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Comment by luckylion | Hacker News Reader

But they are unhappy about their managers' decision to favor their colleagues.

If you give a tax rebate to anyone who's last name starts with A, are the other people not allowed to be annoyed, given that they have to pay more taxes to make up for the rebate?

"Why can't you just be happy for the A people?" feels weird.

Just pay those not taking time off for the time they would've taken off. It's not a complicated concept, it shows appreciation for them working harder than they'd need to if their colleagues were around.

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If there are fewer people working the managers should be scheduling less work.

In your “tax rebate” example you should be upset with whoever decided to issue rebates in that way, not the people who received the rebate.

"Scheduling less work" means less profit for everyone. Should everyone take a pay cut because of child-caring workers ?

The company shouldn’t make promises it can’t keep. If they have to break one promise (keeping salaries the same) to keep another (paid time off) then it’s still the company that is breaking the promise, not other people to whom they have also made promises.

If they have to cut salaries because they spent all the money on magic beans do you get mad at the beans?

also "less work means less profit" is complete bullshit

> If there are fewer people working the managers should be scheduling less work.

I'll take Things That Will Never Happen for 500, Alex.

> In your “tax rebate” example you should be upset with whoever decided to issue rebates in that way, not the people who received the rebate.

Or you could point out that it's unjust to favor some people in that regard, which everyone would do, and the receivers of the tax break would report feeling a growing resentment over their privileged treatment. Because at the end of the day, the taxes have to be paid. If some are cutting their taxes, others must step up.

I get it, double incomes are great, paying for child care sucks, and reducing hours sucks too (because less income), so if coworkers could just pick up the slack without compensation, that'd be great. But that's essentially just asking the colleagues to finance the chosen lifestyle.

In functional workplaces the management should be capable of tying production to capacity. I’m sorry you can not fathom working in that sort of environment.

I place the blame with the people you have worked for, though, not you.

You could just kill all of the people whose name starts with “A” or whatever but that still won’t get you the tax rebate. The people who made that rule would absolutely love it if you did blame the people who got the rebate though, because they’re the ones who should take the blame and if you ignore their role then they get away with it.

> You could just kill all of the people whose name starts with “A” or whatever but that still won’t get you the tax rebate. The people who made that rule would absolutely love it if you did blame the people who got the rebate though, because they’re the ones who should take the blame and if you ignore their role then they get away with it.

Favoritism isn't always some kind of hidden "divide and conquer" system. Sometimes it's just favoritism. And nobody wants to kill all the tax-rebate people, they just want the tax rebate reversed (or applied to all tax payers) so everyone pays their fair share.

I don’t think you do get it, no. Staff are not “asking their colleagues to finance their lifestyles”, they are asking their managers to accommodate their needs so they can continue to contribute the best they can to the company. If bosses choose to penalise other staff for that — when they have many other options! - that is on them.

Exactly as how the government would be to blame in the ludicrous tax hypothetical (which falsely compares an accommodation with a benefit).

> > If there are fewer people working the managers should be scheduling less work. > I'll take Things That Will Never Happen for 500, Alex.

That's exactly what I would expect to happen in my company. We do weekly sprint planning, and we assign work to each person based on how many hours they have to work that week, not based on the team's needs in a given timeframe.

In this example people who’s letter starts with a basically lost a major social safety net but got a small perk instead. It’s like saying sorry you don’t qualify for social security anymore but here is 600$

When the funding continues, why are they losing anything?

When the company continues to produce the same output, their salaries are the same, they get their equity bonus, and undoubtedly they expect their promotions not to be affected, what are they losing?

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