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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

#191

Post by x87678r »

kube-system wrote: post #51
pyronik19 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How do you (legally) differentiate between people who put in less work because of their children and those who put in less work because they underperform?

It is legal and normal to discriminate on the basis on how much work you do. I think you can even legally discriminate on whether someone is a parent - protected classes are Age, Race, National Origin, Religious Beliefs, Gender, Disability, Pregnancy and Veteran Status.

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

#192

Post by bpodgursky »

falcolas wrote: post #171
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…

> 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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

Are you seriously suggesting that you should only have kids if you have the resources to fully support them in a once-in-a-century pandemic wherein half of civil society collapses around them?

You're right that it's an unpopular opinion, because it's an extraordinarily dumb one.

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

#193

Post by rajangdavis »

falcolas wrote: post #171
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…

> 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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

I don't have kids and I don't think this is a good take on the issue considering that part of the reason that parents are having a difficult time is because of how their government managed the pandemic.

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

#194

Post by rootusrootus »

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.

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.

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

#196

Post by nicbou »

jacquesm wrote: post #162
usrusr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if "woodworking" was replaced with "volunteer firefighting"?

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

#197

Post by coffeemaniac »

mc32 wrote: post #168
ng12 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I’d give them some slack, but as always, abuse of good intentions is why we end up not having good things

Taking marital status into account of how much "slack" you grant an employee is forbidden by law.

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

#198

Post by ip26 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #135
softwaredoug wrote: post #18

It's simply depressing how parent/kid-hostile society has become... I'm not saying we need explosive population growth. But I feel one of the main purposes of society is raising and protecting children. If you're a human-future-optimist, you want some kind of generation that's better than us to continue on.... I'm not saying you NEED to have kids, but I feel it's part of society's collective duty to consider the next…

Societies that don't care about the future in the form of children won't have a future.

Self-selecting, if you will. Not to mention, if your society doesn't propagate, others will. Which means whatever your values are, good or bad, they will still be lost and replaced with the values of the society which propagates.

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

#199

Post by falcolas »

bpodgursky wrote: post #192
falcolas wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

Are you seriously suggesting that you should only have kids if you have the resources to fully support them in a once-in-a-century pandemic wherein half of civil society collapses around them? You're right that it's an unpopular opinion, because it's an extraordinarily dumb one.

If a pandemic were the only potential cause of a child not going to school, you'd be right. But it's not. Between mental issues, behavioral issues, and health issues, there's many potential causes for a child to not go to school. Not to mention the first 5 years of a child's life and summers.

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

#200

Post by falcolas »

rajangdavis wrote: post #193
falcolas wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Unpopular opinion: We should not be rewarding or elevating people for having unprotected sex without the support network to take care of their children in the event they are unable to attend school. There's a thousand reasons a child might not be ab…

I don't have kids and I don't think this is a good take on the issue considering that part of the reason that parents are having a difficult time is because of how their government managed the pandemic.

As I mentioned, apparently not boldly enough, there's many reasons children could go to school, the pandemic being only one.
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