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Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

businessinsider.com

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Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#61

Post by throw3638 »

Register your kid as a pet (emotional support animal), and you can bring it anywhere. Kids should be included in office life! If dog parents can bring their child to work, why not human parents?!

Edit: Dell is a pet friendly company, bringing animals to office is employment perk, and should not be a problem! There are no limitations on species, and humans are technically animals!!!

https://jobs.dell.com/en/dell-pets-scruffy

https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/flexible-work-solutions-can-...

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#62

Post by [deleted] »

zzyzxd wrote: post #52
ryandrake wrote: post #9

> "To harness this energy and grow skills, we believe our sales teams need to be together in the office," the memo added. "Additionally, our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite." I wonder if they shared the "data" in the memo. Otherwise, this should be considered a magical myth that the company's leadership simply believes.

I believe. Because I know companies like this have almost never spent resources to attempt to improve WFH environment. Remote work is hard, you need technology, culture, and people all working together to make it efficient. You can't just buy a Slack/Zoom license and expect to suddenly have a productive remote work environment. On the other side, they probably have spent decades to improve physical offices, meeting r…

[deleted]

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#63

Post by toomuchtodo »

ckemere wrote: post #47
entropicdrifter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all legitimate but I found my self a bit bewildered that the concept of a school bus is absent entirely from the apparent thought process, given I rode the bus for the vast majority of my primary and secondary schooling

As a parent in the Houston Independent School district, one of the recent changes made by the state-appointed superintendent (we were taken over recently) was to fire all the bus drivers and rehire as contractors. The result is that elementary and middle school are combined, bus stops are up to 3 miles from home address, and bus trips are often in excess of 2 hours (for what should be ~20 minute drives). I also took…

If you think in systems, you can see the python squeezing everywhere: companies squeezing for profits as labor costs increase due to structural demographics and the cost of money has increased substantially from low or zero rates, public investment being squeezed because taxes won't go up to pay for teachers and ancillary staff (1600 school districts across 24 states in the US are on 4 day weeks to retain teachers [1] [2]), etc. I have seen pay for school bus drivers in fairly standard COL areas approach $25-$30/hr. That is what it takes to put people behind the wheel for those jobs now.

It's a natural experiment to behold as a curious scholar of systems, but also deeply disappointing to watch as Rome does not burn, but fades out in various ways. We could make better choices; we choose not to at scale.

[1] https://direct.mit.edu/edfp/article/16/4/558/97130/Are-All-F...

[2] https://direct.mit.edu/view-large/figure/4256961/edfp_a_0031...

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#64

Post by zten »

CalRobert wrote: post #36
creativenolo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t find any mention of employees doing full-time childcare in the article. But I suspect you don’t really understand the issues. If you need an extra hour childcare because of your commute you are unlikely to find childcare that covers that one hour only and works around you. You most likely need to find afternoon/early evening cover. Good luck. Also, you can work from home distraction free whilst ensuring th…

Something like that might include a casual arrangement like a neighbour watching them after school before you get home, a grandparent dropping by, etc.

The problem is a near-immediate reversion to pre-WFH/hybrid times. They now have five days to solve planning that may have taken some people years, and the family as a whole is probably going to suffer, and one parent's career prospects are probably going to be damaged as a result. A lot of people aren't living near grandma and grandpa right now, which is something they might have considered doing if they knew they were going to be tethered to a desk in an office.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#65

Post by voytec »

xinayder wrote: post #33

> Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the president of the Society for Human Resource Management, told BI that as more organizations have called workers back to the office, it's become clear that many employees didn't heed warnings that remote work was not here to stay. It's not the employees fault if they trusted the company wouldn't screw up home office, all these companies made employees believe they could have better working c…

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the president of the Society for Human Resource Management, a spokesman for corporations, is full of shit if you read his statements from the employee's perspective. This guy "is not your attorney" to put it politely.

RTO is a tool used to cause no-severance departures of workers who are expensive to fire but can be replaced by cheaper workforce, in a way that will go unnoticed to investors during the next quarter.

EDIT: this topic was just demoted from 1st to 5th page, with 45 points after 2 hours of being posted. No more fresh comments under such moderation.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#66

Post by unsui »

rkharsan64 wrote: post #19
milesskorpen wrote: post #4

It's not clear to me how you can be a full-time employee and be doing full-time child care. I understand the need for schedule flexibility, but if going back to the office means you need to find child care it seems to suggest some of these people weren't really working full time on those days.

There's nothing wrong with caring for your child. The cause of this situation is insufficient paternal leaves, not having and raising children. If you as an employer provide a leave of just 15 days for the father (I've seen really big companies do this), and just a few months for the mother, don't be surprised if people lose productivity or just straight up leave when they have children. Most EU countries have great…

> it's disheartening to see people actually defend companies when they set these policies.

HN is full of temporarily-embarrassed CEO-wannabes-in-waiting who tend to side with the disruptor, not so much with the disruptees.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#67

Post by unsnap_biceps »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #29
runako wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of legit reasons. Some I have seen: - kids do remote school for whatever reason. This works when parent is at home, but not if parent is at the office. - kids are age when it's okay for them to walk home from school. - Have to be at work at 9, school drop-off starts at 8:35. School is 45 minutes from the office. There are a lot of ways people organize their lives. The cool thing about sales teams is you don't ha…

These are all legitimate but I found my self a bit bewildered that the concept of a school bus is absent entirely from the apparent thought process, given I rode the bus for the vast majority of my primary and secondary schooling

My district called bus service due to low ridership. The majority of parents in my district are single income and so one parent drives their kids to school every day. It's just another factor forcing low income families out of the neighborhoods.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#68

Post by unsnap_biceps »

pie420 wrote: post #57
CalRobert wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School buses are increasingly rare - https://www.vox.com/life/373743/school-bus-transportation-ki... My kids start school at 8:40 and the train to work leaves at 8:54, meaning that if everything goes perfectly (no disasters at dropoff, train on time, I get the folding bike unfolded quickly and ride like hell, though I like that part) I get to the office at 9:27. I don't think it would be physically possible for me to…

you don't think it's physically possible to drop your kids off at school early? The school doors are locked until 8:39am and there are zombies and werewolves patrolling outside making entering the building early, or waiting outside physically impossible? Like it get that remote work is wayyyyyyyyy better and RTO sucks, but let's not make up lies

Do you think the teachers live at the school? There's going to be a time when they're just unable to accept kids. I would presume that 8:40 is the earliest that parent can drop off and the school actually starts the lessons a little bit later.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#69

Post by tivert »

pie420 wrote: post #57
CalRobert wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School buses are increasingly rare - https://www.vox.com/life/373743/school-bus-transportation-ki... My kids start school at 8:40 and the train to work leaves at 8:54, meaning that if everything goes perfectly (no disasters at dropoff, train on time, I get the folding bike unfolded quickly and ride like hell, though I like that part) I get to the office at 9:27. I don't think it would be physically possible for me to…

you don't think it's physically possible to drop your kids off at school early? The school doors are locked until 8:39am and there are zombies and werewolves patrolling outside making entering the building early, or waiting outside physically impossible? Like it get that remote work is wayyyyyyyyy better and RTO sucks, but let's not make up lies

> you don't think it's physically possible to drop your kids off at school early? The school doors are locked until 8:39am and there are zombies and werewolves patrolling outside making entering the building early, or waiting outside physically impossible?

What the hell does "physically possible" have to do with anything? Did you ever go to school? The doors may not be locked, but unless the school has some kind of defined pre-care program, they're not ready to take care of random kids dropping in early. That's why they have a start time.

My kids' school has a 20 minute drop off window. They have an pre-care option, but you have to sign up for it (and pay) because they have to juggle staffing levels. You can't just physically dump your kid outside the door and leave because you'd like to.

This may be easier for you understand: A store opens at 9AM, but you're available at 8AM and have to be in the office at 9AM. Can you just drop in at 8AM to get your shopping done? No, if the employees are even there, they're busy with "getting ready for the day" tasks. Same thing goes with schools.

Re: Dell's sudden 5-day RTO order leaves parents scrambling to find childcare

#70

Post by voytec »

ryandrake wrote: post #9

> "To harness this energy and grow skills, we believe our sales teams need to be together in the office," the memo added. "Additionally, our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite." I wonder if they shared the "data" in the memo. Otherwise, this should be considered a magical myth that the company's leadership simply believes.

> I wonder if they shared the "data" in the memo.

Why would they? Quoting imaginary data is a plausible explanation to all interested parties. They don't need to prove anything to employees - just make them leave ALREADY. This immediately shows spending decrease to investors and makes them happy.

Quality decrease is a problem they won't have to explain for the next 2 quarters.

EDIT: this topic was just demoted from 1st to 5th page, with 45 points after 2 hours of being posted. No more fresh comments under such moderation.

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