parents-win, tails-childless-lose scenario. Your comment would be completely correct if the children ceased all communications and transactions with the parent upon entry into the labor force; but that's not what happens.
Well in proportion to the time the parents spend with the kids vs the time you are inconvenienced by them spending time with their kids balances out. Of course they will have a huge benefit from raising their kids. They raised them. But you will also have a benefit from the small temporary hassle it gives you during these times.