Let’s work from home when the kids are sick, thank you great company that I am allowed to slave away for you while taking care of my sick kid! It isn’t even a US company it seems.
Edit: guess I should have posted to unpopularopinions instead!
I just wanted to add I cut off the photo of the person on purpose. She is posting that with her sick child in her lap and that photo has been taken by some other person, not a selfie. If you are not feeling that the content of the post is bad, you hopefully still agree that presenting your sick child in an almost professionally looking photo to the world for LinkedIn clout is not great.
Raving about working aside, what’s wrong with this? Kids get sick a lot and you definitely need 2 jobs to comfortably pay for them these days.
Loads of my coworkers work an extra day from home when their kids are sick and it works great. I’d say it’s probably one of the best reasons to work from home.
Edit: I work from home about 2-3 of my 4 work days. I only go to the office to see my coworkers voluntarily or for the physical meetings. I would not wish forced full time in person days for people who can work from home.
I think the problem is that it should be standard, but the LinkedIn poster is talking about it like her company is SO generous.
Yes and no. Multiple things are the problem.
1st - what you said, this shouldn’t be a thing worth highlighting and its sad it is
2nd - just the usual online clout generating using your sick child. The image below is the poster with her sick daughter in her lap, I cut it off on purpose. I get it, images are more powerful than words but using your child for online clout is a hard no for me, triple that when your child is sick
3rd - the image is taken by another person. Often you see this sort of post with the person taking a clear selfie, here its almost a professional quality photoshoot type of picture, I know its still probably just a mobile phone though, not saying they hired a photographer for this. So who is that person? I’d hope the dad, but why is that person there able to take that picture but not taking care of the child. Sure, maybe same situation, working from home to also take care of the child and they take turns. But then that’s a bit dishonest not to mention you are sharing responsibility but instead celebrate yourself as an awesome “working mom”
4th - if the dad is also home, why can he not maybe even take care of the child alone?
5th - just like how sick leave should be normal, having leave to take care of your children should be the norm too. I know I am having a privileged perspective here, I live in a Scandinavian country where we have such a “taking care of sick children” leave. And its great! So yeah, if you don’t live in a country like that, you look at this and feel like its not so bad, from my perspective it is
Just to comment on your first point, while in Utopia it wouldn’t be worth mentioning, the fact that not every companys job listing even includes home office, that makes it not just worth mentioning, but means it needs to be highlighted. People look for jobs that allow some or full time home office (for whatever reasons, or in general). How are they supposed to find them if it’s not mentioned anywhere?
For me the issue is that this is presented as a great thing that only hybrid offers. But it is the thing that full remote offers, too. And you’re quite lucky to WFH 3/4 work days (also to have a 4-day work week, I guess, if that’s so I’m really glad at least someone has it already)
My company doesn’t enforce office at all, it’s just a measly 40 working days per quarter that we are required to come to the office. I agree that it makes sense to see each other in person every now and then, it’s just the way it’s done doesn’t really encourage planning to gather a team at the same location, just ticking the checkboxes
It is a great attitude, yes. Some people actually enjoy work and do work of meaning. Some people also love their kids and want to be there for them. Some companies treat their employees with respect.
These are not things to shit on
This is a perfect example of perfection being the enemy of good.
Allowing, even encouraging, employees to work from home in order to temporarily care for a sick child is a good thing. The complainers must work somewhere that when you take off from work, someone else just comes along and does all your work for you. Needless to say, that’s a rarity and also sucks for your coworkers.
Yea this is insane people are shitting on WFH, we’re moving in the right direction, yea its not perfect but damn…
What you say is correct, and nothing of what you say I see in the posted screenshot. That very much feels like an advertisement for “return to office but just like not 100%, only like 90%, you gotta understand, man”
Am I taking crazy pills or are people actually saying this is a good thing?
Jesus fucking christ you people are so dependent on the system you literally can’t even comprehend the fact that nobody should need to be working when there’s a higher priority like family.
Make all the “oh but they’re easy to take care of/if the person wants to work/the company is a good one for this” coping excuses you need to feel good about how shitty working lives have become, I guess.
Don’t bother responding if you’re going to make more excuses why “this is good/okay”, you’re speaking to a wall.
It seems a controversial topic, I didn’t think so either but here we are.
American liberals are so fucking brainwashed they don’t even see the insanity of their posts. You can see it with the CHUD brigade rolling through this post.
You know, it’s considered completely normal to take paid time off to take care of sick relatives in other developed countries? And it doesn’t affect their entire month of paid time off to use for recreation?
Why are y’all so proud of being slaves?
Sick days shouldn’t exist. You or a dependent is sick? Don’t come in. Such a simple concept
Don’t be the enemy of better in pursuit of total perfection.
I think OP is just bitter AF.
Hey, OP, I work fully remote. I also discuss any possible role with a “work from home is non negotiable”.
Ive not been in an office for years
My wife is unwell. I’ve taken her to the doctor’s. I’m sitting here now, on my laptop and working. Because I can and there is stuff I want done. She’s leaning into my shoulder, and I’m typing this. It’s good for her. It’s good for me. I see no issue with that article.
That lady I’m sure could take the day off, but sick kids are pretty low maintenance. So why not get work done? The mother isn’t sick.
Sick kids are low maintenance. You’ve either been a lucky parent or you have no kids.
It depends. If it’s the usual stuff they mostly sleep and bitch about how bored they are, sure, but sometimes it’s not. No reason to circumscribe the conversation to “how sick kids usually get”.
Sick children mean bad nights, frequent interruptions and a lot of stress. It isn’t healthy to add a normal work day on top of that, even from home.
Fundamentally I agree that work shouldn’t need to be a priority in this situation if the individual doesn’t want it to be, but this is like basically the optimal scenario. I wish more companies respected their employees’ time and strictly valued results over the appearance of business.
This seems like an infinite step up from having to be in the office for 60-80 hours a week just to look impressive, while accomplishing little after the 35 hour mark. I would take this lady’s position in a heartbeat.
Productivity went up when WFH was pushed during covid. Even though there were fully remote companies before it. The only people complaining are the retail and landlords of commercial rental properties. WFH should be the standard now, there is 0 downside to it.
Also, productivity is exactly what companies now state as the reason for pushing everyone back to the office
Yep, which is complete bullshit and I think most people now see that it’s bullshit. It seems to be just the old guard trying to keep their grip on power.
This is one of the rare occasions, where I don’t get the problem with this “I am a proud working bee” stuff. I have kids and they are sick very seldom, but if they are sick, they are mostly sleeping half the day. I want to be with them, but I also can get stuff done. Maybe my point of view differs because I am freelancing.
Sick time/days should not exist. Staying home when you or a dependent is sick should be the norm not the exception. Why is that such an insane thought? I fucken hate touching people’s computers when they’re snotty as fuck. Likewise, I’m sure they don’t like me doing it when my own health is visibly worse.
Im so angry, you dang kids and your work-from-home! Back in my day…
