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

#331

Post by ptmcc » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #126

MaximumYComb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So has the cost of caring for old people but they don't complain about that.

Do public taxes pay for my care when I’m old? I thought we just got Social Security which is a fixed rate.

Yes, most seniors survive on Medicare.

Our society has completely forgotten how prevalent and crushing elder poverty was prior to Social Security and Medicare being enacted.

The majority of seniors in this country depend at least partially, if not wholly, on Medicare/SS to not be destitute and uncared for. The numbers for retirement/health savings for seniors beyond Medicare/SS are very bleak.

And yet we are perpetually at risk of throwing it all away for some short-term political points.

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

#332

Post by sulam » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #256

sulam wrote: post #242

Earlier 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.).

Moving because of the pandemic when it means moving away from jobs (and potentially a career in the case of a technical writer), family, friends you've had since childhood...

It's not only not that simple, it's not even clear to me it's the right answer. The right answer is probably something involving employers understanding that this is a hard time right now and you need to be flexible.

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

#333

Post by MacsHeadroom » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #44

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…

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…

Move to an area where you can afford a house on one income or two half incomes and stop working so much. If you want to raise a family, raise one. That's your choice.

If you want other people to subsidize your productivity and/or income so you can live beyond your means in an area where you can't afford to raise a family, then that's a big ask.

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

#334

Post by alexbanks » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

I"m not sure why this thread is so polarized. I am 30 and I don't have kids - I am burnt out from the pandemic and can assume that those trapped inside with their kids are orders of magnitude more burnt out than me. I feel bad for them. I am also very burnt out, which shows itself in an array of different symptoms (more irritable, more prone to being frustrated/resentful for those that have different situations than me, etc).

It's fine to acknowledge that some have it harder than you, but to also wish that you had it easier. I wish we all had it easier. Sometimes, when I'm feeling most frustrated with everything, I wish I also had an excuse to work part time but keep my entire pay (which is, ignoring all else, what a lot of peers with children get). Humans are complicated and can have lots of feelings, some of which are irrational and some of which are unempathetic. We're all getting squeezed right now.

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

#335

Post by schreiaj » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #201

Before the pandemic, this resentment already existed. It's just exacerbated now. There have always been hidden benefits for people with kids. And although those benefits don't nearly make up for the extra responsibilities of having kids, those without kids feel that it's unfair. For example, someone with kids gets a bigger insurance benefit. Usually managers are pretty forgiving when someone says they need to leave t…

I don’t have kids. I have a partner with some very not fun medical conditions.

I have never had any issues getting “dinged” for the fact that I have to stop work at a specific time because meds need to be taken with food. I communicate it clearly to my peers and managers.

In the last couple months I’ve had to miss days to deal with doctors sometimes on zero notice (as in I actually responded to a question from my boss with “uh if this is urgent here’s my cell call in about 30 and I can discuss it but I have to take my other half to the doctor”)

Some of this is being willing to admit it and just simply ask. I didn’t once and tried to work through it and my boss at the time reamed me out for it.

But I’d also never think twice if a coworker said “I gotta take off early, got a date”. Life happens, as long as nobody is outright abusing it who cares?

It sounds like in the situation you described people are abusing it and the managers are just not paying much attention.

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

#336

Post by rdtwo » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #169

WWLink wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that comparison breaks down as soon as you go from making widgets to creating nebulous IP. Who can really say if the smoker on non smoker writes better code in their 8 hrs

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

#337

Post by duderific » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

bluejellybean wrote: post #155

Ductapemaster wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 excu…

> Maybe not a pandemic ...

But, we are in a pandemic now. So the rest of your argument is moot.

> One knows unexpected things happen with children, if you haven't prepared for those unplanned contingencies, that's on you as a parent.

Sure, maybe a broken leg, or mono, or some other health issue could force the child to be home for a while. But not all schools close suddenly, and all other childcare options as well. What would planning for that look like exactly?

> 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 ... able to work only 6 months out of the year, 6 month vacations

As a father of two small children, I can confidently tell you that having a newborn is hardly a six month vacation.

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

#338

Post by johnjj257 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #289

johnjj257 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course? So what? Many of those children will not have children of their own, so that puts them in a different class than their parents. Which is why that is different then going to school.

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

#339

Post by jdm2212 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #312

jdm2212 wrote: post #274

Earlier 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…

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 complete…

> Then is it cool if I skip a few meetings to volunteer to help the homeless?

That's the thing -- you won't actually go volunteer with the homeless. (Or at least, 99% of us wouldn't.) But parents actually have to change those diapers. If there's a little kid running around in the background of that Zoom call, someone is doing a lot of hard work to keep the kid alive. And unlike volunteering at the homeless shelter, they can't just decide they don't feel like it.

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

#340

Post by ShroudedNight » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #298

kevstev wrote: post #140

Earlier 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…

IMO the real broken part of this system is that people are not getting legally-protected personal time. A big part of the resentment is that a person who chose to have children ends up being able to be excused from work to take care of children, while a person who has no children is not as easily excused to do what they want to do, because it is deemed low priority compared to children. We need to be prioritizing peo…

While giving every employee personal time may well be the right answer, I also believe that we should acknowledge that, at least up until recently, there was an on-going social contract that society had that provided parents with additional time as an on-going investment into the health of our social fabric, and that, in a sense, we have already benefited (at least in aggregate) from the dividend payed by the previous generation. I think there's a cogent argument to be made that by not paying it forward, we are breaching the duty incurred when we received the benefit as children.