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Have you not attended meetings with parents taking care of babies? I sure have. People do difficult things all the time. It's especially manageable if both par
by throwaway09223 4y ago
Have you not attended meetings with parents taking care of babies? I sure have. People do difficult things all the time.
It's especially manageable if both parents are WFH.
- stingraycharles 4y agoI have not, and it may be my lack of understanding, but I don’t think taking care of babies during a meeting is a good thing. Unless you and I have very different types of meetings, the ones I have are usually short and focused and I would be very annoyed if someone was constantly interrupted or distracted (just like I would be if someone is constantly checking their phone).
- bombcar 4y agoYou are very lucky and privileged to have such useful focused meetings. The vast majority of meetings are useless and unproductive, and if half the people on the call are muted the entire time nobody would ever notice.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoI guess the question is would you rather have this employee that is sometimes distracted or no one at all.
- stingraycharles 4y agoThat’s a very good question actually, I didn’t think about it like that, and it changes my mind on the subject a bit. Thanks for that.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoYes, and it is not ideal.
- __turbobrew__ 4y agoI have attended meetings with people who had to remain muted the entire time due to their kid screaming at the top of their lungs constantly. Its not great
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoThere is some AI now that can filter this type of background noise.
- makeworld 4y agoAh, the beautiful future we were promised.
- throwaway09223 4y agoWell of course it's not ideal. Employees are people and people come with imperfections. I've worked with employees distracted by kids. Distracted by substance abuse. Distracted by mental illness. Distracted by video games, TV, something on their phone, or even just a basic disinterest in the job. When we talk about the job market as a whole -- such as in the article above -- it doesn't help to focus on a hyper-selective section of capable, skilled software engineers. The vast majority of workers are in a much messier, less efficient and effective environment.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's sad that we have to consider children a disability to get companies to realize that parents should be treated with at least as much respect as we would give to someone who falls under the ADA. Nobody would even think to say "I hate when our meetings get interrupted because Suzy has insert medical condition here and has to go off-camera for a few minutes".
- __turbobrew__ 4y agoYou are right, we shouldn’t focus on whether or not someone is a parent. We should focus on whether they can effectively do their work. I would react similarly if somebody was playing a video game during a meeting.