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"I think in terms of hiring, single people have the advantage over those saddled with small or school-aged kids."
Hiring managers, take heed. You know it's illegal to out-and-out ask an applicant if they have kids, so do this. After the interview, offer to walk the applicant to their car. See a kiddie car seat in there? A bumper sticker that says "Student of the Month at XYZ High School"? You can find these things out if you're a little smarter and work more covertly.
"I think in terms of hiring, single people have the advantage over those saddled with small or school-aged kids."
Hiring managers, take heed. You know it's illegal to out-and-out ask an applicant if they have kids, so do this. After the interview, offer to walk the applicant to their car. See a kiddie car seat in there? A bumper sticker that says "Student of the Month at XYZ High School"? You can find these things out if you're a little smarter and work more covertly.
Or you could choose the best applicant for the job, and not be an advocate for discrimination. I can say from my experience in HR seeing the employment records for hundreds of people and knowing about their lives through their benefits, and not only what they talk about, that parents make fine employees, single mothers are often the most dedicated workers because they care deeply about financially supporting their family. The person who uses a child as an excuse to not work as hard is no more common, and actually probably much less common than the person who is sneaking out early to party, and calling in sick due to hangovers, or the just plain lazy person who just doesn't feel like working hard.
"I think in terms of hiring, single people have the advantage over those saddled with small or school-aged kids."
Hiring managers, take heed. You know it's illegal to out-and-out ask an applicant if they have kids, so do this. After the interview, offer to walk the applicant to their car. See a kiddie car seat in there? A bumper sticker that says "Student of the Month at XYZ High School"? You can find these things out if you're a little smarter and work more covertly.
If you re-read what he wrote...
"in terms of hiring, single people have the advantage over those saddled with small or school-aged kids"...
That means that it's easier for a single person to be the hiring manager than a parent to be the hiring manager. He said "in terms of hiring" which means that he's talking about the person doing the hiring.
Me, single, childfree. Co-worker (CW), single mom of 2. Boss, just the boss.
Xmas time. CW and I both work the same department, together. I put in for Xmas time off. This would have been my first week off for Xmas (at this company). All is well, as 2 weeks go by and I have not received a no to my request. Until 2 weeks and one day go by.
Boss tells me that CW wants the week off.
Me: Well, I put in for it already and I have seniority.
Boss: But CW has kids.
Me: That's not my concern or business.
So Boss and I go back and forth about this and I just finally had to tell him. "You know, you're not supposed to take into consideration an applicant's marital and family status upon hiring. And you have no business using it in deciding vacation time. So what you're telling me is that since I have no kids, that I have to work every holiday because CW has kids. Why am I responsible for CW's holidays with her kids?"
He replies, "well, you don't HAVE a family." My eyes saw red.
I said... "i have more family than I know what to do with. And I want to spend Xmas with them, too. And since YOU don't want to follow the company policy regarding granting vacation time, let's get the company handbook and take a walk to HR to discuss it." If looks could kill, I'd have been dead. LOL
So, not only did I have seniority, but take away THAT consideration, CW had the 2 previous Xmas's off because she was in another dept with a supervisor who micromanaged EVERYTHING, and was only too happy to give CW the holidays off. This time, because a senior CW had retired, this was MY first opportunity to have the holidays off.
Boss told me to go ahead and take the time off, that he'll deal with CW.
So I return to work after New Years, and other CW's tell me she was off all that week, too.
Hmmmm...........funny how he wasn't willing to do that for me. Bastard.
Someone who has to leave early ALL THE TIME using their kid as an excuse is just using a kid as an excuse. Someone who has gotten a call that their kid broke their arm/is throwing up/fainted in school and needs to leave early has a genuine reason for leaving early.
As far as kids' activities go, that should be planned time off. I used to take planned approved vacation days so I could do certain activities with my daughter's class.
Except the discrimination comes in to play not by the jerk parent using that excuse to get away with leaving early so often and not putting in a 40 hour work week, but because management lets them use that as an excuse with no penalties and gets on the case of childless employees who want to leave early or come in late on occasion.
Before I had kids I'm sure I felt the same way. Now that I have kids, not so much. My husband and I both work full time. We have to pay a but load of money for child care. There are half days, holidays, snow days, spring breaks, etc. etc. that we have to plan out every year. We use ALL of our vacation time to accommodate these breaks and rarely take time off together because of this. If a child gets sick we are pretty much screwed. When there are middle of the day school activities we miss them but if there is a way that we can work through our lunches to attend we do.
I totally get what it looks like on the outside but on the inside, we as parents often feel guilty about taking time off and I know I do not take it lightly. I always make sure that if I have to leave for something such as a dentist appointment, school play, or whatever, that I make it up in someway.
What I don't understand is why people go out of their way to make parents feel guilty though. Honestly, what do you expect? Do you expect parents not to work? Do you expect society not to procreate? Someone here said that being a parent is a lifestyle choice and I have to say that not being a parent is a lifestyle choice too. Also, everyone was a child once. Didn't your parents work or at least one parent work?
So you don't think that your childless coworkers should be given the same flexibility to achieve a work/life balance like you are given? Why do you get to work through lunch so you can leave early to see your kid's play but your childless coworker can't work through lunch to leave early and go have dinner with their friends? It's OK to plop most of the extra hours (often unpaid) for extra or late projects on your childless coworkers and make them feel guilty for not letting you get home in time to kiss your child good night at bedtime? Your childless coworkers don;t have a life outside of work like you do?
Except the discrimination comes in to play not by the jerk parent using that excuse to get away with leaving early so often and not putting in a 40 hour work week, but because management lets them use that as an excuse with no penalties and gets on the case of childless employees who want to leave early or come in late on occasion.
The penalties are there whether you see them, or not. Management always notices lack of work for any reason. I saw it all the time working in HR, it comes out in raises, bonuses and promotions, and it always comes out in lay offs too. There are bad employees, and bad managers, but in the grand scheme of work life, that stuff always comes out.
Someone who has to leave early ALL THE TIME using their kid as an excuse is just using a kid as an excuse. Someone who has gotten a call that their kid broke their arm/is throwing up/fainted in school and needs to leave early has a genuine reason for leaving early.
As far as kids' activities go, that should be planned time off. I used to take planned approved vacation days so I could do certain activities with my daughter's class.
There's the kid breaking an arm and leaving early to go to the hospital, and then there's taking time off to go to the kid's school play. Employees with children are given the flexibility to do the second all the time (especially if there's a commute involved) but childless workers are not as often given the flexibility to have an early dinner with friends. Who's to say which person's personal life is more important?
When their lugging kids around all day........I'm doing what ever the heck I want to do. Grass isn't always greener.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freedom125
Just curious as to what you guys thought about this:
Do you think single, childless people have it tougher in the workplace than those who have a family to look after?
For example, when there is a school holiday that is not a company holiday, I always see people taking the day off to be with their kid.
Or if their kid has a sports activity, play, ballet recital, anything like that, and they say, "Hey, I'm leaving early today to go to my kid's activity," It's viewed as, "Awww, what a good parent. Go for it."
I don't have kids or a wife so I never get to go to anything like that. I'm at work all day, every day, with no excuses. Don't get me wrong, I never complain about it or anything like that, and I do what work needs to be done.
I just think it's ironic that if I went to my supervisor and said, "Hey my friend's band is playing at this concert hall this afternoon, so I thought I would take off a bit early and go see it." He would be like, "What? No you're not."
Whereas if one of the moms or dads said, "Hey, my daughter has a concert recital at school this afternoon, so I'm going to duck out early to attend it." It would be just fine.
There's the kid breaking an arm and leaving early to go to the hospital, and then there's taking time off to go to the kid's school play. Employees with children are given the flexibility to do the second all the time (especially if there's a commute involved) but childless workers are not as often given the flexibility to have an early dinner with friends. Who's to say which person's personal life is more important?
If that's really true and not just perception, the problem may be your workplace, as I have said, I have worked in HR for a number of companies and on the RARE occasion a parent abused taking time for kid events, they were later penalized. Just because the manager feels he/she has to say yes doesn't mean they aren't giving the employee black marks that will show up in raises, bonuses, and promotions, and if the abuse continues, firing.
Often the parent is using sick/vacation days, or coming back and staying late, and other employees don't realize that. We need to be careful before judging our co workers, and continuing the stereotype that parents (usually mothers), make bad employees. That is not what I saw during my HR years, the "party king/queen" is a much more prevalent office menace. You might not even realize you are doing double work because he/she is hung over, or calling in sick all the time.
Often employees are given flexibility simply because they asked, I've seen employees who needed flexibility in their schedule because they were in plays, or bands and they work it out with their managers that as long as they get their work done, it's okay. Sometimes people are afraid to ask, and assume the answer is no, and then get mad when someone else did ask and receive. If a manager is truly giving preferential treatment to parents, talk to them, or HR, because no company has this as a policy unless it's some tiny mom and pop who over values parents time, in that case leaving may be the only option.
Last edited by detshen; 02-20-2013 at 02:23 PM..
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