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Tuna-Salad

People with kids vs people without.

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First I'm sure some people will take offense to this... but no matter. Pretty much in short observation of many workplaces it appears that people with kids vs people who don't appear to get special privilages. Example, my girlfriend works in an office and if a co worker has to leave early or misses a day because of something to do with their kid, she is stuck working late and picking up their slack. I'm sure this is not exclusive to her job / office. It will never happen but I see it as only fair that people without kids get an extra week or so of paid vacation to make up for getting screwed earlier in the year. Thoughts? Comments? Leave the torches and pitchforks at home...
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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Plenty of employers offer paid vacations. If you are salary then you can leave early to do what ever for or with your kid and still get paid the same. Meanwhile others without kids are being penalized by having to take up the slack and do your job for you. Obviously things in life are not fair, but in observation people with kids get preferential treatment in the workplace vs those without. Those without should be allowed more time off / paid sick days etc to make up for. Yes smokers and coffee drinkers are less productive as well due to the frequent trips to the coffee maker and such but, this can be regulated by the employer to enforce specific break times which, companies like Verizon for example are almost nazis about. However if you get fired for missing work due to your kid you can likely sue the company and get away with it.
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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oldwomanc6

What employer pays for time not worked? Take the time off and use PTO or sick leave.

Smokers take more time in "coffee" breaks than non-smokers.

Not always true. I work w/ a cig hangin outta my mouth and it doesn't slow me down. The coffee drinkers have to get get their thermos or go to the coffee maker, pour a cup then hold it in the hand and while they drink it slowly.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

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chutem

You are failing to provide future "tax payers" by not having children. You should be penalized severely. Someones gotta pay for all the stuff the gov spends money it doesn't have on.:P

Correct. And who in there right mind would bring a child into this fucked up world nowadays anyway. Slaves for life. Get a good dog.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

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chutem

You are failing to provide future "tax payers" by not having children. You should be penalized severely. Someones gotta pay for all the stuff the gov spends money it doesn't have on.:P



Ummm...people without kids already pay higher taxes than those with.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Tuna-Salad

Plenty of employers offer paid vacations. If you are salary then you can leave early to do what ever for or with your kid and still get paid the same. Meanwhile others without kids are being penalized by having to take up the slack and do your job for you. Obviously things in life are not fair, but in observation people with kids get preferential treatment in the workplace vs those without. Those without should be allowed more time off / paid sick days etc to make up for. Yes smokers and coffee drinkers are less productive as well due to the frequent trips to the coffee maker and such but, this can be regulated by the employer to enforce specific break times which, companies like Verizon for example are almost nazis about. However if you get fired for missing work due to your kid you can likely sue the company and get away with it.



If the only recognition employees get is being fired or not, it sounds like there are other engagement problems in play.

If I'm a manager and someone needs to take off on short or no notice "because life" it's on me to make sure things don't screech to a halt because of it. Hopefully the person taking the time off doesn't make that any harder than it needs to be. And if someone else steps up to pick up any slack left behind I'm gonna remember that at the end of the year.

I'm used to working on and with teams of pretty specialized individuals though. I can see this possibly being more of an issue that goes unmitigated in an environment where there's "one big pile" of work to do.

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I used to run into that fairly often at a previous job to be honest. Very annoying for example when EVERYONE is expected to work overtime and one person is always pulling the kid card and leaving on time, or when the people with kids get extra consideration around the holidays. I flat out told my boss once that just because I did not have kids did not mean that I didn't have a family or important things to do. And don't get me started on "snow days" when it takes 2 hours to get in to the office and all the folks with kids stayed home because the schools were closed!>:(

And the fact that the offenders are generally burning their paid time off doesn't always help when you are the one staying late to cover the slack.

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People who have kids often assume that those without kids have nothing "important" to do... I'm not even sure they realise just how many extra hours we put in so they can fuck off early to be with their families... How many holiday we have to cancel because clearly it's more important for them to take all the bank holidays and long weekends and school holidays et cetera... And whilst they are leaving early and taking sick days and going on holidays, who is picking up the slack?? We are.

Yep... Life's not fair.
"There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse."
- Chris Hadfield
« Sors le martinet et flagelle toi indigne contrôleuse de gestion. »
- my boss

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Geez there is a whole lot of Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa going on in this thread.
If you don't like your job, and the way your place of work is managed, leave and do something else. Better still, start a business and make your own rules. (I did - best decision ever.)
Never try to eat more than you can lift

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30 years of government service and I don't think I ever got preferential treatment for having children. If I had to be somewhere with them, I had to use annual vacation leave. It was granted on a a first-come, first-served basis. I even had to use vacation leave when they were born. Being a man, I was not able to use sick leave as paternity leave.

Raising children properly is one of the most important jobs there is. We were lucky that my earning ability allowed Vskydiver to be a stay at home mom. Other people aren't as lucky. I can cut them some slack if they need it. Some of the worst leave abusers I've seen had no children at all.

I think people with severe illnesses should be fired. Some of those f-ers have really screwed with my plans for time off. I don't care if you have a broken leg or cancer, if you can't do your job all day, you should be canned.

Did the sarcasm come out okay on that last one?;):D

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oldwomanc6

Really?

If that's the case, it has more to do with the employer than the employee.

Again, who gets paid for hours they don't work? :S



It is something I have consistently encountered in the 19 years I have been working (in several very different jobs/companies). I even read a study on it once - if I find it I will post it on here. Single/childless people work more. It's not that parents are slackers - I'm sure having kids is like having two jobs... But child-free people work more hours at their paid job. It's not even debatable - it's fact. Like anything, there are always exceptions - but they are the exception. And of course as you rightly said, there are actual slackers out there on both sides - kids or no kids - but that's not what we are talking about here.


ETA - part of it is learning to say no, but even when you do, parents naturally have the priority when it comes to time off, et cetera. In a way it's right because raising kids *is* important... It's just that they often don't realise their work-place is flexible on the back of single people. It's not me going waaaaa waaaaaah... It's just the way it is. Kinda like John said: sick/disabled people work less on the back of healthy/abled people. It's called a "society" - not everyone contributes the same but there are overall benefits to the setup...
"There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse."
- Chris Hadfield
« Sors le martinet et flagelle toi indigne contrôleuse de gestion. »
- my boss

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She'll have a happier, angst-free life if she just learns to let it go. We're all on this planet together and sometimes we all need a helping hand. Maybe that parent will end up raising the kid who will become a doctor who saves your girlfriend's life someday. You never know. Having compassion for others really does the soul good. :)
If she doesn't want to just let it go, she should keep track of all the time she's covered for others and bring it up in her annual review. Maybe she can get herself a raise that way.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

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or instead of complaining about the parents who come in late and leave early, be the employee who volunteers to come in early and leave late. make it known that your the one employee who is very flexible and will pick up the slack when needed. do this while working your ass off for six months to a year and you will become invaluable to your employer/manager and will be rewarded for it. (has happened to me in every job I have had and whenever I decided to leave I was offered increase in pay or PTO or both to stay)

And then the parent employees would complain about how I was the golden employee and could do no wrong in front of the manager

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Perhaps she could lobby HR for a "Childless Bonus" at the end of the year, that could be taken from the bonus or salary compensation of the employees that take off early and miss work.

I would be WAY in favor of that.
I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

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The military found this out a long time ago. There are members now that have sham marriages so as to get the pay and benefits of a married couple. When you start adding in pay raises and more time off due to kids the single military gets really hosed. It is much better for a lot of reasons to have family in the military and the military knows it. The Marines attempted to require that all incoming enlisted be single at one point and the Commandant of the Marine Corps got crucified for it. Look who is standing duty on Holidays and it will be all the single people.

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I will apologize for a slight thread bend.....but not too bad.

What always catches my attention in a not so positive way, involves reading your property tax statements. Depending on your property be it residential, commercial, industrial, or farm/ranch, a substantial percentage goes towards schools, even if you are childless. Same is true if you rent, since taxes are a substantial liability to owner. I've always felt this was wrong and should be multi-tiered at a minimum.

However, I get "skymama's" point, betterment of society (para-phrasing). Also," John's" point, since illness and accidents can happen to anyone at anytime. But overall, the childless get "pelted" under our current tax system, as well as the above mentioned work place imbalances. Really, the only way to soften the above mentioned situation is" Stumpy's" "start your own business" suggestion. Granted, not easy, scary, costly, completely takes over your life (otherwise you probably won't succeed). But hey, it's your baby/"child" and it's worth it, even if you aren't successful (bottom line $$$'s) the first time. Lessons learned are more practical than most 4-6-8- year degrees IMO.

Back to where 30-40% (random...depending on) tax dollars go for people without kids to support kids.....local parks which we probably don't use, recreation areas for families which we don't use, and in some communities local zoo's.

We do have the benefit of a much better zoo, and we get to touch the animals, and sometimes pet them but it is very expensive......at our DZ's ;)

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Nothing is fair in life and the fact is that for every person who works/pays less there are people working harder/paying more to compensate.

If everyone paid only their "fair share" for what was directly applicable to them, few people would be able to afford having kids, becoming ill, losing their partner, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that would be a better system than the current (albeit flawed) redistribution of wealth...
"There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse."
- Chris Hadfield
« Sors le martinet et flagelle toi indigne contrôleuse de gestion. »
- my boss

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In corporate America, sometimes the squeaky wheel is the one that gets greased.
:P

Sounds like a management issue mostly.
If it's salary employee, bitching about someone else getting away with less work is just silly. Unless you're wasting work hours stalking their work behavior to prove it, it's between them and their boss.
I'm suddenly reminded on why finding the "right fit" is generally more important than finding the right skills, so long as those skills can be taught.
With proper flexible time salary jobs, physical presence at work is a waste of resources.

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