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>"Many who live by themselves are effectively penalized at work too. “Lots of people I interviewed complained that their managers presumed they had extra time t

by nickff 5y ago

>"Many who live by themselves are effectively penalized at work too. “Lots of people I interviewed complained that their managers presumed they had extra time to stay at the office or take on extra projects because they don’t have family at home...”" This is my concern when parents say they require accommodations (less work and lower expectations of productivity) because they have children (especially when working from home); they implicitly assume that non-parents can and should 'pick up the slack'.

synergy20 5y ago
A different perspective, assuming none of us will have kids, now imagine what is going to happen on all the services you must have when you age, who is going to provide them? They will be provided by all the children many parents including your colleagues are busy raising while having a job(or more than one job). We will all benefit from this one way or another, it's vital for any nation to maintain a healthy birthrate(2.3 per couple) for the same reason.
- another_story 5y ago
  This assumes the rate of deaths stays the same, that we can't automate certain processes and that we also maintain the current economic model which requires growth to sustain retirement funds and government services. “Healthy birthrate” is entirely dependent on the underlying structure of that society. Alternatively, we could adjust and actually require less people over time. I'd argue that in many ways we've reached the point where a growing population is not healthy at all.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Flexibility is great for everyone, for people with kids and without. I’ve never heard that used as being code for lower productivity before.
asdff 5y ago
That shouldn't be the assumption. If there is slack to be picked up, good management should hire more labor rather than stretch existing labor thin and burn out their workers. Companies that grind people right to the deadline are doing it wrong.
- Digit-Al 5y ago
  I agree. At one company my team had a new manager start and one of the first things he said to us was "if you have to work overtime I'm not doing my job properly". That attitude should be more widespread in my opinion.
klyrs 5y ago
I have a family, and I'm very protective of my time because failure to, for example, pick my kid after school would quickly escalate to criminal negligence. If my work demanded that I commit any crime, I would refuse until I got fired (quitting is for losers, in this case: I want my damned severance). I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack. I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way. Said differently, if you're upset at parents putting their children's wellbeing before your team's performance, then you should re-evaluate your relationship with work.
- jimt1234 5y ago
  > I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack. Maybe you don't assume that, but the system built around parenting does assume that. A clear example of this is "new parent" time off. At my company, new parents can take 4 months off work (paid). So, if you work on a team of a dozen people, and 10 people on the team have children at some point, that means, at a minimum, 2 people are picking up more of the slack than the others.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    At my work, new parents tend to give 3-6 months notice before that PTO and we hire temporary replacements. What's wrong with your workplace? It's not the parents.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Alternatively the firm can take a productivity hit for a couple months.
  - hnaccount141 5y ago
    Let's be clear here, the "system" in question is just exploitative management. If management knows a worker will be taking their leave they can either hire to make up for it or adjust their productivity expectations for a few months. If they don't, that's not the fault of the person taking the leave that they're entitled to as part of their compensation package.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sneak 5y ago
Seems to me that your supervisor and coworkers should never hear about whether or not you have a family or kids. Surely that sort of information is need-to-know at work?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yep. Came here to say that this is a consequence of revealing too much about your private life to your co-workers.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    True story, I once worked with a guy who got out of being "voluntold" to work a weekend long migration project by bringing up "I've got dad duties this weekend, sorry". A few months later he and I were hanging out at a bar, the time gets away from us and I go "hey man don't let me keep you out here away from your family all night, it's cool if you gotta go". He looks at me and asks "what family?" I am confused. That's when he drops it on me: he's been at this company 5 years lying about having a family because it gets him out of doing off-hours work and nobody asked any questions, they'd just assign work to someone else. Whereas when some of the younger, childless, and more impressionable workers try to protect the boundaries of their off-time...well you see where this is going (if not: they would get talked into doing it anyway) It's a kind of malingering that I found...honestly....kind of brilliant in a bastard kind of way.
    - another_story 5y ago
      I've done this before. What one of the earlier posters says about being able to negotiate completely disregards cultural context and what you come to the table to negotiate with. Having the kids excuse allows you to get away certain things while also maintaining your standing in the company.
    - sneak 5y ago
      You can also simply opt out of this sort of additional unpaid work by enforcing strong boundaries with your employer. It doesn't require lying.
redisman 5y ago
> they implicitly assume that non-parents can and should 'pick up the slack' Not accurate. I expect management to “pick up the slack”. If the work can’t be finished in a normal work week then that’s not my problem (and it wasn’t before I had kids either)
Waterluvian 5y ago
Honestly, I think that my peers without kids who work crazy hours are, simply put, suckers. I don’t expect them to pick up slack. I expect the employer to properly staff and schedule. If they have not learned to stand up for themselves, that’s not on me. And if they choose to work extra (like I did when I was a newbie) then that’s their freedom to.
- isoskeles 5y ago
  > Honestly, I think that my peers without kids who work crazy hours are, simply put, suckers. I've seen these people get much more work done than their peers (sometimes) and get compensated with higher salary and promotions. They might be suckers, or they might be prioritizing money or experience while they still have a lifestyle that can support it. So passing judgment by calling them "suckers" seems kind of ignorant IMO.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    The problem is when these people only get more done because they work more hours for the same money. They basically lower their own salary. I can totally understand this for someone that is paid hourly and wants to get overtime pay to have enough money to fix their car. But our context here is usually highly paid, salaried tech jobs. If I work more hours I can also get more done. I don't want to though and that has nothing to do with children or family. I've never in my life worked more for free. I sometimes work more when something needs doing but then I take extra time off somewhere else. So far no issues with promotions or anything else like that. All my bosses understood that this is a money transaction. They give me flexibility to come in late, leave early, have a dentist appointment in the middle of the day etc and I'm flexible too. Production is burning at 5pm? Of course I don't leave even if I have a date later that night. EDIT for clarity: if someone takes a 40h job for 100k and works 80h weeks they have now effectively lowered the market rate and their own salary to 50k. Why anyone would do that is beyond me especially since I see the same people complain about "H1Bs undercutting them" .
  - Waterluvian 5y ago
    Those people are at the mercy of their employer who gets to decide if all their free work deserves a raise or promotion. It’s not a great system.
nautilius 5y ago
So what you're saying is: you're expecting parents to simultaneously work as much as singles do, and 'in their free time' raise the next generation of people that can wipe your ass in 60 years when you expect someone to take care of you? Alternatively, you can vow to never take any service/product/support/technology from anyone of a younger generation. Then it would be fair.
- l-lousy 5y ago
  Why isn’t it possible for both groups to have an equal work life balance?
  - nautilius 5y ago
    It sure is, if you adjust for that at work. If you don't, you're expecting parents to work (at least) two jobs.
    - arp242 5y ago
      If that's an issue for you then don't be a parent. Or have one of you be a stay-at-home parent. Or get a job with fewer hours. The unspoken assumption here is that people without kids aren't doing anything outside of their work that might be considered "work". They just choose to spend their time on different things. Parents really aren't special.
      - sidlls 5y ago
        Raising the next generation of people who pay singeltons' salaries and make their lives possible is different from indoor rock climbing and slamming avocado toast, and relatively at least it very much is special.
        arp242 5y ago
        You have a very curious view of childless/single people. Gosh, this must be the first time I've seen someone use "avocado toast" other than a parody of these kind of views. And ironically, I actually spent many years volunteering as a scout leader and some youth computer initiatives shrug
sidlls 5y ago
Even if parents require accommodations the way you suggest, considering that we (parents) are subsidizing the lives of single people, it isn't an unfair ask. However what you suggest is the exception rather than the rule. Instead one or both of the parents tend to work very hard and struggle to juggle career and domestic obligations, often to the detriment of raising their children. It's worse the lower the socioeconomic ladder one goes, too, because of the extreme physical and psychological pressures that build.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Who, and how, is forcing parents to subsidize the lives of single people? Either I don't get what you are saying, or that argument was made in bad faith
  - sidlls 5y ago
    Who do you think provides the economic activity that supports our civilization? It's human beings. Who makes these things? Parents, and at great sacrifice, given how abusive and demanding employers are. Single people benefit from having parents make the sacrifices and do the work of raising those human beings. They benefit substantially. And then complain about property taxes and supposed 'special treatment' parents get. It's petty and ignorant of them.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      That economic activity is the product of the kids' choices to work and not the parents' choices to bring more kids into the world. Single people are not being "subsidized" by the parents of the other (perhaps also single) people working for them—they're paying their way in full. If anyone owes compensation to the parents for the cost of raising their kids it's the kids themselves, not the parents' employers or random strangers. The only basis for saying that the parents deserve compensation for the kids' economic activity would assume that parents own their kids (and thus the fruits of their kids' labor) and can force them to work for the parents' benefit, but that sort of slavery is out of vogue in modern society.
acomar 5y ago
why the eff are you lot fighting each other? it's your managers putting the expectation on you that you can pick up the slack for your coworkers going home on time. who's really out of line here? the people going home to take care of the rest of their lives, the people staying to "pick up the slack", or the people who insist that it's reasonable to ask you to do that in the first place, instead of, I don't know, hiring adequate numbers of staff or paying you overtime for the extra hours worked?
dcolkitt 5y ago
This is just the fundamental nature of human nature. People are hardwired to watch out for the kids in their “tribe”. Ask yourself how you would respond as a manager, on a gut level to two different scenarios. One is a subordinate comes and says “I need to leave early today, my daughter’s the lead in her school play.” The other says, “I’m gonna dip out mid-afternoon. Tryna make the 4-20 celebration at Mission Dolores later”. We can argue till we’re blue about whether this is fair or not, or the burden and benefit of making people for the next generation, and entitlement and so on. But at the end of the day, none of it will matter. You can’t change human nature, and people who care for young children will always be given a certain unique level of respect and accommodation in any society. Period.
- _t2kx 5y ago
  "Bet. Enjoy!" works for both.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  > “I need to leave early today, my daughter’s the lead in her school play.” "And you tell me now?" > “I’m gonna dip out mid-afternoon. Tryna make the 4-20 celebration at Mission Dolores later”. "Yeah, no you're not gonna dip out." Note how you phrased "I need to leave early today" vs "I'm gonna dip out". Semantically they mean different things. It's also just bad form to dump these kinds of things on your manager on the day itself.
vegai_ 5y ago
So what do you suggest instead? I can see a few options - nobody being a parent - parents being bad parents so they can be good workers - any work dropped on the floor due to parents stays on the floor until they're back Options 1 and 2 lead to worse societies and therefore decreased efficiency in the slightly longer run. I guess the last option would work the best? Overall it should be blindingly obvious to everyone that parents work way more than non-parents, at least for the first ~7 years of their kid's life.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Option 4: "asking employees to do extra work because they are single constitutes discrimination based on marital/family status. Don't do it. Ever."
  - vegai_ 5y ago
    So that's kinda like my option 3. I kinda agree, although if "asking" includes an option of denying the request, then I think it's perfectly fine to ask those people who have more free time to do more work when needed. Note that where I live, things like this will usually be compensated 1:1 (sometimes better).
lmsseattle 5y ago
I'm 58, female, never married, no kids. I'm not raising the next generation but my coworkers with kids are. I want to be supportive of a group of people who have chosen to do something - and someone has to do it - I have chosen not to do. If I stay late at work to finish a project and my coworker with kids leaves to pick up her kids, why is that a problem? When child-free workers fail to understand their responsibility - paying taxes for public schools, supporting parental leave, staying late so a parent can pick up their kid - in helping to ensure that children have parents who are available to them, they fail to understand the role we all need to play in creating and nurturing a community. I would make the same argument for coworkers caring for aging parents.

by nickff 5y ago

synergy20 5y ago

A different perspective, assuming none of us will have kids, now imagine what is going to happen on all the services you must have when you age, who is going to provide them? They will be provided by all the children many parents including your colleagues are busy raising while having a job(or more than one job). We will all benefit from this one way or another, it's vital for any nation to maintain a healthy birthrate(2.3 per couple) for the same reason.

another_story 5y ago
This assumes the rate of deaths stays the same, that we can't automate certain processes and that we also maintain the current economic model which requires growth to sustain retirement funds and government services. “Healthy birthrate” is entirely dependent on the underlying structure of that society. Alternatively, we could adjust and actually require less people over time. I'd argue that in many ways we've reached the point where a growing population is not healthy at all.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Flexibility is great for everyone, for people with kids and without. I’ve never heard that used as being code for lower productivity before.

asdff 5y ago

That shouldn't be the assumption. If there is slack to be picked up, good management should hire more labor rather than stretch existing labor thin and burn out their workers. Companies that grind people right to the deadline are doing it wrong.

Digit-Al 5y ago
I agree. At one company my team had a new manager start and one of the first things he said to us was "if you have to work overtime I'm not doing my job properly". That attitude should be more widespread in my opinion.

klyrs 5y ago

I have a family, and I'm very protective of my time because failure to, for example, pick my kid after school would quickly escalate to criminal negligence. If my work demanded that I commit any crime, I would refuse until I got fired (quitting is for losers, in this case: I want my damned severance). I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack. I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way. Said differently, if you're upset at parents putting their children's wellbeing before your team's performance, then you should re-evaluate your relationship with work.

jimt1234 5y ago
> I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack. Maybe you don't assume that, but the system built around parenting does assume that. A clear example of this is "new parent" time off. At my company, new parents can take 4 months off work (paid). So, if you work on a team of a dozen people, and 10 people on the team have children at some point, that means, at a minimum, 2 people are picking up more of the slack than the others.
- klyrs 5y ago
  At my work, new parents tend to give 3-6 months notice before that PTO and we hire temporary replacements. What's wrong with your workplace? It's not the parents.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Alternatively the firm can take a productivity hit for a couple months.
- hnaccount141 5y ago
  Let's be clear here, the "system" in question is just exploitative management. If management knows a worker will be taking their leave they can either hire to make up for it or adjust their productivity expectations for a few months. If they don't, that's not the fault of the person taking the leave that they're entitled to as part of their compensation package.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sneak 5y ago

Seems to me that your supervisor and coworkers should never hear about whether or not you have a family or kids. Surely that sort of information is need-to-know at work?

throwawayboise 5y ago
Yep. Came here to say that this is a consequence of revealing too much about your private life to your co-workers.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  True story, I once worked with a guy who got out of being "voluntold" to work a weekend long migration project by bringing up "I've got dad duties this weekend, sorry". A few months later he and I were hanging out at a bar, the time gets away from us and I go "hey man don't let me keep you out here away from your family all night, it's cool if you gotta go". He looks at me and asks "what family?" I am confused. That's when he drops it on me: he's been at this company 5 years lying about having a family because it gets him out of doing off-hours work and nobody asked any questions, they'd just assign work to someone else. Whereas when some of the younger, childless, and more impressionable workers try to protect the boundaries of their off-time...well you see where this is going (if not: they would get talked into doing it anyway) It's a kind of malingering that I found...honestly....kind of brilliant in a bastard kind of way.
  - another_story 5y ago
    I've done this before. What one of the earlier posters says about being able to negotiate completely disregards cultural context and what you come to the table to negotiate with. Having the kids excuse allows you to get away certain things while also maintaining your standing in the company.
  - sneak 5y ago
    You can also simply opt out of this sort of additional unpaid work by enforcing strong boundaries with your employer. It doesn't require lying.

redisman 5y ago

> they implicitly assume that non-parents can and should 'pick up the slack' Not accurate. I expect management to “pick up the slack”. If the work can’t be finished in a normal work week then that’s not my problem (and it wasn’t before I had kids either)

Waterluvian 5y ago

Honestly, I think that my peers without kids who work crazy hours are, simply put, suckers. I don’t expect them to pick up slack. I expect the employer to properly staff and schedule. If they have not learned to stand up for themselves, that’s not on me. And if they choose to work extra (like I did when I was a newbie) then that’s their freedom to.

isoskeles 5y ago
> Honestly, I think that my peers without kids who work crazy hours are, simply put, suckers. I've seen these people get much more work done than their peers (sometimes) and get compensated with higher salary and promotions. They might be suckers, or they might be prioritizing money or experience while they still have a lifestyle that can support it. So passing judgment by calling them "suckers" seems kind of ignorant IMO.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  The problem is when these people only get more done because they work more hours for the same money. They basically lower their own salary. I can totally understand this for someone that is paid hourly and wants to get overtime pay to have enough money to fix their car. But our context here is usually highly paid, salaried tech jobs. If I work more hours I can also get more done. I don't want to though and that has nothing to do with children or family. I've never in my life worked more for free. I sometimes work more when something needs doing but then I take extra time off somewhere else. So far no issues with promotions or anything else like that. All my bosses understood that this is a money transaction. They give me flexibility to come in late, leave early, have a dentist appointment in the middle of the day etc and I'm flexible too. Production is burning at 5pm? Of course I don't leave even if I have a date later that night. EDIT for clarity: if someone takes a 40h job for 100k and works 80h weeks they have now effectively lowered the market rate and their own salary to 50k. Why anyone would do that is beyond me especially since I see the same people complain about "H1Bs undercutting them" .
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  Those people are at the mercy of their employer who gets to decide if all their free work deserves a raise or promotion. It’s not a great system.

nautilius 5y ago

So what you're saying is: you're expecting parents to simultaneously work as much as singles do, and 'in their free time' raise the next generation of people that can wipe your ass in 60 years when you expect someone to take care of you? Alternatively, you can vow to never take any service/product/support/technology from anyone of a younger generation. Then it would be fair.

l-lousy 5y ago
Why isn’t it possible for both groups to have an equal work life balance?
- nautilius 5y ago
  It sure is, if you adjust for that at work. If you don't, you're expecting parents to work (at least) two jobs.
  - arp242 5y ago
    If that's an issue for you then don't be a parent. Or have one of you be a stay-at-home parent. Or get a job with fewer hours. The unspoken assumption here is that people without kids aren't doing anything outside of their work that might be considered "work". They just choose to spend their time on different things. Parents really aren't special.
    - sidlls 5y ago
      Raising the next generation of people who pay singeltons' salaries and make their lives possible is different from indoor rock climbing and slamming avocado toast, and relatively at least it very much is special.
      - arp242 5y ago
        You have a very curious view of childless/single people. Gosh, this must be the first time I've seen someone use "avocado toast" other than a parody of these kind of views. And ironically, I actually spent many years volunteering as a scout leader and some youth computer initiatives shrug

sidlls 5y ago

Even if parents require accommodations the way you suggest, considering that we (parents) are subsidizing the lives of single people, it isn't an unfair ask. However what you suggest is the exception rather than the rule. Instead one or both of the parents tend to work very hard and struggle to juggle career and domestic obligations, often to the detriment of raising their children. It's worse the lower the socioeconomic ladder one goes, too, because of the extreme physical and psychological pressures that build.

beebeepka 5y ago
Who, and how, is forcing parents to subsidize the lives of single people? Either I don't get what you are saying, or that argument was made in bad faith
- sidlls 5y ago
  Who do you think provides the economic activity that supports our civilization? It's human beings. Who makes these things? Parents, and at great sacrifice, given how abusive and demanding employers are. Single people benefit from having parents make the sacrifices and do the work of raising those human beings. They benefit substantially. And then complain about property taxes and supposed 'special treatment' parents get. It's petty and ignorant of them.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    That economic activity is the product of the kids' choices to work and not the parents' choices to bring more kids into the world. Single people are not being "subsidized" by the parents of the other (perhaps also single) people working for them—they're paying their way in full. If anyone owes compensation to the parents for the cost of raising their kids it's the kids themselves, not the parents' employers or random strangers. The only basis for saying that the parents deserve compensation for the kids' economic activity would assume that parents own their kids (and thus the fruits of their kids' labor) and can force them to work for the parents' benefit, but that sort of slavery is out of vogue in modern society.

acomar 5y ago

why the eff are you lot fighting each other? it's your managers putting the expectation on you that you can pick up the slack for your coworkers going home on time. who's really out of line here? the people going home to take care of the rest of their lives, the people staying to "pick up the slack", or the people who insist that it's reasonable to ask you to do that in the first place, instead of, I don't know, hiring adequate numbers of staff or paying you overtime for the extra hours worked?

dcolkitt 5y ago

This is just the fundamental nature of human nature. People are hardwired to watch out for the kids in their “tribe”. Ask yourself how you would respond as a manager, on a gut level to two different scenarios. One is a subordinate comes and says “I need to leave early today, my daughter’s the lead in her school play.” The other says, “I’m gonna dip out mid-afternoon. Tryna make the 4-20 celebration at Mission Dolores later”. We can argue till we’re blue about whether this is fair or not, or the burden and benefit of making people for the next generation, and entitlement and so on. But at the end of the day, none of it will matter. You can’t change human nature, and people who care for young children will always be given a certain unique level of respect and accommodation in any society. Period.

_t2kx 5y ago
"Bet. Enjoy!" works for both.
bruce343434 5y ago
> “I need to leave early today, my daughter’s the lead in her school play.” "And you tell me now?" > “I’m gonna dip out mid-afternoon. Tryna make the 4-20 celebration at Mission Dolores later”. "Yeah, no you're not gonna dip out." Note how you phrased "I need to leave early today" vs "I'm gonna dip out". Semantically they mean different things. It's also just bad form to dump these kinds of things on your manager on the day itself.

vegai_ 5y ago

So what do you suggest instead? I can see a few options - nobody being a parent - parents being bad parents so they can be good workers - any work dropped on the floor due to parents stays on the floor until they're back Options 1 and 2 lead to worse societies and therefore decreased efficiency in the slightly longer run. I guess the last option would work the best? Overall it should be blindingly obvious to everyone that parents work way more than non-parents, at least for the first ~7 years of their kid's life.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
Option 4: "asking employees to do extra work because they are single constitutes discrimination based on marital/family status. Don't do it. Ever."
- vegai_ 5y ago
  So that's kinda like my option 3. I kinda agree, although if "asking" includes an option of denying the request, then I think it's perfectly fine to ask those people who have more free time to do more work when needed. Note that where I live, things like this will usually be compensated 1:1 (sometimes better).

lmsseattle 5y ago

I'm 58, female, never married, no kids. I'm not raising the next generation but my coworkers with kids are. I want to be supportive of a group of people who have chosen to do something - and someone has to do it - I have chosen not to do. If I stay late at work to finish a project and my coworker with kids leaves to pick up her kids, why is that a problem? When child-free workers fail to understand their responsibility - paying taxes for public schools, supporting parental leave, staying late so a parent can pick up their kid - in helping to ensure that children have parents who are available to them, they fail to understand the role we all need to play in creating and nurturing a community. I would make the same argument for coworkers caring for aging parents.