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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

#71

Post by treyfitty »

Decker87 wrote: post #32
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?

Can't speak for everyone but for the way I handle promotions it's pretty simple: Impact is what matters.

Found the facebooker who drinks the Kool-Aid.

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

#72

Post by codemac »

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…

That sounds incredibly difficult. I hope you find ways to cope. I hope you get support from your company, or more than you are getting now.

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

#73

Post by eyesbear »

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…

Did your kid like the cat you drew?

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

#74

Post by WWLink »

ll931110 wrote: post #12
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 problem is, people without children are told (or required) to pick up the workload left behind when the coworkers having children taking (multiple) weeks off. For once or twice that might be okay, but if became a chronic problem, no wonder they are not happy.

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.

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

#75

Post by mynameisvlad »

huanwin wrote: post #62
bzb5 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm perfectly fine with working more than people with children That’s cool. Seems like not everybody agrees with you

This is an uncharitable interpretation. Here is GP's statement without the editorializing quotation: > I'm perfectly fine with working more than people with children right now,...

I mean, that doesn't really change the parent comment's response. It's clear from the article and even the discussion on this thread that not everyone agrees, whether it's permanent or right now.

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

#76

Post by pojzon »

PeterisP wrote: post #31
ll931110 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, people without children are told (or required) to pick up the workload left behind when the coworkers having children taking (multiple) weeks off. For once or twice that might be okay, but if became a chronic problem, no wonder they are not happy.

Well then, direct the anger at those who do the telling or the requiring.

That not always help but for sure will backfire at you.

Im writing next part as a parent of two.

We have in team people who take multiple days off due to taking care of children, often not even counting it as taking a day off. Management doesnt care and expects people who do not “exploit” their privilages to do work for 2-3-4 people.

Its also not the way to go, but any comment about that is a hard “stop being so selfish”.

What to do in such a situation? Start doing the same to make company bleed money while frozen?

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

#77

Post by itsoktocry »

save_ferris wrote: post #10

This is one of the biggest reasons I’ve chosen to forego parenthood. I can’t imagine trying to carve out a solid career in tech while being a parent. I’m sure there are so many here on HN that will say it’s not so hard, but employer expectations have historically been incredibly high at companies I’ve worked for, to the point that sacrificing one’s personal life is pretty much expected (although never explicitly stat…

>employer expectations have historically been incredibly high at companies I’ve worked for, to the point that sacrificing one’s personal life is pretty much expected (although never explicitly stated).

This sounds horrible. Honest question: why do you want to carve out a solid career in an industry that you can see works this way?

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

#78

Post by gtaylor »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #11
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…

Well, there's a good argument to be made that having children is much more of a choice than having cancer. And yes, it's natural to be selfish, because employment benefits are at least something of a zero-sum game. More for one often means less for another. I could easily argue that those who demand extra benefits because of a personal decision they made (having children) are more selfish than those who resent that t…

Why did you use the word "demand", there?

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

#79

Post by burlesona »

Shivetya wrote: post #23

Isn't it just bizarre how people can have children and not expect it to disrupt their lives. They are children, they require your engagement, this is part of the deal. Tech companies should offer the same time off to all employees whether they have children or not. Children should not be allowed to be bargaining chip to obtain more from others. Your choice. To be honest having children out weighs any negative impact…

Nobody expects having kids to be free or easy. But nobody expected to have a global pandemic that completely disrupted and in most cases eliminated the entire support structure that parents have in place either. Right now companies that are offering more support to parents are doing so because they recognize that parents are much more impacted by current events than non-parents, and also because this is expected to be temporary.

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

#80

Post by ActorNightly »

strictnein wrote: post #22
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?

Neither. The failure is with the team's manager. The team's leadership should have reduced the workload of the team. It starts at the top. I work at a (non-tech) Fortune 50 and the message from the CEO on down has been the same: take vacation, take care of your family, some priorities/projects for this year will not be met and that is fine.

Thats nice and all for a big established company.

Smaller companies dont have this luxury, because execution is everything.

The issue overall shouldnt be with extra workload, but with rewards. People without kids shouldnt be angry at having to pick up the slack, thats normal part of any business, but they def have the right to be angry at the management if they dont get rewarded for it

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