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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

I have a family, and I'm very protective of my time because failure to, for example, pick my kid after school would quickly escalate to criminal negligence. If my work demanded that I commit any crime, I would refuse until I got fired (quitting is for losers, in this case: I want my damned severance).

I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack. I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way.

Said differently, if you're upset at parents putting their children's wellbeing before your team's performance, then you should re-evaluate your relationship with work.

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Kind of a strawman argument, and a bit dramatic. The parent is discussing parents wanting to leave early and be given less work

It's no more a straw man than the poster they were referring to; both describe their perspective of a described situation, from opposite sides.

Neither is discussing "leaving early", both are discussing "leaving on time".

If you choose to work unpaid extra hours then that's on you.

Fine. A strictly capitalist take on the situation: your inability to negotiate for desirable hours & wages is not the responsibility of anybody but yourself. Go work in a union if you want everybody to have the same contract.

No disagreement with your argument about being protective about one’s time. But in your case you haven’t negotiated anything. You just go when you have to.

I mean it’s an implicit negotiation of sorts. If you can routinely leave work early and not get penalized for it, you’ve basically “negotiated” that arrangement.

This all comes back to the fact that everyone should be protective of their time. I’m single but regularly run errands, exercise, go grocery shopping etc in the “middle of the workday”. I get my work done. Nobody complains.

It’s just a matter of knowing and recognizing your own value.

I literally negotiated for the flexibility of my working conditions. Had to renegotiate when the pandemic hit.

Parents needing such negotiations may be a "hidden cost" that y'all aren't considering. Also, parenting is a ton of work so when I kick off the paid job, I'm still working 'til 9 most nights.

That’s awesome, it was clear for everyone involved what your situation is so things can be planned around.

Out of curiosity, was there ever any situation that your manager would reach out and ask for you to put additional time because of an urgent requirement / situation?

Yeah, there was a recent slow-emergency situation, which did require more work than I typically budget for. In that case, I ended up working after I put the kid to bed. It was the result of a bad decision by management, they were quite apologetic and my team got some un-accounted-for time off afterwards. If this turned into a regular thing, I'd quit with or without another offer in hand.

You're really just doubling down on making the parents point huh.

Sure, if you insist on reading past the part where I expect everybody to demand better for themselves and I'm dismayed when they don't.

> I don't assume that non-parents can or should pick up the slack.

Maybe you don't assume that, but the system built around parenting does assume that. A clear example of this is "new parent" time off. At my company, new parents can take 4 months off work (paid). So, if you work on a team of a dozen people, and 10 people on the team have children at some point, that means, at a minimum, 2 people are picking up more of the slack than the others.

Let's be clear here, the "system" in question is just exploitative management. If management knows a worker will be taking their leave they can either hire to make up for it or adjust their productivity expectations for a few months. If they don't, that's not the fault of the person taking the leave that they're entitled to as part of their compensation package.

Filling in for the missing teammate is only part of the problem, though even that assumes temporary (possibly skilled or specialty) help is readily available for a short-term assignment, or that productivity can be scaled back without missing deadlines which in some cases are set years in advance and are essential for coordinating schedules with other teams.

No, the real issue here is that everyone is paying for this benefit which only helps a subset of the workers. Ordinary PTO—vacations and holidays—is available to everyone to use as they wish. Sick leave is only for those with medical issues, but statistically most employees will end up using it at some point and they all benefit from having that protection since it's (more or less) a random occurrence. But parental leave is not random; it's specifically tied to the employees choices, and some employees are not in a situation where it would ever benefit them. Logically, then, paid parental leave should be an opt-in benefit which employees pay for, not a default part of the general employee compensation package.

At my work, new parents tend to give 3-6 months notice before that PTO and we hire temporary replacements. What's wrong with your workplace? It's not the parents.

Alternatively the firm can take a productivity hit for a couple months.

You're ignoring the fact that in most cultures saying you have a kid related event will get you out of something while usually retaining your standing in a company. Trying to negotiate leaving at 4pm so you can go home and relax is not seen in the same way. As a parent you're bargaining with more leverage.

This is an issue with your workplace. Yes, a parent is essentially threatening to be fired every time there is an issue with their kid. What we need is more people implicitly threatening the same whenever they have non-kid issues crop up that the business refuses to accommodate.

It’s not that parents have more leverage, it’s that everyone knows a parent’s threats are real.

> What we need is more people implicitly threatening the same whenever they have non-kid issues crop up that the business refuses to accommodate.

Much more fun to beat up on parents than cancer patients, isn't it?

Sure. But when my daycare falls through and I need to pick my kid up outside my normal schedule, I don't go home and "relax," I go home with parental duties which is work. So, no duh, going hone to "relax" is not the same. Now, if you need to run home because your basement is flooding, that will also be seen as different from going home to relax.

When my kid is sick, I take a sick day. When school and daycare are both cancelled, I take a vacation day. Everybody at my work gets the same amount of both, only I'm more prone to using up my sick time and using vacation days to cover illness. Single people generally get all their vacation as vacation, and their vacations are breaks from responsibilities. My "vacations" happen on a schedule determined by school, and it's a vacation for my kid, with no real reduction in my responsibilities. "Hidden costs" indeed.

Employee A: I have an event that I must attend and cannot inconsequentially avoid.

Employee B: I want to go home and relax.

Employee C: I'm leaving, see you tomorrow!

As your co-worker or your boss, why do I care in the slightest whether you're going home to take care of your kid, to smoke a bowl and watch a movie, or because a new video game was released that day?

If A, B, and C are all getting their work done in the time that they are working, I think equally of the three of them, as subordinate, peer, or supervisor.

Bingo.

A, B, and C should all just leave at a regular, reasonable time. And sometimes each of them has reason to leave early, and doesn't need to justify it.

Employee B: [to prevent burnout so that I can remain a functioning member of society.]

As you posted down below, this should all be seen equally if the person is getting their work done, but it's not, and that's the point I was making.

They have to prioritize work because your kid gets sick, or gets out of school early, or you have to go to their event. Kids have much more time to disrupt your life, and parents need more accommodation than single people for flexible scheduling. It's single people who pick up the slack for you, the whole "negotiating" thing is BS because its rarely the disruptions are on a fixed schedule.

God forbid you get sick, injured, have a family obligation (marriage, funeral, etc), doctor's appointment, etc. If your management is so incredibly inflexible that you get punished for having events outside your control that impact your availability, then that's a problem with management. If you see parents having responsibilities as the problem, then your team/management is toxic. They want you to stay socially dependent on the team, to the point that you cannot have a life on or off the clock. Find another job, that's a sickness.

Or, stick it to the parents: go out, meet somebody, have a baby of your own. If that sounds impossible, the problem is almost certainly how you're spending your time. Probably a work/life balance issue.

> God forbid you get sick, injured, have a family obligation (marriage, funeral, etc), doctor's appointment, etc.

This isn't a binary issue. Work/life balance is obviously important for everyone, but where that balance point lies varies depending on individual circumstances. Employees with children have all those same obligations plus the additional responsibilities related to their kids. They receive more accommodation, on average, than employees without children. Performance expectations relative to pay should be the same for everyone regardless of their situation outside of work but that isn't always the case. If you need an excuse to claim time off, those with more excuses will tend to get more time.

Point is that the parents have all those things happen to. They just get the excuse of their children having those things happen to them and they get to take time off of work for it too. Whereas the single/childless/whatever people are not going to have that freedom. So, yeah, they’re gonna have to pickup the slack at work as per usual.

We don't "get to" take time off work. We need to take time off work. You seeing my obligations as privilege is a problem.

Ah yes - well I need to work less but for some reason it falls on deaf ears with my supervisor. Soooo weird how that works - hmmm….

Fire your supervisor.

But does your "need" involve a legal responsibility, as parents have to their children?

Do you have a legal need to reproduce? No.

Ah, yes, the misanthrope defense. Ask your mom if you deserve to live, and see what she's got to say. If she asks why, explain that you think that she'd have been a better wageslave if you didn't exist.

Thankfully, reproduction is thoroughly protected constitutional right. You'll thank me when my kid's taxes are paying for your social security and medicare. You're welcome. Because we live in a society.

But weirdly enough? There's a new law in Texas, and copycats coming to a state near you, that will legally oblige women to carry a child to term, even in cases of rape. So, the answer to your question is yes. Fuck.

> I have a family, and I'm very protective of my time because failure to, for example, pick my kid after school would quickly escalate to criminal negligence. If my work demanded that I commit any crime, I would refuse until I got fired (quitting is for losers, in this case: I want my damned severance).

> Said differently, if you're upset at parents putting their children's wellbeing before your team's performance, then you should re-evaluate your relationship with work.

Who are you arguing with?

It's a redirection of focus. In this thread, non-parents are upset at parents because they feel crunched when we have obligations that prevent us from working certain hours. The reason that they feel crunched is not the fault of the parents; it's the fault of management. I'm arguing with the notion that this is some sort of privilege parents have, that non-parents necessarily pay the price for. If management takes this sort of interruption into account, you won't feel the crunch. If management punishes your team because of circumstances outside of your control, that's abusive. If you ostracize the teammates with those external circumstances, you're playing into a divide & conquer tactic. You'll probably end up on the receiving end of that at some point.

If you think it's important to be a team player, show some loyalty to your team and demand better of your management.

Your comment clearly demonstrates OP's argument. Parents believe their time is more important than that of people without children.

No:

> I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way.

I agree completely, as a parent. I don't expect non-parents to put in extra time. Kids certainly do give you "real time deadlines" that can't be moved or pushed out of the way, but I don't expect to work any less because of them.

Those real time deadlines that take you away from your work is what they're talking about. You leaving for those deadlines means someone else implicitly needs to pick up the slack.

Or at least that is the argument.. but there are a few assumptions here that aren't true. Namely, someone doesn't need to pick up the slack, the work will be there the next day in most cases. Someone else with kids might be around. If your boss is treating you different it's on you to call it out and move on.

> You leaving for those deadlines means someone else implicitly needs to pick up the slack.

It really doesn't. That's only the case in an abusive work environment.

Wouldn't this really depend on the job?

Maybe there is a assumption up thread that it's a tech office job being discussed?

But many jobs, if you had to leave to pickup kids because a bus brokedown, a no-change deadline - and you were working the afternoon shift at a wendys. digging trenches for a sewer line, paving a road, processing a line at an ER - all sorts of jobs - I think there would be no choice but for others to pickup the work being skipped.

So I think it's very job dependent. Even some tech jobs probably can't just be postponed till the next day.

We're on hacker news, most everyone here works in tech.

> I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way

What does "[prioritizing] work in a detrimental way" even mean?

It means prioritizing working over one's non-work life, i.e., ignoring the "balance" in "work-life balance" in favor of doing work for someone else.

> ignoring the "balance" in "work-life balance"

Is the balance not a personal choice? If I consciously choose to have a 90-10 work-life balance, why is that detrimental?

If you're also among the folks getting mad about those of us who don't work outside of work hours, then it's not a precisely a personal choice. But, benefit of the doubt:

When I was in university, I did the 90/10 thing. When I graduated, I lost almost my entire social network. I don't want you, or the people I work with, to experience that. Non-work hobbies make you a whole person, more pleasant to be around, more interesting to talk to. Please don't spend the prime years of your life pulling for somebody else's dream.

I'm not mad, I just found this a bit odd:

"I expect all of my coworkers to be protective of their work-life balance and I'm dismayed whenever I see them prioritize work in a detrimental way"

I'm keenly aware of the effects of working all the time and that I'm in my "prime", even moreso because I'm remote.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be working a lot if I didn't enjoy it and think I was gaining something valuable from it. Being in my "prime" also means it's a great time to learn and grow because everything compounds.

Btw I'm not working 90% of the time, that was just an extreme example.

No, it's not really a personal choice the way you mean--which essentially makes "balance" have no meaning.

It's detrimental because it's unhealthy for you (c.f. consciously choosing to smoke tobacco products) and it's also unhealthy for your peers--because your employers will always prefer the person who devotes himself to service of the employer over balanced individuals who don't, forcing them to adjust toward the unhealthy end.

> which essentially makes "balance" have no meaning

Only to you. Someone else may feel that 90-10 is a good balance for them at that particular time.

> It's detrimental because it's unhealthy for you

Working a lot isn't inherently unhealthy. You can be physically and mentally healthy while working a lot.

> forcing them to adjust toward the unhealthy end

Only if they want to keep up. I don't think about working more as "service of [my] employer", it's about faster personal growth. I don't expect other people to also work more, but I'm also not going to slow down for them.

It really depends on what exactly you're talking about. If you want to be unavailable for an hour every day during the standard "work day", that goes well beyond reasonable protectiveness of work-life balance in my opinion.

If you’re explicit about it and your manager accepts it, that becomes part of the deal.

Just as other people will take 2 hour lunch breaks every day to exercice or leave early for months to go find a new home etc.

To your point, these arrangements usually go both ways, and are compensated for instance by starting earlier or bringing some work home. But it’s far from being limited to parents.

> If you’re explicit about it and your manager accepts it, that becomes part of the deal.

I'm confused. What authority do you have to say that something has become part of a social contract involving your coworkers when those same coworkers had no input on the process?

That's how social contracts work. They're not explicitly negotiated formal agreements done by equals. They're the outcome of never ending negotiations that happen not daily or hourly but on a minute by minute basis. If you don't like the social contract of your workplace you quit and find a new one. If you don't like it but you have no good BATNA you grin and deal with the shit. A social contract is an accomodation with power.

Your manager’s authority.

By definition they get to say what is part of the contract, on behalf of your coworkers. They can still complain after the fact, but will need to convince your manager(s) to reverse the decision. If your manager doesn’t have that authority you need to deal with HR or whoever had it, but by definition there will be someone holding that role in your company.

Of course consulting coworkers on important arrangements makes thing go smoother, but it’s only consulting, the chain of authority doesn’t disappear.

Maybe if you’re manning a conveyor belt. I couldn’t care less when my coworkers get their work done and think it’s completely reasonable if someone wants to shift some hours around if it makes their life easier/more enjoyable

I'm a programmer working from home. My manager does not give a shit if I'm randomly unavailable for an hour every day.

They give a shit if you expect full pay for 7/8th of the work. And they give a shit if you only do 7/8ths as much as before you had a kid.

o.O

If you're delivering on schedule and performing comparable to expectations then it shouldn't matter what hours you work.

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