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Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died
- gamesbrainiac 7y agoI really feel so terrible for Jennifer. It was bad enough that her child had passed away, but it was pouring salt on her wounds when her employer chose to take away her leave days. I think the old adage applies here, "make sure everything is in writing". She was promised a promotion, but she did not sign a contract and nothing was set in stone. I learned to put everything in writing the hard way. If something is in writing, even if it is an email, then it is hard for the company to go back on their words. Having an actual contract is better, but having just about anything written down is better than just about anything verbal. I hope Jennifer recovers, and I hope that the company she has transferred to treats her better.
- zamadatix 7y agoI've yet to see a case getting a promised promotion in writing is reasonable for either side. On the employee side you're basically signing something that says you'll work <x> months at your current rate and not leave when the company has already chosen you anyways. On the company side you're just exposing yourself to risk for something already covered by the hiring process. Both sides should be extremely adverse to either case of exception and let the hiring process do what it's made to do: this. Some things you want to get in writing, other things you don't want to plan for unless it's in writing.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoYou will never get a promotion promised in writing. We also didn’t hear the company’s side. I would bet that their version of the events did not include a promise of a promotion. This happens all the time.
- sethammons 7y ago> Some companies have policies that can discriminate against people who are on protected leaves by denying them commissions they have already earned Wtf? How can that possibly be a thing?
- akudha 7y agoDo these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw others over? How the fuck is this thing even legal, let alone ethical? Makes me so mad
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- d357r0y3r 7y agoNah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit rule to prevent the abuse in the future. I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's extremely generous paid maternity leave, and then came back in and quit on her first day back. From the company's standpoint, this hire was simply a cash giveaway and a huge loss.
- akudha 7y agodenying them commissions they have already earned The key word is here "already earned". Denying that doesn't make any sense, any which way we look at it. Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.
- d357r0y3r 7y ago> Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to protect their profits, but this is ridiculous. Yeah, I agree. Just pointing out that this stuff rarely comes from mustache-twirling villains and more often is just a misguided attempt to solve some other related problem. Cutting off commission that has already been earned sounds pretty bad.
- 7y ago
- high_derivative 7y agoWell this may be a controversial stance, but her baby passed at birth. There was no maternity leave to take any more. What there was to take maybe was a bereavement leave.
- optimiz3 7y agoI'd assume there would be some physical recovery, but agree that while tragic, bereavement is more appropriate.
- dwoozle 7y agoSure, but the bereavement leave for a child should be much more than 8 weeks. And it costs so little to provide since it is relatively rare in the developed world.
- chrisco255 7y agoWhile no doubt someone will never fully emotionally get over something so tragic, sometimes the best thing for you is to get back on the horse and your work and your life and move on.
- arkades 7y agoHaving bereavement leave does not preclude returning to work. It precludes being forced to return to work when one cannot.
- chrisco255 7y agoI'm not arguing against bereavement leave. I'm making the very real point that moving on is a choice and that 8 weeks or 80 weeks isn't going to make a difference. At some point you have to move on and going back to work is one of the best things to get your mind off of it. But this is really pedantic so that's all I say to this point.
- dwoozle 7y agoExactly. I had 30 days bereavement leave when my mother died but decided to return to work after a week. It was a world of difference from just having the week.
- sethammons 7y agoShe was given conflicting info on if her leave would be 6 or 8 weeks. Ended up being 8. Baby died an hour after birth, so leave was cut from the 8 weeks to 6 due to no longer having baby-mommy bonding. No mention of time off for mourning. The company has now amended their policy to 16 weeks for birth and adoption, so this case would have been covered.
- perspective1 7y agoThanks. Lately Vice has been writing more and more outrage-bait titles/leads and burying the true story way below the fold. I guess it gets them the most shares.
- pharrington 7y ago> In an email reviewed by Motherboard, an HR representative told Jennifer, “your situation could never be planned for so would never be communicated,” and “all normal situations don’t fit your situation.” Jennifer was told that because she couldn't plan for the tragedy, Informatica would renege its promises. Perhaps Informatica should plan a bit more about what happens when you have incoherent policies and treat human beings as disposable resources. edit: updated for clarity
- KaiserPro 7y agoI still don't understand how this is going to result in anything positive for the company. the whole point of an HR department is to stop anything developing that could cause productivity issues for a company. Cutting the leave short for because someone's child dies shows a stunning lack of empathy or understanding of wider consequences for staff and company. If I had found out that my company had pulled shit like that, then there would be hell to pay. what kind of emotional vacuum do these people live in?
- dlp211 7y agoI have nothing (to my knowledge) but my opinion on this, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that a majority of people just lack empathy.
- folkhack 7y agoI'm speaking anecdotally but would 100% posit that this is true. One of the biggest things I'm learning as an adult in a capitalistic society is that empathy is an anti-pattern to how most medium-to-larger sized corporations operate. Recently I've really come to fully accept that HR at most companies is not there for the employee (regardless of how they internally brand), vs. it being a compliance department and a risk barrier between general employees and the upper-crust. If something bad enough happens, they'll pin it on the HR employee and fire them vs. taking accountability for the company's actions. HR is not your friend.
- 7y ago
- ttul 7y agoI had a baby that died. It was an excruciating experience and nobody around us knew what to do or say. From personal experience I can say it should be treated as a grave mental health issue and companies should be forced to provide a great deal of leave to both parents. Whether leave is paid or unpaid, this should be treated in the same way as any disability or health related leave. IMHO it would be cheap for companies to simply buy infant life insurance for all employees and pay out $25,000 or so if this horrific thing comes to pass. That would help everyone at a reasonable cost since infant deaths and still births are so rare these days.
- fghorow 7y agoI am also a bereaved parent, although my child died at age 25. I utterly agree about the grave mental health issues being caused in the parents. May peace be unto you. (Ping me if you want info about an organization called "The Compassionate Friends" specifically for bereaved parents.)
- falcolas 7y agoThose folks have been around forever, and I'm thankful for them. Not for my own sake, but because my mother had 3-4 miscarriages and one child who died of SIDS (this was in the early 70's). They most likely kept her sane.
- 0x29A- 7y agoAs father to the best 8 month young man in the world I can't imagine even for a moment what that is like. I never ever comment on hacker news, I just wanted to say I'm deeply sorry anyone here may have lost their child.
- cdolan 7y agoOn Oct 4 a friend (code name “Paul”) and I were at a viewing for our 25 year old friend who passed from falling while hiking. “Paul” and I both have boys born this year (5-6 months old). After attending the viewing, we both noted how sad it was to watch the father and mother in such a terrible situation. The worst for any parent, and somehow slightly more understandable now that we are parents ourselves. That night his son passed away silently in his sleep - Not even 12 hours since we talked at the viewing about how surreal losing a child would be. Their baby simply stopped breathing. We’re all still in some level of shock. Hug your little ones and appreciate the time you get with them. You never know when your life can go the other direction.
- curiousgal 7y agoShe got six weeks instead of eight. How dare they. She could've applied for more days based on her psychological state. Also how dare they not pay her commissions earned by her team while she was away. I think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more "Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!". Just my $0.02 as a woman.
- kick 7y agoI think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more "Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!". In most circumstances I agree with this viewpoint, but what happened in this case is something that less-policed societies would see business owners killed for. The "Here's why you shouldn't do it" is both morally and economically obvious, and any corporation or C-level who can't see that is completely without morals and common sense, along with basic human emotion, seemingly. "How dare you be so inhumane to your employees that most European countries would see you fined or imprisoned, and that every religion would see you in the worst possible afterlife!" The press you'd receive alone is reason enough, and anyone with any intelligence whatsoever would see that this would be more broadly controversial than more or less any other possible evil action.
- salawat 7y agoDon't much care your gender, but I think that viewpoint is a bit deranged, with all due respect. There are things you don't do, whether it makes fiscal sense or not. You think very carefully about accepting it as a possibility, because doing so drops the standard for everyone else around you. If for some reason you do, you especially don't do it unilaterally without getting buy-in from the other party out of respect. It's like people have completely lost any sense of civility around actually finding out what people are okay with. I vehemently disagree with the economic argument being given primacy over some level of social decency and civil decorum. It's one of those "honor" things. We do it not because it's the easiest, but because it's what makes us human. Shouldering some extra burden when someone else is suffering from a much greater one foisted through no fault of their own is just how it should work. Of course no one in business likes that type of sentiment because it doesn't fit on a balance sheet.
- baron816 7y ago> Discrimination is particularly flagrant in Silicon Valley, where women hold just 5 percent of leadership positions. This is particularly inflammatory. Just because women hold 5% of leadership positions, it doesn’t mean discrimination is the cause (or sole cause).
- fghorow 7y agoJust in case there are other bereaved parents (of whom I am one) reading this. I want you to know about an organization called The Compassionate Friends, composed solely of family members of a deceased child. https://www.compassionatefriends.org/ https://www.compassionatefriends.org/ "You need not walk alone."
- nthnh 7y agoThanks for sharing this!
- SamReidHughes 7y agoTitle should be fixed to say Sales Engineer.
- rsynnott 7y agoA sales engineer is a type of engineer (as the term is used in US English; in some countries engineer is a protected term and programmers are rarely eligible for it).
- cerved 7y agoSales Engineer typically means Pre-Sales. It's a supporting sales position, part of the sales organisation. I think the title is unnecessarily misleading.
- xenihn 7y agoPeople who drive trains are also a type of engineer. I kind of get where the person you're responding to is coming from. It's not worth calling out when the article is aimed at the general population, which doesn't care about the distinction between a sales engineer and a software engineer. It would just be confusing without an explanation, and that explanation would unnecessarily bloat the story.
- mindcrime 7y agoWow, just wow. Whoever made that decision is somebody who is truly worthy of the title "douchebag". How can any human being have so little regard for another? That's just disgusting. There's a right way to handle a situation like this, and it goes something like: ----------- Dear $EMPLOYEE: We are very sorry to hear about your loss. All of us are wishing you the best in this time of need, and we are here to support you any way we can. It's a small measure under the circumstances, but we just wanted to let you know that we've extended your leave to 12 weeks. If you need more time, just let us know. Rest assured, your job will be waiting for you when you return, and we'll all be thrilled to see you when you're ready. We've also send you a special one-time bonus of $10,000, to help with any additional expenses that result from this situation. This will be deposited as part of your next paycheck. If there's anything else we can do for you, just let us know. $CEO_NAME
- pembrook 7y agoWhile I would love if the world could work like this, the reason HR and their arcane rules exist in the first place...is because people tend to take advantage of things. And you might think, hey but 99% of people are decent and would not take advantage of the company. That's probably true! But there's always the 1% that ruins it for everybody else (just like the outlier sociopath HR person in this article). If you say stuff like, "take as much time as you need," 99% of employees would not abuse this situation. But there's always the 1%...and if it's a big company, that 1% could be 1,000 people. The rate of stillbirth is 1 in 100 births. So it's not exactly uncommon. So you can see how a company might end up paying a salary to 3 people who haven't showed up to work in over 2 years because you were just trying to be a decent human. You might think that's an insane scenario that would never happen. You'd be surprised. Crazy things like that are the reason HR policies exist in the first place.
- iamaelephant 7y agoSo let's say the company is 100,000 people, and 1% of births are still births, and 1% of employees will take the piss. And let's say 5% of employees have a baby in any given year (is this realistic? I honestly don't know, it seems high). Then on average you'll have one employee every two years take advantage of the situation (keeping in mind, the person "taking advantage" has also endured the death of a baby). I think a company the size of Microsoft or Google can absorb the piss-taking of one grieving employee every two years, to be honest.
- crispyporkbites 7y agoHer maternity leave was cut from 8 to 6 WEEKS I had to do a double take there, I read it as months first time. How can a woman give birth and be back at work in eight weeks? Six weeks seems impossible baby or not, the recovery time for pregnancy and birth can be many months. If I were a woman living in a society like that I think I’d either not have children or not work at all.
- jacquesm 7y agoPretty normal in the United States.
- crispyporkbites 7y agoWho looks after the child? I don’t understand how this is possible?
- Coffeewine 7y agoSometimes a family member such as a grandparent, sometimes a company who the parents of the child pay to look after the child. Businesses which provide this service are called "daycare" in the US.
- rayiner 7y agoDaycare workers, grandparents, etc?
- _zoltan_ 7y agoand you think that's normal?
- rayiner 7y agoYes? Its routine in traditional societies for non-parents to raise children. The idea of "intensive mothering," where mom is stuck taking care of the baby alone for months or years, is a blip in the history of time. (In Europe, lengthy maternity leaves are also financially costly for mothers. While European countries generally offer "paid" leave, the salary caps are pretty low. France offers up to $650 per week. The median woman working full-time in America makes $800 per week.)
- baybal2 7y agoI think this is a bad way to deal with such people. She needs to make name of the company known, and was the person who made this decision. The internet will do the rest.
- cryptozeus 7y agoThat is the first line in the article “In early 2017, Jennifer, a sales engineer at Informatica, a top Silicon Valley data management company”
- fortran77 7y agoIt does seem like it's a "bad way" to treat someone, but unless we hear all the information from all parties, I don't think we should sharpen our pitchforks. What I can get from this is an awareness of the issues women face, and to sensitive to these topics if I'm ever in a position to influence policy about them, or to assist someone in that situation. Also, this woman was a commissioned sales representative. I have little knowledge how these people generally are compensated, but I do know it's different from how other employees get paid and rewarded. They usually have employment contracts and terms that are different from other staff.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoResponding to one broken part of American culture with another broken part of American culture...?
- mattrp 7y ago>> “Eight weeks of paid leave includes up to two weeks prior to the birth and assumes a normal vaginal delivery,” an HR representative said write to Jennifer I bet if most companies simply got rid of the HR departments altogether, not only would inhumane and repulsive policies like the above not exist, I bet most employees would be happier and more productive.
- brown9-2 7y agoI think this is naive. The HR department is simply the mouthpiece for the policies that the company’s management wants.
- reaperducer 7y agoDepends on the company. I've worked for companies where horrid HR people recommended horrid policies to upper management. It was their way of making themselves feel important, and most of the staff feared the upper HR people.
- walshemj 7y agoI think there is a lot of internalised custom and practice that HR adhere to.
- klyrs 7y agoI've had good and bad experiences with HR. If you have good HR and a bad manager, you can rely on HR in times of family crisis (and if the manager punishes you, you'll probably have support to relocate within the company; rolling the dice but at least you've still got HR). If you have bad HR and a good manager, you rely on the manager. If both are bad, it's probably best to find new employment.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoCan you clarify what part of that policy you find inhumane and repulsive?
- egdod 7y ago> Since Elizabeth Warren shared in a campaign video on October 9 that after becoming pregnant in 1971, she was pushed out of a teaching position—many women have spoken out on social media saying they’ve been denied promotions, fired, and retaliated against for their pregnancies. I’m sure most of those stories are true. Elizabeth Warren’s, however, was a lie.[1] [1] https://freebeacon.com/politics/county-records-contradict-warrens-claim-she-was-fired-over-pregnancy/ https://freebeacon.com/politics/county-records-contradict-wa...
- downut 7y agoA careful reading of that link does not support "a lie". Or another: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/oct/09/did-elizabeth-warren-lose-teaching-job-because-she/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/oct/09... It certainly is easy enough to generate a reason acceptable to external monitors to get rid of a person. I have done this myself, and would do it again. In fact I don't think I've ever worked anywhere over the last 40 years where this is not the default approach. CYA is a thing, and always will be.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoBoth of those articles seem to extremely clearly support the idea that Warren was not fired or refused a job extension as a result of pregnancy. We could speculate about unrecorded behavior. What proof do we have? Warren says one thing and written records literally contradict it. If Warren’s version is to be believed, it seems obvious it would require significant evidence to contradict the meeting minutes and her own earlier quotes about graduate courses.
- brohoolio 7y agoMy understanding is it was very common for teachers to be fired/contracts not renewed as soon as they announced they were pregnant. Not sure why you think a link to a site like freebeacon backs you up. I understand that people might not like her policies, but this stuff is clearly targeted swift boating. It doesn’t add to to the discussion.
- lquist 7y agoIt seems a bit insane to me that pregnancy leave is something we Americans mostly leave to the discretion of employers. If we as a society care about it, we should back it up with public dollars and public policy.
- r00fus 7y agoIt would require taxation and there’s a segment of the population and most corporations who would fight that tooth and nail even if it only cost a small amount in aggregate.
- walshemj 7y agoCompared to the UK the social security system in the USA is fairly generous so if that is affordable so would be maternity leave.
- lazyasciiart 7y agoHow on earth did you come to that conclusion?
- walshemj 7y agoAbsolutely compare what a single person gets on JSA to the much more generous Unemployment benefits lasting much longer than it does in the UK
- lazyasciiart 7y agoWow, you appear misinformed. Unemployment benefits in the US vary by state, in some states they last only three months. The amount you receive is based on the income you had before receiving it, so it could be more or less than the UK standard payments. That aside, unemployment payments are funded as a completely separate system to every other kind of welfare in the US and so they demonstrate nothing at all about how other payments could be afforded.
- 7y ago
- mindslight 7y agoIs this not a straightforward result of making what would normally be family or personal leave contingent upon a specific purpose, rather than just generally reforming labor laws for everyone? You can have a significant life-changing death of anyone in your family.
- rajacombinator 7y agoName and shame everyone in the chain of command here so an indelible record of their actions is left on the internet. Really the only acceptable solution.
- sz4kerto 7y agoI think this is a particularly bad way of dealing with problems. We have trials, laws and regulations for a reason; causing permanent effects on people's lives based on a single article is wrong in my opinion. I'm saying this while also thinking that what the company did (according to the article) is despicable and insensitive.
- HolidayJacket2 7y agoShould have just legally murdered it in the womb or kept her legs closed. If women want to join the work force they need to start behaving more responsibly.
- wfbarks 7y agoHow long was she originally going to take off, and how long did after this tragic loss happened did the company ask that she return?
- bb88 7y agoSo people have been doing this thing called "management" for, what? centuries now? Why in 2017 (the date of this occurence) does management still suck at stuff like this?
- lemmsjid 7y agoI think the problem is that healthcare related stuff shouldn’t even be on management’s plate. Managers and executives are usually not qualified to decide what is good healthcare, but are forced to make decisions anyhow. Healthcare should be managed at the societal level.
- closeparen 7y agoWomen were excluded from the workforce for most of that time.
- aaron695 7y agoShould a mother who's 5 year old child dies get Maternity leave? It's pathetic how people are competing on grief in this Facebook generation. She should have time to physically recover from the birth then bereavement leave like everyone else.
- cmdshiftf4 7y agoWe're in an odd state of paralysis as a society. On the one hand, we acknowledge that there are birth rate / population-related issues coming rapidly down the pipeline at us, problems we acknowledge can only be solved by either supporting existing citizens/families in having more children or mass migration. Through exhaustion with unaccountable corruption and reckless, ineffective public spending by all parties on the political spectrum, our societies won't support any social move (more taxes, better laws) in the name of the former, whilst being by-and-large in opposition of the latter. Neither of the above will help in themselves though without a drastic change in the pressures requiring dual income families for mere survival, convergence in the metropolis for work, stagnant income growth coupled with soaring costs, especially around child rearing and education, and the modern narrative toward women (largely by other women) that they're nothing unless they're building a meaningful career for themselves. While the rest of the Western World is by no means perfect and is still suffering declining birth rates due to some of the factors listed above, America's approach and policies toward social well-being - financial and moral support for maternity leave, general time off work and compassion for the sick - is utterly reprehensible. It is the most prosperous, wealthy nation on the planet and seems to be content to resign itself to a society benefiting a very small handful of people at a massive social, financial, economical and physical cost to everyone else. A mere 8 weeks leave for going through pregnancy and bringing a child - that which we depend on for future taxes, productivity, volunteer work, philanthropy, innovation and social policy - into the world and then 2 weeks being cut in the name of money because that child died? How can anyone who supports or justifies this look at themselves in the mirror in the morning? If you deem your country / nation / peoples to be important and worthwhile, its future to be crucial and investment in that future to be a necessity but support these policies then you're either a monster or an utter moron.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThe people of certain states have thought it worthwhile to provide 18+ weeks to mothers and 12 weeks to fathers. The west coast WA/OR/CA and northeast from MA to NJ and DC are a little bit more civilized.
- dominotw 7y ago> population-related issues don't we also have far more pressing carbon emissions issues though ? Isn't population decline such a bad thing. Do we really need billions and billions of people because its 'good for the economy'
- einpoklum 7y agoThe United States is infamous among world nations for lack of mandatory paid maternity leave. Even the unpaid leave is incredibly short: Only 12 weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_... This, while the total _paid_ leave available to mothers among OECD nations is ~54 weeks, including 18 weeks average paid maternity leave plus another long period of paid parental leave following it: http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf
- cjbprime 7y agoThat 12 weeks of unpaid leave is only for companies who employ more than 50 people, too. I expect most Americans work for companies smaller than that (and so don't get the leave) but I haven't checked.
- harryh 7y agoYour expectation is wrong: https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/more-americans-work-at-big-firms-than-small-ones-040717 https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-profes... "Since 2014...34.3 percent worked at small companies." And this is for "small" defined as <= 100. The percentage will be even smaller for <= 50. It's also important to note that it's wrong to say that employees of small businesses "don't get the leave." Many small businesses will ofter leave to their employees without a federal mandate.
- cjbprime 7y agoCool, thanks. Surprising! By "don't get the leave" I meant "aren't guaranteed the leave", of course.
- SopaDeMacaco 7y agoPaternity leaves are just as bad to the market as any kind of social programs that use government money. Women have to be paid less to cover up the risks,then it turns into a social problem, with screaming hysterical feminists being enabled to promote things that corrupt social structures, etc.
- padraic7a 7y agoThis is horrendous. The idea that six to eight weeks is enough for maternity leave in even the best situation is pretty awful too.
- sjg007 7y agoReading my employer handbook we get 3 days for bereavement for a child. It is the most wtf thing I’ve ever read.
- sethammons 7y agoOurs is five. I think that it is set for distant relatives dying so you can go to a funeral. No way that 3-5 days is sufficient for the death of a close loved one.
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoThe individual was a sales person, not an engineer. A “sales engineer” who is paid on commission is very different than a software engineer. The article says she was given 6 weeks instead of 8 weeks. It also says that it’s unclear if the maternity policy was even 8 weeks to begin with, and HR didn’t seem to know. Apparently there are multiple policies, depending on role? I don’t know the “right” amount of time, but it seems like the difference is a lot smaller than the headline and discussion are implying. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong or evil for a company to give 6 weeks off for a baby that died on the first day. It absolutely does not fit the subtitle which says “experience extreme forms of pregnancy discrimination”. Reasonable people could debate whether it’s the most fair, but nobody can say getting only 6 weeks out of a possible 8 is “extreme forms of pregnancy discrimination”. The article also says that an outside hire was made to fill a more senior role that this woman hoped would go to her. She suspects that she did not get it because she was pregnant, and the company insists that those are unrelated. Should we just assume that every pregnant person who doesn’t get promoted is a victim of discrimination? Non-pregnant people also don’t get promotions quite often. While I’m sure that does happen for improper reasons from time to time, and it must be frustrating, there isn’t anything to prove that is what happened here. I’m sure it’s also frustrating that when it does happen due to pregnancy, it’s impossible to prove. There are some legitimately difficult problems when it comes to pregnancies and employment. It’s illegal to not hire someone because they are pregnant, so what do you do instead? If you’re a small company or a startup, you have nobody performing that function, and you’re still paying a salary and benefits. If it’s an unskilled role, sure you can contract a temp hire, but that isn’t an option for senior roles or roles with specialized skills, even if you could afford the contractor premium on top of the existing salary. I honestly don’t know how I would handle that situation in a fair way. The other issue she has is compensation. As a sales person, part of her compensation was based on commission. Well, if she’s not at work, she isn’t making sales, and therefore not getting commission on sales that don’t exist. Ok, that sucks, but what’s the solution for people who take commission roles? Someone else has to pay out of their commission? What if she were a realtor? If she stops selling houses for a couple months, she isn’t going to make anything either. But since they are self-employed, there’s nobody else to point at and accuse of discrimination. She can’t demand that other realtors in town chip in and cover the shortfall. Why should this be any different? She feels she should not be “penalized”, but that isn’t a penalty, so this is disingenuous. The article then says “Discrimination is particularly flagrant in Silicon Valley, where women hold just 5 percent of leadership positions.” But they haven’t established discrimination as the reason for that, so it sounds like the article, like many from Vice (although this author is new, it’s usually that Lorenzo guy trying to spin facts and invent controversies) is more interested in pushing a narrative. To borrow a term from tptacek, collecting rageviews. They then quote a lawyer who represents plaintiffs in discrimination lawsuits against their employers. Clearly a real source of unbiased facts on the issue at hand. And a former Google employee filed a lawsuit against Google, who said: “The memo described disparaging comments made by a manager at Google about pregnant women being “overly emotional and hard to work with.” This is not a wise comment for a male manager to make. But if the worst thing they did was make a flippant comment like this (there is no allegation that they acted on it, the basis of the complaint was simply that they heard the comment), I would call it a fairly extreme reaction to get HR involved and attack them on internal mailing lists. The comment isn’t exactly unfounded either, it’s just un-PC, and one of those things that we aren’t allowed to say, even though everybody knows that pregnancy has a non-zero impact on emotions (for good reason!). Show me someone who has either been pregnant or spent a lot of time around a pregnant person who hasn’t thought they had some moments of overly emotional challenges here and there, and I’ll show you a liar. This guy’s crime sounds like a lapse of judgment in vocalizing it during a moment of frustration. Wait, was it a guy? Or did they leave that out and let us assume that? It turns out, it was a woman, who is also a mother, who made the comment. So to reiterate, a woman heard her woman manager make a comment about another woman being difficult to work with when she is pregnant, and decided to report her to HR and rant about this injustice on internal mailing lists. Unsurprisingly, her manager turned cold on her. Since the woman who complained apparently also happened to be pregnant, it’s a little ironic that she went nuclear over another woman’s comment that someone was difficult to work with. You know what other unwise, flippant comments I’ve heard at work? “They can’t touch me, I’m pregnant.” She likely didn’t do much to improve anyone’s perception by going that route. And considering the players involved, I don’t think this supports the “gender inequality” claim. But hey, at least she is a martyr on twitter now, and she is currently shaking down Google for a large settlement. I think there is a lot of room for improvement on these issues. I don’t think we get there by using underhanded scorched earth tactics. A paid pregnancy-related leave might be something that the government has to provide for it to work. Something like unemployment insurance.
- esotericn 7y agoIsn't this a fairly clear cut case of constructive dismissal? Asking someone to return to knowledge work after one of the most traumatic events of their life is tantamount to firing them. They're not going in, if they do go in they're going to be an emotional wreck.
- eloff 7y agoPlease excuse my insensitivity for Paul, but hearing the story I wonder if the baby suffocated in its sleep, e.g. By rolling into a bad position as is not uncommon in young infants. Is it possible to tell the difference? Don't ever intimate such a thing to Paul of course. The only thing worse than losing a child is losing a child to something preventable by the parent.
- QuinnyPig 7y agoNo. Don’t Hacker News back-to-first-principles this. A child dying is a tragedy, not a chance to second guess it like it’s a website going down. Your post is ghastly.
- eloff 7y agoI disagree. If you don't get to the root cause, no matter how uncomfortable, then you don't learn what you can from the tragedy and that just compounds the loss. Not that I really expect to get to the bottom here, but I can't suppress that curiosity even perhaps when it's warranted.
- travisjungroth 7y agoYou’re not doing root cause analysis on infant mortality. You’re guessing at a baby’s death in the comment section on the internet. Just stop.
- cdolan 7y agoThanks
- cdolan 7y agoAutopsy was that the child fell asleep so deep he simply stopped remembering to breathe. Thanks for the insensitivity though ;-)
- throw910 7y ago> “My body delivered a baby." Strange way to put it.
- thewarrior 7y agoI’ve found this to be one of the biggest flaws of capitalism itself. It’s pretty clear that capitalism and humanity itself needs to invest in nurturing the next generation in order to sustain long term growth, labour supply, pensions (until full automation) and yet the very same system makes it hell for anyone to actually have any kids. Just sucking the present workers dry and harming both the workers and the system itself in the long term. Most people are left with just enough money and energy to have one kid and barely survive in their jobs while nothing suggests to me that things have to be this way. The end goal of the economy has to be in producing human flourishing and well being and not goods.
- yalogin 7y agoEvery manager fucked up in that company. The HR manager should have not brought it up. The manager and his boss of the employee should have been aghast at it and done everything possible to stop it from happening. That is not how you treat a fellow human being let alone an employee.
- benanas 7y agoDo American corporations love fanatical capitalism the same way jihadists love Islam?
- golemiprague 7y agoWomen shouldn't work after they give birth, this outsourcing of raising babies is not helping anybody. They should go to work only after the kids are old enough to go to school. We are just ruining are society with this idea that women should work all the time like men. We don't need all this work from women, it is not valuable like them taking care of their kids and taking care of home.
- ygmelnikova 7y agoFirst world problems.