Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

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

#961

Post by mac1175 » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #127

treeman79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not much better with older kids either; I have 3 teens with mental health issues (depression/anxiety/migraines/ADHD) which have gotten worse with 6 months sheltering-in-place.

I have a tween with ADHD, dyslexia, and anxiety. I spend a lot of check in times with her because last school year's remote learning was rough.

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

#962

Post by astura » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #83

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.

Also, not that I necessarily think this way, but parents are told that working less won’t impact their ratings. And since the distribution of ratings is usually fixed, that effectively means you won’t get rewarded for picking up the slack from others. (Or in the case of Facebook it means everybody got the same rating regardless of how much/well they worked). Not necessarily due to just the parental policies, but I do…

I would hope that if someone was putting in more than 40 hours regularly they'd be rewarded with overtime pay?

I, personally, wouldn't work overtime regularly without overtime pay. I've worked three software jobs when overtime was needed the overtime was paid. I also don't make SV-level salary though.

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

#963

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #459

rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

>A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare.

The current problem has nothing to do with anyone's ability to pay for childcare and everything to do with the constraints the pandemic has placed on out ability for kids to leave the house to go to one central location for the bulk of the workday. Even if every parent in the country had a section-8 style voucher for childcare all you could do with it right now would be wipe your butt because childcare would be shut down for the same reasons schools are.

Ironically the people who are actually least affected by this whole thing are the blue collar folks who's childcare consisted of paying an older kid down the street cash under the table because it doesn't take that much extra money to make that kid attend Zoom classes from your couch while watching your kid and that kids parents probably also like the idea.

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

#964

Post by OCASM » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #459

rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

Division of labor works. Moving away from it is the real cause of the drama. Stay at home parents are becoming a dying breed (staying at home because of covid notwithstanding).

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

#965

Post by baumandm » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #689

rhizome wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

The biggest chunk is due to the US's (and much of the rest of the world's) lock-down policies. I am not a parent, but I am disgusted that so many in society would wish to knowingly ruin childrens' lives all over the world just to continue living through this obscene assault upon humanity. Even if we were to buy the absurd notion that we will save substantial numbers of lives by forcing kids to go to school remotely,…

> We have endured far worse than this while we simply sat and did nothing.

Perhaps this is the real issue that needs addressing?

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

#966

Post by dantheman » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

marbletiles wrote: post #928

cascom wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this play out with colleagues/listened to the griping - where the resentment comes in (in addition to the items already discussed) some of the self righteousness of the people with kids vs. non-kids “I really can’t be doing this weekly midnight call with Asia...I have kids” as if having kids was akin to solving world hunger and people without kids couldn’t possibly be doing something meaningful with their t…

"I solve world hunger" is a high bar to set for people to establish boundaries with their employers. "I can't do this weekly midnight call" should really be enough. That makes things better for everyone: it means the people without kids can also say they won't attend, even if that's because they've got something planned in a bar. Adding in the details of kids is because the labour relationship is already wrong. Covid…

And those who can make those calls should be compensated more as they're providing more value.

At the end this comes down to - some people are providing more value and want to be compensated appropriately; or more specifically some people are now providing less value and don't want their compensation to reflect that.

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

#967

Post by OCASM » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

shard wrote: post #619

rhizome wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

Childcare, although helpful for those parents who cannot WFH, would seem to present a choice to those who can: either put your children into a riskier environment, or accept that you will be less productive than your colleagues who are willing to take that risk. That's a terrible choice for a parent to make. The safest method would be to permanently assign one child care professional to a family, to limit any transmi…

Mothers and extended families used to cover that role.

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

#968

Post by mensetmanusman » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #408

ShroudedNight wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While giving every employee personal time may well be the right answer, I also believe that we should acknowledge that, at least up until recently, there was an on-going social contract that society had that provided parents with additional time as an on-going investment into the health of our social fabric, and that, in a sense, we have already benefited (at least in aggregate) from the dividend payed by the previou…

I think most societies around the world didn't and don't provide parents with any additional time. It just so happened the that most people had children and elders/women could raise them while the men kept working. Not to say that women didn't work, but whatever they did allowed them to keep an eye on kids, or relatives/neighbors did. Also, increasing the population is one of the most damaging things to the environme…

Depends on the time scale.

If you care about the short term, then yes.

If you care about humanity leaving the solar system before the heat death (or asteroid, whatever), then no.

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

#969

Post by fatnoah » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

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…

>If anything, I'm thankful for all those people with kids who will (a) take care of the continuation of the human race, and more selfishly (b) support our society and economy when I am too old to do so.

I agree that having kids provides benefits to society. If one wants to be selfish, the taxes those kids pay are going to fund my social security, infrastructure, etc. when I'm no longer working.

On the other hand, as a manager person in tech, I'm always very proactive about ensuring that EVERYONE is able to take advantage of whatever schedule flexibility is offered, even when there's no formal policy in place. A huge part of that is making sure that expectations are consistent across all groups.

I absolutely can see how COVID has helped to fuel this resentment, though. As a caregiver (of my kids in this case, but it would apply to being anyone's caregiver), I'm able to take up to 10 weeks of paid leave in single day increments. There's no such thing those who aren't caregivers. As a manager, I'm more than willing to exercise a little civil disobedience by ensuring that those folks are able to take the time they need without draining their PTO balances. I'm sure I'm not supposed to do that, but I don't flaunt it.

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

#970

Post by RankingMember » Wed, Sep 09, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

gandutraveler wrote: post #902

It's so sad many commenters don't seem to objectively acknowledge non-parents argument here. Calling them as selfish and non empathetic. What If there is no pay cut and every employee gets the same 6 weeks time off whether you have kids or not. If employees are willing to work for those 6 weeks they will be paid extra. This should be a win-win solution. I as a non parent, I'm struggling with being locked down for lon…

> What If there is no pay cut and every employee gets the same 6 weeks time off whether you have kids or not. If employees are willing to work for those 6 weeks they will be paid extra. This should be a win-win solution.

This is the only way to do it, by my estimation, but how do you divvy this up? Does everyone just get 6 weeks off per year? I think that's a tough wrinkle, actually.