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

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

#71

Post by davidashe »

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…

“There's nothing wrong with caring for your child. The cause of this situation is insufficient paternal leaves, not having and raising children.”

Tell me you’ve never been a working parent, without telling me…

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

#72

Post by TesterVetter »

bee_rider wrote: post #55
CalRobert wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m don’t quite get what you mean. It wouldn’t be that unexpected in a nice friendly community for a neighbor to help out occasionally, but people don’t just work occasionally, right?

[dead]

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

#73

Post by CalRobert »

bee_rider wrote: post #55
CalRobert wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m don’t quite get what you mean. It wouldn’t be that unexpected in a nice friendly community for a neighbor to help out occasionally, but people don’t just work occasionally, right?

Of course, I was referring to “ an extra hour childcare because of your commute you are unlikely to find childcare that covers that one hour only and works around you. ”

I just meant examples exist. I can’t use these things since I live 3000 miles from parents and my neighbours and friends all work full time anyway.

Incidentally I understand this is a challenge in China where the retirement age was recently raised and grandparents often provide care.

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

#74

Post by sevensor »

burningChrome wrote: post #39
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.

Before I got into information systems, I spent about a decade in sales. As someone who's been on both sides of the ball, sales teams absolutely do not need to be in the office. Maybe for quarterly or managerial meetings, but the highest performing sales people and teams I knew where given free reign to do their thing as long as they were hitting their quotas. If you weren't hitting your numbers, then yeah, managers w…

I used to sit next to the guy who made cold calls all day long. There was no part of that job he couldn’t have done absolutely anywhere else. Also, massive, massive respect for anybody with the constitution to do that work. It was hour after hour of “no.”

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

#75

Post by runako »

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

I should have been clearer.

It doesn't matter that the 9-year-old comes home on a bus vs walking. They still are not allowed to stay at home by themselves for hours after school every day, even if they take the bus.

It's not the conveyance, it's that the parent is no longer on the premises at all.

I simply chose walking because most of the kids in our neighborhood walk to school.

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

#76

Post by runako »

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

In some parts of the country, parents are arrested for child abandonment for leaving children unattended (that's the situation outside at the school before the doors are open).

Depending on when you have to leave for your commute, the doors may well be locked. And doors being unlocked does not mean you are allowed to leave your child there without ramifications. Again -- leaving a child in a school building without agreed-upon supervision is still a clear display of negligence.

Anyway, these are not serious solutions.

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

#77

Post by linotype »

rootusrootus wrote: post #46
linotype wrote: post #13

So are parents to blame for RTO then? I’m starting to wonder as the child-free folks I know are producing more WFH than they were pre pandemic.

> So are parents to blame for RTO then? If you need a scapegoat. The correct place for the blame is management. Nearly everyone on our team does more work from home than they did sitting at the office. There are a couple notable slackers, but they're not parents. I suspect that's because parents have necessarily become adept at making a schedule and sticking to it.

I don’t need or want a scapegoat. I want data, frankly, that backs up RTO.

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

#78

Post by runako »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #63
ckemere wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Per FRED[1], median personal income in 2023 was ~$21/hr. Per ADP's most recent survey[2], median pay for people who did not change jobs was ~$29/hr.

Given that context, it is not surprising that the pool of people who can qualify for these jobs (no criminal record, drug screen, etc.) and who want them also demand to be paid near the median income.

(You of course know this, but I want to contribute this data point for the discussion.)

> We could make better choices; we choose not to at scale.

Honestly, this is the American Way. One day our luck will run out and we will fail or be forced to make better choices.

1 - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

2 - https://payinsights.adp.com

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

#79

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

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.

They never do. I’ve heard that Amazon’s data from internal surveys showed a productivity increase from remote work compared to either hybrid or in office.

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

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

runako wrote: post #78
toomuchtodo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Per FRED[1], median personal income in 2023 was ~$21/hr. Per ADP's most recent survey[2], median pay for people who did not change jobs was ~$29/hr. Given that context, it is not surprising that the pool of people who can qualify for these jobs (no crimina…

Great points, thanks for sharing.

> Honestly, this is the American Way. One day our luck will run out and we will fail or be forced to make better choices.

Amen.

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