[marbletiles]

Yes, they should be unhappy about that: at their managers. Not at their colleagues attempting to care for children during a pandemic.

I've heard a related thing about US workers resenting colleagues for taking paid time off for similar reasons, and it's just as weird to my European eyes. The difference a decent labour movement (or the legacy of one) can make to industrial relations is stark

[ashtonkem]

Any manager that’s laying out timelines assuming that everyone will work at 100% capacity permanently is being unbelievably naive. People will take vacations, get sick, or need mental breaks. We’re humans, not robots.

If a team can’t handle someone losing velocity due to the challenges of parenting during a once in a century pandemic, then it needs new leadership, period.

[abpavel]

100% pay for 100% work and 16/5 availability. 50% pay for 75% work and 10/3 availability. Are you going to be ok with this on the receiving end?

The second part of comment is asinine trolling. No one is ready for once-in-a-century thing by definition. If once in a century flood leaves the team stranded and water still does not drain away after 6 months it has nothing to do with management. There are no continuity plans for disasters that keep happening for such a long time.

[ashtonkem]

Don’t call me a troll. It’s unhelpful, and turns this from a well meaning discussion into something much more personal and rude. You can disagree without stooping to insults.

Employers should pay for the amount that humans are capable of putting out on average in the long run, which is probably not the same as a neat number like 40hrs a week. Pretending that we can ignore human limits and ask for more is not only a recipe for burnout, but probably not even in the businesses interest due to mistakes and retention concerns.

No, nobody saw a pandemic coming, that wasn’t even my point. My point is that not expecting people to slow down during this is genuinely stupid, and any company (that can work remotely) that can’t handle that change in velocity isn’t well led. It doesn’t take a once in a century pandemic for a team’s availability to change; all it takes is a key developer leaving, someone having a child, or even a car wreck to suddenly pull employees out of the regular rotation. All plans should have error bars on them to compensate for these uncertainties as best as possible; the answer is not to expect the remaining teammates to pick up the slack to avoid missing a deadline that very well might be arbitrary, especially if it’ll cause resentment or burnout among your other employees.

[luckylion]

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.

[evan_]

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.

[luckylion]

> 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.

[evan_]

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.

[luckylion]

> 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.

[marbletiles]

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).

[vecter]

> > 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.

[YarickR2]

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

[evan_]

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?

[evan_]

also "less work means less profit" is complete bullshit

[rdtwo]

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$

[luckylion]

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?

[cascom]

I’ve seen this play out with colleagues/listened to the griping - where the resentment comes in (in addition to the items already discussed) some of the self righteousness of the people with kids vs. non-kids “I really can’t be doing this weekly midnight call with Asia...I have kids” as if having kids was akin to solving world hunger and people without kids couldn’t possibly be doing something meaningful with their time

[marbletiles]

"I solve world hunger" is a high bar to set for people to establish boundaries with their employers.

"I can't do this weekly midnight call" should really be enough. That makes things better for everyone: it means the people without kids can also say they won't attend, even if that's because they've got something planned in a bar. Adding in the details of kids is because the labour relationship is already wrong.

Covid has surely shown that when required to companies can suddenly be incredibly flexible in all sorts of ways that were "never happen" before. This "you must work for us at midnight too" is just another example.

(This is all-too-similar to how people sometimes still talk about accessibility requirements. "The self-righteousness of people demanding ramps everywhere! We already added a lift from the back alley basement entrance which usually works, and that hurt profits that month. They knew the building was like this when they took the job")

[dantheman]

And those who can make those calls should be compensated more as they're providing more value.

At the end this comes down to - some people are providing more value and want to be compensated appropriately; or more specifically some people are now providing less value and don't want their compensation to reflect that.

[cascom]

Now you’re suggesting something that will likely not satisfy some sort of “disparate effect” testing

[cascom]

You miss my point the friction is often with colleagues (in addition to manager/employer) as the co-worker who is seeking a reduced workload often acts holier-than-thou with regards to needing someone to work more on their behalf, rather than being contrite...

[marbletiles]

My point is that you shouldn't have to be contrite that you can't meet employer's insane demands. You should be able to reject demands to do midnight calls whether or not it's because you have a kid or because you want to have a social life.

The game is rigged in the favour of the employers here, and it's so cleverly rigged they have employees blaming each other.

The only people taking midnight calls should be those who are willing to, and who are appropriately compensated for it.

[cascom]

The fact is both people signed up for jobs where they are highly compensated but are always “on-call” - now one wants to change that, still be highly compensated, and the other has to pick up the slack...

[aaomidi]

> Yes, they should be unhappy about that: at their managers. Not at their colleagues attempting to care for children during a pandemic.

Why are you assuming it's not that?

[nicbou]

The article has many pretty unambiguous quotes about it