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It's just a company. Take your time and spend it with your family, and don't stress about it. In a decade you're not going to regret bonding with your spouse an

It's just a company. Take your time and spend it with your family, and don't stress about it. In a decade you're not going to regret bonding with your spouse and child and missing some work.

AnotherGoodName 4y ago
You'll also be surprised at how well people step up. You're going to be doing two productive things here: Bonding and giving room for growth to others.
- alunchbox 4y ago
  never thought about the latter, lessons to be learned good call out.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Going to push back on this a little. I've been at multiple startups, and of course there is eventually people who take paternity leave. As someone who did have to "step up", I think I did a fine job, but I wasn't exactly thrilled about needing to do 2 jobs now: my old job and the job of the person out on leave. For no additional pay. I absolutely believe parents should take leave, and while the exact amount may be up for debate, I think that, generally, paid leave in the US is woefully short. But I think it's really shitty to just pretend the extra burden on your colleagues doesn't exist when someone takes leave, or that they'll necessarily see it as a great "opportunity".
  - cardiffspaceman 4y ago
    > needing to do 2 jobs It seems like either they really assigned all of the leave-taker's job to you, and that seems excessive, or this person was doing a TON of stuff. Were there no other people who could take over parts of the leave-taker's work?
    - grayclhn 4y ago
      A lot of these questions (not just yours) indicate that bad management is rare… that hasn’t been my experience. :) I’m sure the impact to the parent commentor could have been mitigated, but absolutely sure that it almost always isn’t.
      - bcrosby95 4y ago
        Sure. And people blame their peers rather than those in power.
      - cardiffspaceman 4y ago
        I certainly don't have the opinion that bad management is rare. I was just unclear which form of bad management was happening.
    - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
      Perhaps I was exaggerating a bit, but saying "I was doing 1.75 jobs" seemed to be in the same ballpark. In this case, the startup was young, and (as is usually the case for startups) we had too much to do as it was. Also, coincidentally, we had a bunch of people having babies around the same time. There were simply not that many other people who could take on the work. I think that's primarily the point I want to make: in a sizable corporation, probably a quarter of the company could disappear for a year or two and it wouldn't make any difference. A young startup just doesn't have that amount of spare capacity, so it's not realistic to think that going on extended leave (for whatever reason) won't have a large impact on the people that remain. PS - if you want to argue that by "one quarter" should really be a third or 20% or 15% or whatever, knock yourself out. Point being that large corporations have a lot more redundancy that small startups, so the impact of someone leaving for an extended period is vastly different.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  Be careful depending on this. I am on a team where this happened and while he was on leave for 2 months, not one ticket was delivered as nobody wanted to step up. Granted, this is not a startup and the team is very unmotivated, but literally every ticket with every ambiguity was thrown into "blocked."
  - eega 4y ago
    That‘s a team I‘d never want to work in …
icelancer 4y ago
Your family typically needs your salary as well, so just ignoring your job isn't really the entire solution.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  It's not "ignoring your job" when you take advantage of a policy set by your company (mat/pat leave). Give plenty of notice and work with your team as best as you can to help with the transition.
  - jlokier 4y ago
    A lot of small startups don't have a mat/pat policy yet, maybe not a well developed vacation policy either nor a generous one, and the employment may be "at will" meaning they can let you go for no reason, just because they decide "why keep paying?" I know there are exceptions in law for parental reasons, but whether they apply depends on the type of contract. On top of that, the startup may find it difficult to pay someone else while still paying you. If you're an early employee, there may also be financial incentives to the company letting you go, such as not having to pay out the higher rate or higher equity you negotiated as an early joiner. You can take the time off but in some cases are risking losing your job by doing so for long. If you need the money, that's a tought spot. Even if you're good at getting new jobs (many people aren't), getting a new job can be a full time job in itself which you don't have time to do if you're seriously on mat/pat, and anyway few companies will hire you while you're still unavailable.
    - ecnahc515 4y ago
      If you get fired for going on paternity leave when the company explicitly has a policy for it, you're going to have an easy lawsuit win. I don't know why your even talking about startups that may not have a paternity policy, since the OP's company clearly has one.
refurb 4y ago
This 100%. You’re not indispensable. Your team will be fine if you come up with a plan. Your manage should step up to fill the gap. Go spend time with you family.
- ketzo 4y ago
  > if you come up with a plan that’s explicitly the point of this post — OP is asking what their plan should be. this, and the GP comment, are super annoyingly missing the point. OP is already planning to take 3-4 months off. they ARE going to spend time with their family. they’re just asking for advice on the transition, and half the comments are totally ignoring them, lol
  - refurb 4y ago
    The point you’re missing is planning isn’t 100% on them. They’re “stressed”. Screw that. The planning is basically telling everyone “hey im gone, Bill will cover me, see ya”
alberth 4y ago
While I completely agree with your comment, I have also seen repeatedly in my career where colleagues quickly became disgruntled towards the person taking mat/pat leave because that meant more workload for them while the other person was out.
- bogeholm 4y ago
  > disgruntled towards the person taking mat/pat leave If management are worth their salt, this sort of behavior won’t be tolerated. If it’s tolerated, you have poor managers. Not much more to say about that.
  - dijit 4y ago
    You have three levers to pull as a manger in this situation. 1) increase the workload for who remains 2) decrease the workload and delay the deadline (which could affect other parts of the company, the pnl) 3) find a contractor or two to pick up the slack, this may take a while and can still fail or cause the rest of the team to stall while that person/people onboards. Depending on your situation money can be tight or deadlines can be tight or both. Meaning the only appreciable option may be #1: which is part of why it’s harder to work in startups where both of the above may be true. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame management, but it can be arbitrary limitations imposed by management for sure.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      The problem isn't increased workload, or people having challenges or bad feelings about adapting to increased workload, it's spreading discontentment over someone taking maternity/paternity leave. A manager and everyone else should be establishing that as much as their contributions are missed it's not a problem that they had a child or took the leave they are entitled to.
      - dijit 4y ago
        Are you saying it’s ok to feel bad as long as you don’t inform or allow the person taking leave that you feel bad? I’m not sure how I feel about that honestly. On the one hand it makes people feel more free and feel less bad in themselves. On the other it will become an open secret among everyone including those who may eventually take leave and then be aware of it, passive aggression may ensure even if it’s not permitted, and of course on some level it’s dishonest.
spaghettiToy 4y ago
Imo, I'd rather have 3 months off when they are 1 to 3 years old. Those first few months are a slog. I understand for moms, nursing is the real benefit.
- HuwFulcher 4y ago
  As someone who had their first child the last couple of years I would really recommend taking the time off when they’re first born. Those are special moments but hard to appreciate through the sleep deprivation. Having more time to be present and not worry about work the better
  - deleted 4y ago
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chrisseaton 4y ago
> It's just a company. But it's not just a company. It's also your family's income. It's how you're feeding the baby you now have.

It's just a company. Take your time and spend it with your family, and don't stress about it. In a decade you're not going to regret bonding with your spouse and child and missing some work.

AnotherGoodName 4y ago

You'll also be surprised at how well people step up. You're going to be doing two productive things here: Bonding and giving room for growth to others.

alunchbox 4y ago
never thought about the latter, lessons to be learned good call out.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Going to push back on this a little. I've been at multiple startups, and of course there is eventually people who take paternity leave. As someone who did have to "step up", I think I did a fine job, but I wasn't exactly thrilled about needing to do 2 jobs now: my old job and the job of the person out on leave. For no additional pay. I absolutely believe parents should take leave, and while the exact amount may be up for debate, I think that, generally, paid leave in the US is woefully short. But I think it's really shitty to just pretend the extra burden on your colleagues doesn't exist when someone takes leave, or that they'll necessarily see it as a great "opportunity".
- cardiffspaceman 4y ago
  > needing to do 2 jobs It seems like either they really assigned all of the leave-taker's job to you, and that seems excessive, or this person was doing a TON of stuff. Were there no other people who could take over parts of the leave-taker's work?
  - grayclhn 4y ago
    A lot of these questions (not just yours) indicate that bad management is rare… that hasn’t been my experience. :) I’m sure the impact to the parent commentor could have been mitigated, but absolutely sure that it almost always isn’t.
    - bcrosby95 4y ago
      Sure. And people blame their peers rather than those in power.
    - cardiffspaceman 4y ago
      I certainly don't have the opinion that bad management is rare. I was just unclear which form of bad management was happening.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    Perhaps I was exaggerating a bit, but saying "I was doing 1.75 jobs" seemed to be in the same ballpark. In this case, the startup was young, and (as is usually the case for startups) we had too much to do as it was. Also, coincidentally, we had a bunch of people having babies around the same time. There were simply not that many other people who could take on the work. I think that's primarily the point I want to make: in a sizable corporation, probably a quarter of the company could disappear for a year or two and it wouldn't make any difference. A young startup just doesn't have that amount of spare capacity, so it's not realistic to think that going on extended leave (for whatever reason) won't have a large impact on the people that remain. PS - if you want to argue that by "one quarter" should really be a third or 20% or 15% or whatever, knock yourself out. Point being that large corporations have a lot more redundancy that small startups, so the impact of someone leaving for an extended period is vastly different.
throwawaysleep 4y ago
Be careful depending on this. I am on a team where this happened and while he was on leave for 2 months, not one ticket was delivered as nobody wanted to step up. Granted, this is not a startup and the team is very unmotivated, but literally every ticket with every ambiguity was thrown into "blocked."
- eega 4y ago
  That‘s a team I‘d never want to work in …

icelancer 4y ago

Your family typically needs your salary as well, so just ignoring your job isn't really the entire solution.

barbazoo 4y ago
It's not "ignoring your job" when you take advantage of a policy set by your company (mat/pat leave). Give plenty of notice and work with your team as best as you can to help with the transition.
- jlokier 4y ago
  A lot of small startups don't have a mat/pat policy yet, maybe not a well developed vacation policy either nor a generous one, and the employment may be "at will" meaning they can let you go for no reason, just because they decide "why keep paying?" I know there are exceptions in law for parental reasons, but whether they apply depends on the type of contract. On top of that, the startup may find it difficult to pay someone else while still paying you. If you're an early employee, there may also be financial incentives to the company letting you go, such as not having to pay out the higher rate or higher equity you negotiated as an early joiner. You can take the time off but in some cases are risking losing your job by doing so for long. If you need the money, that's a tought spot. Even if you're good at getting new jobs (many people aren't), getting a new job can be a full time job in itself which you don't have time to do if you're seriously on mat/pat, and anyway few companies will hire you while you're still unavailable.
  - ecnahc515 4y ago
    If you get fired for going on paternity leave when the company explicitly has a policy for it, you're going to have an easy lawsuit win. I don't know why your even talking about startups that may not have a paternity policy, since the OP's company clearly has one.

refurb 4y ago

This 100%. You’re not indispensable. Your team will be fine if you come up with a plan. Your manage should step up to fill the gap. Go spend time with you family.

ketzo 4y ago
> if you come up with a plan that’s explicitly the point of this post — OP is asking what their plan should be. this, and the GP comment, are super annoyingly missing the point. OP is already planning to take 3-4 months off. they ARE going to spend time with their family. they’re just asking for advice on the transition, and half the comments are totally ignoring them, lol
- refurb 4y ago
  The point you’re missing is planning isn’t 100% on them. They’re “stressed”. Screw that. The planning is basically telling everyone “hey im gone, Bill will cover me, see ya”

alberth 4y ago

While I completely agree with your comment, I have also seen repeatedly in my career where colleagues quickly became disgruntled towards the person taking mat/pat leave because that meant more workload for them while the other person was out.

bogeholm 4y ago
> disgruntled towards the person taking mat/pat leave If management are worth their salt, this sort of behavior won’t be tolerated. If it’s tolerated, you have poor managers. Not much more to say about that.
- dijit 4y ago
  You have three levers to pull as a manger in this situation. 1) increase the workload for who remains 2) decrease the workload and delay the deadline (which could affect other parts of the company, the pnl) 3) find a contractor or two to pick up the slack, this may take a while and can still fail or cause the rest of the team to stall while that person/people onboards. Depending on your situation money can be tight or deadlines can be tight or both. Meaning the only appreciable option may be #1: which is part of why it’s harder to work in startups where both of the above may be true. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame management, but it can be arbitrary limitations imposed by management for sure.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    The problem isn't increased workload, or people having challenges or bad feelings about adapting to increased workload, it's spreading discontentment over someone taking maternity/paternity leave. A manager and everyone else should be establishing that as much as their contributions are missed it's not a problem that they had a child or took the leave they are entitled to.
    - dijit 4y ago
      Are you saying it’s ok to feel bad as long as you don’t inform or allow the person taking leave that you feel bad? I’m not sure how I feel about that honestly. On the one hand it makes people feel more free and feel less bad in themselves. On the other it will become an open secret among everyone including those who may eventually take leave and then be aware of it, passive aggression may ensure even if it’s not permitted, and of course on some level it’s dishonest.

spaghettiToy 4y ago

Imo, I'd rather have 3 months off when they are 1 to 3 years old. Those first few months are a slog. I understand for moms, nursing is the real benefit.

HuwFulcher 4y ago
As someone who had their first child the last couple of years I would really recommend taking the time off when they’re first born. Those are special moments but hard to appreciate through the sleep deprivation. Having more time to be present and not worry about work the better
- deleted 4y ago
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chrisseaton 4y ago

> It's just a company. But it's not just a company. It's also your family's income. It's how you're feeding the baby you now have.