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especially knowing one of the remote employees was maintaining a household with 4 children

You're saying people having a household with kids can't be productive employees?

I'm pretty sure he's saying the guy/gal working from home with 4 kids running around can't be a productive employee. Which is probably true for most cases. Kids can be a giant distraction.

Kids can be a distraction, for sure. Just like coworkers or officemates who frequently disrupt others (even if not directly, such as the cube next to someone trying to concentrate).

When at home, if I feel the a distraction looming, it's easy to shut the door. Problem (mostly) solved.

When the poster says "maintaining", I'm guessing the employee was doing double-duty as a stay-at-home mom/dad, at which point you can't always just shut the door for 8 hours.

You're 100% correct if that is the meaning. But, that isn't "working" full time (unless it was a pre-agreed arrangement). That shouldn't be allowed, but poor management will not catch/act on it.

However, I was specifically replying to the context of having distractions (kids, in this case) in gcp's and alistairSH's comments.

There was nothing in the gigantor's post that suggested the remote employee was working in the same room, or even the same building, as zir kids.

For all we know, said employee was paying alimony for them.

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