Political Memes

And non-smokers should be given as many breaks as the smokers!

I don't think this is controversial. It's all about the ratios. And this says a lot about your work condition. I got 27 days off annually. Before my child was born I had 26. It's not a game changer... If all my childless coworkers got an extra day off I probably wouldn't even notice. So sure thay should have it, whatever. You Americans can argue about the weirdest things sometimes.

I don’t know about this. At face value it seems like someone saying whaaa I want a day off too if my coworker has to take time off to take care of a sick kid or something. These are not the same thing.

If some other event like a school cancellation outside a parent’s control puts them in a bind it isn’t their fault.

Society has decided that parents should care for their kids, so people tend to bend in that direction. It will likely never be the same for a childless person. If someone needs time off, ask for it off, but they’ll always be up against that.

That all said, I agree with how shitty work culture is that people don’t have access to guaranteed, penalty-free PTO and instead argue over whether or not a parent should have time for a kid because of the inequality regarding the childless not having the “excuse” of kids.

Not exactly, you don't deserve to get dick days for your child being sick if you have no child.

Also you deserve additional leneancy when your child is sick. Cannot plan for that. They just do that and need more supervision than your sick partner.

Most things that reduce non parent's ability to work can happen to parents equally.

Vacation does in fact suck though. A lack of child shouldn't make it harder for you to take a vacation. But your employer also must enable parents to take time off when their kids need supervision, so that sounds like a staffing issue.

Yes, fight among each other and leave us millionaire bosses alone 🤑

Genuine question here -- where and how are employees without children treated differently? In the US, besides parental leave at the birth of a child (which only some employers offer), are there employers that offer differing time off? I work in healthcare, and everywhere I've ever worked provides paid time off equally to everyone. The biggest difference is parents usually end up burning vacation days due to sick kids or school holidays

Agreed, all workers should have maximum flexibility to balance their lives. Why hurt productivity for the sake of a rigid schedule?

Its my contention that happy workers are more productive. Let every worker take the time they need to maintain their work/life balance, so long as the quality of their work is unaffected.

This thread is so fucking sad to read. All of you are workers squabbling over the basic dignity to have paid leave from work. You all sound like slaves, justifying your lashes. What if, and I know this is radical, we enabled all workers to have as much flexibility as possible over how they are productive with their labour?

i’ve thought about this a few times since having a kid and it’s made me realise that the most important change is the confidence to say there is something that work must be flexible over.

for example, it is a dealbreaker to me that i must be able to drop and collect my child from school. so my manager and i have spoken about arrangements that allow that to happen.

but it’s that same kind of confidence that someone without kids could bring to the table and say that wednesday is guild night and they need to leave early for it. i mean it doesn’t sound “socially acceptable” but i think that if having kids or religious observances allows you to say “i need this flexibility” you should have the confidence to demand it.

and if your manager is someone who only respects religious or family demands id also condone saying it’s for religious observances and taking no further questions.

A lot of parents in the comments here. I do believe that there are some concessions that parents should receive, but there is a noticeable imbalance in the flexibility given to parents and non-parents.

I think that paid parental leave is something that parents should receive over non-parents without question. You are being given that time to recover and raise your infant. In my country, it is even paid by the government to the employer so that they can pay the employee.

The thing that irks me is when parents get priority for leave requests etc because of their kids. My wife and I have missed out on family holidays because our employers have told us that parents get priority for leave during school holidays. Ignoring the fact that our families are travelling in school holidays because there are children in our family.

I have been told by employers that I cannot start an hour early today (in a job that has no client facing role) in order to leave early for an appointment. Yet there are people sending the “out of office for an hour to pick up the kids” message every other day.

A society should always prioritize its weaker members. Children are among these. The flexibility given to the parents is not a gift to the parents, but to the children.

Same energy

Rule: if your company sets you up against your colleagues because you xor they have children, it's time for a strike or time to quit

Based on the tone and language of the discussion, this is very USA things.

And for that I've a song.

Extra time off isn't some kind of reward for having kids, it's to make having kids possible. We'll be old someday and we'll need those kids to support us. Give parents all the time off they want. Imagine the kind of guy who sees a new mom get time off work to take care of a literal shit machine and thinks "She's the one who decided to excrete a crotch goblin. I should get the same amount of time off work as she does so I can play more Elden Ring." Then imagine how that guy smells.

People saying that kids are important to society so we should allow parents extra flexibility, it rests on the assumption that what non parents would be doing with that flexible is less important to society. What if I'm giving blood, or helping an elderly parent, or volunteering at a homeless shelter? It's hardly the employers role to judge pass judgement on what is a worthwhile use of time.

I think it would be ideal if everyone could be afforded the flexibility they need in their own lives for whatever they might wish to do, but I don't think this take is a very good one.

The reason parents are often given these benefits is because there is an understanding that there is a literal human being's life on the line, and that this person cares incredibly strongly about that child.

I might care a lot about an event I want to go to, but when it comes down to it, any boss would probably pick making sure a parent can pick their kid up from school over me being able to go a concert or something.

If everyone had a kid tomorrow, you'd probably see a lot of these benefits not be offered as freely, considering how businesses would simply just be understaffed to handle that much demand for flexibility, skipping certain hours, schedule changes, etc.

All that said though, there is still room for benefits and additional flexibility to be afforded to workers... if corporations are willing to spend extra money on more staff, better accommodations like not requiring in-office work when the work only requires being on a computer all day, stuff like that.

People should be accommodated by their workplace for their unique circumstances, even if others in that workplace don’t share those circumstances. This should not come at the expense of their coworkers. Accommodation can be fair without being strictly equal, but care needs to be taken or resentment will occur.

A lot of this could be solved if the standard business strategy about staffing wasn’t “cut payroll to the bone then hire back when things start to break down to maintain the absolute bare minimum at all times”

This question is what you ask when you want to get your employees fighting against each other and not against the boss who is stealing all of their money.

The first step would be to fix wage theft and then the second step might be to get rid of the ultra rich, or maybe those could be done in the reverse order. At some point long after those things are accomplished we could talk about how people get jealous when they see someone else who apparently gets privileges that they wish they had. And sometimes there are small changes that can be made that will alleviate those situations.

monkey's paw / evil genie / etc:

Wish granted. All employees - with or without children - will now be treated badly and given no flexibility