Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gibbon1 | Hacker News Reader

Back in the bad old days... when men went to the office and women stayed home, you could expect that a working mans family issues stayed at home. Now with more two worker families and single parent families, it's just not the case.

What is important for morale is that your single workers not feel like they are the ones covering for Mr and Mrs Familyman without some quid pro quo.

View on HN

I think that's what I was getting at. The whole concept of a "valid excuse" seems arbitrary to me. I worked at a place that had regular office hours and one of the people on the team was regularly late because he had to drop his daughter off at school. He was the only person on the team who had what was considered a "valid excuse" to be late. The single people strongly resented that because they felt they were being forced to work harder for the same pay since they made different life choices.

There's just something so hilarious about the idea of a single person resenting a married-with-children person on the basis of the amount of work they have to do.

As a single parent, gosh I hope childless people reflect on what you said.

Is not possible. No context.

I am all in favor of accomodating people, but this is some kind of bull, man. You agreed to do a job. The childless person did, too. Your kids aren't work, and they don't factor in, and I know you know that. Having additional work pushed on the childless person (and I've seen it happen, though never to me) because they don't have kids and "can handle it" is straight-up unfair, unless they're being properly compensated.

One perspective is that bringing up children is in the interest of society as a whole. In giving a bit more leeway to parents, it's really all of us who benefit. Or more to the point - it is reasonable to assume that all (or most) the single people will eventually become parents hem selves, and they will then get the same benefits, since it's an ingrained part of the culture.

> In giving a bit more leeway to parents, it's really all of us who benefit.

Raising immigration quotas does the same thing and costs less.

I was primarily commenting on the perception that parents are having a gay old time playing hooky when they have to take time with parenting issues. Of course all people should have reasonable accommodations allowed to them whether they have kids or not.

But you have to be careful of judging "reasonable" through the eyes of single twenty-something (or any single opinionated person for that matter). In the end you may restrict yourself to young unencumbered people who can afford to live their life according to a universal office schedule. But this can be harmful when you lose out on different experience and abilities. It's not necessarily true that the person working 12 hours every day is outperforming the 8 hour a day clock puncher. If you optimize for butt-in-seat time rather than overall productivity don't be surprised when you have substandard results.

I work three days a week, man, and actively resist working more. I am about as far from the type to live according to a universal office schedule as possible. What I'm saying still stands: "because I have kids" for a parent is no more of a valid excuse than "I have a thing I want to do" for anybody else. They are time you are not doing work you have (in theory) agreed to do, and to an employer they should be the same thing.

Well first of all you are violently agreeing with me if you go back and read the second sentence of my last reply.

But to your last point, things you have to do to take care of your kids are emphatically not the same as "I have a thing I want to do". These things are all on a continuum, but kids are far more demanding than hobbies. I'm guessing you don't have kids to make such an equation.

> things you have to do to take care of your kids are emphatically not the same as "I have a thing I want to do"

Nope, wrong, full stop. Your kids are important to you. They take time to deal with. My side interests are important to me. They take time to deal with. From the perspective of the business, there is no meaningful difference.

I don't have kids. I don't need to have kids to understand that your parental activities are not more demanding than, say, building a startup or developing a video game. But thanks for trotting out that tired chestnut. I'm more annoyed with your sneering attitude towards the childless than anything. You should stop.

Nope, wrong, full stop, truly spoken like someone with no kids and no idea of the reality of managing people.

Excuses are obviously on a continuum of validity that has nothing to do with kids vs not kids. For instance, if you have to go to the doctor that is a more valid excuse than you want to go to an amusement park and ride a roller coaster. To suggest all things are equal in terms of valid excuses is ridiculous on its face. As a manager you have to recognize that people are humans and that stuff is complicated. With your attitude you will not be able to retain any employees but the most desperate to retain a job.

> The single people strongly resented that because they felt they were being forced to work harder for the same pay since they made different life choices.

That's funny, because your life choices always determine how hard you have to work for the same pay in every other context, so why not this one? For instance, try making the same income after committing some crimes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com