Personal life and work balance question

[CountDeMoney]

I suspect that by the end of this week (and by that I mean Sunday night) I will have worked around 75 hours.

Not really anything to be proud about, field hand.

Now, working 48 and then billing 75...now that's how a house boy does it.

[dps]

I don't know what you're basing your claim that parenting invariably creates emergencies that parents cannot ignore on.

Being a parent myself. And the experience of every single other parent I've ever known or met, without exception.

Just ask here. Any parents reading this *not* experienced any emergencies requiring their attention, while raising their kids?

My mom quit working and became a stay-at-home mother after the birth of my little brother.  If we were sick or had some other issue, she dealt with it instead of calling my stepfather home from work.  I am almost positive that the only child-care related work absence he ever had was for the birth of my brother.

Now, no doubt he would have taken time off if we had ever had any truly life-threatening injuries or illnesses.  And I don't have a problem with accomodating workers who have kids (or elderly, unwell parents, or spouses/partners with cancer, etc.), but some people want to take a week off because their 15-year old has a cold.  Screw that--Junior can take a cough drop and blow his nose without help from his parents at that point.

[Caliga]

I'm not really proud of it, but when you are juggling two acquisitions at once, it is what it is.  When it makes sense financially for the company to buy something, they're going to do it with no regard to timing, other projects, etc.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm not really proud of it, but when you are juggling two acquisitions at once, it is what it is.  When it makes sense financially for the company to buy something, they're going to do it with no regard to timing, other projects, etc.

Tell me about it.  Bastards.

[Caliga]

 

[Malthus]

I don't know what you're basing your claim that parenting invariably creates emergencies that parents cannot ignore on.

Being a parent myself. And the experience of every single other parent I've ever known or met, without exception.

Just ask here. Any parents reading this *not* experienced any emergencies requiring their attention, while raising their kids?

My mom quit working and became a stay-at-home mother after the birth of my little brother.  If we were sick or had some other issue, she dealt with it instead of calling my stepfather home from work.  I am almost positive that the only child-care related work absence he ever had was for the birth of my brother.

Now, no doubt he would have taken time off if we had ever had any truly life-threatening injuries or illnesses.  And I don't have a problem with accomodating workers who have kids (or elderly, unwell parents, or spouses/partners with cancer, etc.), but some people want to take a week off because their 15-year old has a cold.  Screw that--Junior can take a cough drop and blow his nose without help from his parents at that point.

Not sure of the point of this anecdote. I was asking about parents these days, right now, not in the days when by and large mommy was expected to take care of kids full-time.

Unless perhaps your solution to the "problem" of offering reasonable accomidation to parents is to have society somehow turn back the clock to an earlier generation, when women generally stayed home and took care of the kiddies.

That would be nice I suppose, provided salaries for one wage-earner sufficed for a whole family. But I do think changing our whole society so that it resembles the past is going to be a lot harder than simply offering reasonable accomodation, don't you?

As for staying home from work for 15 year old junior with the sniffles - what is requested (and usually given) is "reasonable" accomodation. I'd agree, yes, staying home with 15 year old junior isn't "reasonable". So would most people.

[CountDeMoney]

I'd agree, yes, staying home with 15 year old junior isn't "reasonable". So would most people.

The only people that would need to stay home with their sick 15 year old are the same people that have probably had to pick up said 15 year old from a police station once or twice.

[dps]

I don't know what you're basing your claim that parenting invariably creates emergencies that parents cannot ignore on.

Being a parent myself. And the experience of every single other parent I've ever known or met, without exception.

Just ask here. Any parents reading this *not* experienced any emergencies requiring their attention, while raising their kids?

My mom quit working and became a stay-at-home mother after the birth of my little brother.  If we were sick or had some other issue, she dealt with it instead of calling my stepfather home from work.  I am almost positive that the only child-care related work absence he ever had was for the birth of my brother.

Now, no doubt he would have taken time off if we had ever had any truly life-threatening injuries or illnesses.  And I don't have a problem with accomodating workers who have kids (or elderly, unwell parents, or spouses/partners with cancer, etc.), but some people want to take a week off because their 15-year old has a cold.  Screw that--Junior can take a cough drop and blow his nose without help from his parents at that point.

Not sure of the point of this anecdote. I was asking about parents these days, right now, not in the days when by and large mommy was expected to take care of kids full-time.

Unless perhaps your solution to the "problem" of offering reasonable accomidation to parents is to have society somehow turn back the clock to an earlier generation, when women generally stayed home and took care of the kiddies.

Well, some people do still have that arrangement, though they are now a distinct minority.  Isn't MonkeyAnger's wife a stay-at-home mom?  At any rate, my point was, for any family in which one parent doesn't work, there's not any reason for the other parent to have to leave work for child-care related reasons, except for very serious illnesses or injuries.

That would be nice I suppose, provided salaries for one wage-earner sufficed for a whole family. But I do think changing our whole society so that it resembles the past is going to be a lot harder than simply offering reasonable accomodation, don't you?

There are advantages to one parent not working, both for families and employers.  Obviously, going back to that model as the social norm isn't something that's likely, and individual employers can't really do anything to influence that, so yes, for them, offering reasonable accomodation is really all they can do--unless they just want to be hardasses about it.

As for staying home from work for 15 year old junior with the sniffles - what is requested (and usually given) is "reasonable" accomodation. I'd agree, yes, staying home with 15 year old junior isn't "reasonable". So would most people.

Sure, but part of the problem with offering reasonable accomodation is that when a parent says that they need to miss work because of a sick child, often the employer isn't going to really if the kid is really sick enough to require a parent's care.  Sure, you can require a doctor's slip, but that's just an additional hassle for everyone involved, and it's not like if a parent takes a kid to the doctor, the doctor won't write the slip even if the kid isn't really all that sick.

[Valdemar]

As to the chance of your wish being granted, I may most likely live to very old age thank you, the disease is non lethal.

Seriously? We had to put up with so much whining about it and it's not even lethal? Jesus.

I think you may be confusing me with someone else? I haven't written about since I got it around 2006.

V

[Valdemar]

OK, you've tricked me into arguing an absolute, just like a tricky Jew lawyer would.  Though I would like to point out in passing that there's no law of physics that says such and such family emergency requires immediate attention or that a parent cannot stay at work.  Those are choices.

Actually there probably are laws here in socialist paradise that could do that

They usually trot out the various versions of "bad parenting", mal treatment and stuff like that if they think your are doing too many bad choices, like NOT attending your kid if its taken to the ER for stiches, NOT picking it up from school or day care often enough and things like that

V

[Valdemar]

I thought we should help saving the bankrupt EU states, but having read the responses from the likes of TheLarch or Martim Silva I think we should let them sink. I'm so happy Poland is not a nanny state of lazy layabouts.

So sayeth the Pole. When one of our companies took over the supermarket chain Biedronka in Poland and applied there the standard work shifts they demand in Portugal, all the Polish workers went crying to the authorities, whining that they were being 'expoited' and 'driven like slaves'.

Poles gotta show they can work under our employers before they can criticize our workers for being lazy.

Not to mention they export a good deal of their unemployemnt to all the nanny states as unskilled craftsmen and cleaners

Should they ever be sent home unemployment benefits would ruin Poland

V

[Tamas]

And newsflash, there's a world besides big shot law firms, not that you know anything at all about it.

I work in an environnemnt at least as competitive as big law in Poland, management Consulting in a London based company, and I Can fit two boys, judo training for both, chronic disease, and workloads without even considering a nanny. I guess it comes Down to Maturity of nation, employéers and employers.

In fact, the only help we have are inkompetent cleaners from Poland

V

It may come down to an other Poland-related thing: they being considered a second-class location within the organization.

[Tamas]

In my experience the people that act like Marti or the partner Marti described are the ones who need to show they are martyrs to the cause because they dont really have anything else to offer but their hours.

For the rest of us, the world is a bit different.

oh snap!

but yeah.

[Tamas]

Besides, I don't get Marty's point (well, I do, he is a victim and stricken with unowrthy underlings, I don't get the point he pretends to have).

His underlings arent working hard enough? What? They are not completing tasks on time? Fire them, hire others.
Or is it that they swim through the whole thing easier than he did and it hurts him?

[Malthus]

Well, some people do still have that arrangement, though they are now a distinct minority.  Isn't MonkeyAnger's wife a stay-at-home mom?  At any rate, my point was, for any family in which one parent doesn't work, there's not any reason for the other parent to have to leave work for child-care related reasons, except for very serious illnesses or injuries.

Sure. But that hardly affects the argument, which is about those who *do* need accompdation.

There are advantages to one parent not working, both for families and employers.  Obviously, going back to that model as the social norm isn't something that's likely, and individual employers can't really do anything to influence that, so yes, for them, offering reasonable accomodation is really all they can do--unless they just want to be hardasses about it.

And if they do, it isn't to their benefit, because it decreases the pool of employees.

Sure, but part of the problem with offering reasonable accomodation is that when a parent says that they need to miss work because of a sick child, often the employer isn't going to really if the kid is really sick enough to require a parent's care.  Sure, you can require a doctor's slip, but that's just an additional hassle for everyone involved, and it's not like if a parent takes a kid to the doctor, the doctor won't write the slip even if the kid isn't really all that sick.

What differentiates this situation from an employee asking for time off because *they* are sick?

Same problems of verification and potential for abuse, isn't there? My family doc would write me whatever note I want - and why not, he doesn't owe my employer anything. Would the "solution" be to fire everyone who ever gets sick, or rather, demand that they show up to work no matter what?

You can see that taking such a "hard line" on that would hardly be in an employer's best interest - as the overlap between "good employees" and "employees who never get sick" may not be perfect, right?