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Well, because right now as it stands the default is to be hostile to people with kids. And frankly, if our business culture needs to exploit childless 20 year o
by phillmv 13y ago
Well, because right now as it stands the default is to be hostile to people with kids. And frankly, if our business culture needs to exploit childless 20 year olds then we're building a toxic, unsustainable environment.
- akerl_ 13y agoI agree. But we aren't going to fix that by claiming the opposite case as fact. Culture isn't something that you can average: 2 polarized viewpoints do not balance each other out, they just lead to HN comment wars and accusations of bias by both "sides".
- phillmv 13y agoWhat polarization? This is pretty much black and white. Either your business model requires the exploitation of cheap labour, or it doesn't and we're being crappy for no good reason. Now, we can talk about say the specific ways in which we subsidize families that lead to bad urbanization patterns and that's acceptable - tho as a childless 20something I'm broadly OK with subsidizing families. But I'm having a hard time imagining an alternate argument that doesn't end up being an apologia for abusive work relationships, but I'd be happy to hear another side to it.
- akerl_ 13y agoI think we're perhaps having two different discussions. This article discusses whether or not being a parent prevents someone from also being a successful founder. It isn't a discussion of the larger and distinctly separate issue regarding how founders treat their own workforces. The two polarized extremes I was referring to are the view cited by the article and the opposite it is attempting to dispute: "Being a parent makes you a more motivated founder" and "being a parent is a detriment to being a founder", respectively.
- x0x0 13y agoYeah, but here's the other side of the coin: I've worked with parents (and shared a boss) who always dumped shitwork off onto the people w/o kids. Last second travel to customers, late nights, bugs that trigger support SLA requirements, emergency fixes, etc. And then, amazingly enough, proceed to whine that they don't get the same raises or promotions. I agree our work environment is hostile to people's personal lives, but when parents use their kids as an excuse to get out of doing their share, instead of advocating for better work life balance for everyone, the reaction of the childless should be completely unsurprising.
- akerl_ 13y agoAre you really going to make the case that people with children are more likely to dump work on people without children? Really? Do you have any sort of actual evidence to support this? (Actual evidence, not anecdotal stories about how somebody with a kid made you do more work on a project once)
- FedRegister 13y agoCan't speak for the previous poster, but my company has a strict policy - people with children get first consideration for time off. When there is inclement weather, they're the first sent home to take care of their children. When there is extra work to be done, the person with children is the first to be exempt from overtime. So at my company there is a very strict policy about this, and it gets followed to a T.
- RobotCaleb 13y agoAre you okay with this policy?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- humanrebar 13y agoTo be fair, family problems (kid is sick, picking up Junior from soccer practice) are much more likely to be excused absences than other lifestyle problems (I have a date the night before, chores are piling up, I have roommate issues).