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

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

#821
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…

Taking care of elderly parents can be equally rough.

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

#822

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 really care that people with kids have advantages over me, in fact, I pushed for them to have these advantages, because they need it more than I do.

However, I don't think we should consider that people that have kids contribute more actively to the continuation of the human race, or our society. The human race / our society will be just fine with less kids.

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

#823
post #608

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…

> strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy We're talking about 22 year olds who have always been told they're smarter than everybody, spend more of their free time with computers than with people, and started making $200k+ immediately after college. Those adjectives correctly describe a large portion of those people.

> spend more of their free time with computers than with people

Not of my own free will, I assure you.

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

#824
post #160

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 a…

You can't wave away taking care of kids as "personal obligations", as though it was akin to doing laundry or something. Also, "I chose not to" is a silly statement - do you think all the parents looked into a crystal ball and thought yes, despite the oncoming pandemic, I will have these kids"?

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

#825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No single employee at a company is productive enough that them leaving literally doubles a person's workload, especially when most people aren't actually productive for an entire day and there is a lot of evidence that 4 day work weeks are just as productive. If this environment did exist, the employee should quit unless they are making A LOT of money.

> the employee should quit Because the job market is looking so fantastic right now? Yes, you're describing a hostile workplace, but right now is the worst time in over a decade to be giving up a reliable income.

I think in general you are right, but this article was about tech workers, who are largely unaffected in terms of the job market from what I can tell (I could be wrong about this though). Also, it seems like the job market is ironically getting better for tech? I am seeing more remote opportunities on who's hiring so the job pool is opening up due to this.

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

#826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This cat is so high quality that it changes my reaction of the situation from empathetic and concerned to optimistic and impressed. I think there is nothing heartbreaking about your situation if you're dropping cats of this caliber to anonymous door notes.

Agreed no-one who can draw this level of cat deserves our sympathy.

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

#827
I hope the situation changes soon. I'm a parent and two of my kids are doing school online. I have been able to make it work, in that I'm not slacking at work or leaving stuff for someone else, but I'm working much longer than I ever did at the office. I've found the best way to meet the demands of work, while meeting the demands of my kids, is the put some work on the back burner. Once they go to bed, I catch an hour or two before getting up and knocking out the work I wanted to do earlier. I understand it's not tenable, but nothing else I can do at the moment.

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

#828
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's possible to put up the kids for adoption, or more practically aborting them in advance.

Please don't do this here.

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

#829

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…

People should procreate if they want to and not as a service to society. It’s ok. I think we will manage at 8 billion. You have people who essentially outsourced parenting to have a career and that’s not a ‘sacrifice’. It’s a choice.

It's not that simple. Will we manage at 8 billion but with double the amount of retirees to take care of?

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

#830
post #160

Earlier 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…

As a parent, I would love to have an opportunity to work part-time. Suppose I work 3 days a week, and my wife works 2 days a week, we can arrange those days so that each day someone can be with kids. (It might hypothetically even be 3 days + 3 days if one of the jobs would allow Saturdays.) Working 3/5 time for 3/5 salary would feel fair towards my colleagues. (Many of us work on multiple projects at the same time, s…

Yes, we should make part-time jobs more common in our society. Just now, someone asked HN crowd about tech part-time jobs. Maybe it will be useful for you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24401206

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