Sure. Just like it’s ok to call off if your basement floods or your dog breaks its leg or you would just rather be watching the Home Opener. Why does anyone even have to know why you are taking off? Aren’t people allowed off days?
Taking time off above-and-beyond your allotted time off though, I can’t say that it’s ok if you can’t get a sitter but not ok if there’s some other emergency. That would be pushing it.
Constant lack of childcare can and should be a fire-able offense, just like constant tardiness or even constant “car trouble.”
It is always nice to be nice and empathetic. But people are trying to run businesses.
This. I’ve had to leave people go who had constant childcare or car trouble when I was a supervisor. It sucks, yes, but I needed someone who would be available to work when scheduled for the most part, or I wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. Both of those excuses were considered in the overall absences.
In my state, kids can’t get off the bus unless their parent is at the bus stop. It takes about 20 minutes if you get stuck behind the bus in front of a large apartment complex because each parent has to individually present themselves to the bus driver and be identified by their kid. If parents aren’t there they take the kid back to school and call the cops.
Acceptable, meaning “Don’t worry! You can take as much time off as you need whenever this happens”? Or meaning, “OK, but let’s not make this a routine thing because your problem shouldn’t be my problem”? I agree with the second. Not with the first.
I mean, shit happens to everyone. If a pipe bursts and floods my bathroom, I’d like to think my employer would be kind enough to let me have the day off so I can get things squared away. But I also understand that my employer isn’t obligated to do this, so I wouldn’t be too mad if the next time I ask for a time off for the same reason, the answer is “no.”
What state is this? I haven’t heard of this rule. What do they do with older kids, or kids that go to babysitters, or kids with older siblings to watch them?
What do the cops do? If you had a flat tire, or got stuck in traffic, or some other emergency, is this reported to CPS, are yo in danger of losing your children because you were late picking them up from the bus stop in front of your own home?
It’s been a while for me, but I still see kids as young as 5 or 6 hopping off the school bus all on their own and walking down the street to their house, just like I used to do when I was that age.
OP, I’m confused by your term “acceptable excuse” in the context of missing time from work. With most employers, you have a concept of paid time off in the form of vacation days or sick time (or a combination of both). Not having a baby sitter wouldn’t necessarily qualify as “sick time” unless the reason for the need of the baby sitter is that the child is sick, if so, then some employers allow the use of “sick time” to care for family members that may be ill. Otherwise the employee would have to use vacation time. This is all subject to your employer having a paid time off policy including vacation and/or sick time. If not, then it’s time-off without pay.
For my employees, if they need a day off, I don’t care what it’s for, as long as they keep me informed, abide by our policies, and don’t make it a habit.
I would consider the idea of an “acceptable excuse” to be one that inclines me to keep the employee around.
If an employee calls me up and says they just don’t feel like coming in to work today, then I’m not going to keep them around very long. If they have a “legitimate” excuse, in that it is something outside of their control, and it is something that is not a regular occurrence, then I do not hold that absenteeism against them as far as discipline or promotion goes. If they don’t have a legitimate excuse, or they have a “legitimate” one that they use a bit too often, then that will have an impact on their discipline and promotion positions. I do have a business to run, and I hired employees because I need them to be here and do their jobs, otherwise, it stresses my other employees, it annoys my clients, and it puts quite a bit of work on me.
When our daycare had a gas leak, and I had to leave work to pick up the kids (who had been transported to the nearest park), that seems like a good excuse.
When your daycare provider has been sick three times in the past month, leaving you without a babysitter, and your call doesn’t include the words “and we are going to spend today looking for a new daycare situation” - then you are out.
Some places have an explicit allowance of ‘personal days’, no prior notice and they don’t care why. Depending on policy and its enforcement you might also use and be charged sick or vacation days for situations besides actual personal sickness or prearranged vacations. As long as the same total as others and not more disruptive, again who cares.
All else equal it’s not any better reason to be absent more often than various ‘legitimate’ reasons of people who don’t have kids. But the reality of the workplace is some employees are harder to replace than others, a better or worse value for the money they are paid, and/or liked more or less by the boss. The last reason might not be a good one from long term business POV, but the first two kind of are. Moralizing about them is pointless IMO. Something like a marginal extra tendency not to show up will be weighed against your overall $/cents value otherwise. If you’re already viewed as a marginal value, it’s more likely to turn into a problem.
At my current employer, vacation time must be scheduled 24 hours in advance, OR you need an acceptable excuse why you couldn’t pre-schedule. Otherwise, it’s an unpaid and unexcused absence. Rack up too many unexcused absences, and your absence will become permanent.
“I can’t find a sitter” is likely an acceptable excuse the first time, but you’d probably better not make a habit of it.
I had to use a nanny at points when there was no daycare available when I returned to work. Occasionally they are going to get sick, and be unable to look after your kid - that’s no reflection on the parent who’s otherwise made reasonable efforts to secure childcare. I did have one who was more unreliable, and I quickly replaced her, as that was a foreseeable issue. But I’d expect that no more than a couple of days a year.
Allowances have to be made. Kids get unexpectedly sick, shit just happens. I guess in a perfect world, everyone would have a job where if they couldn’t get into work, they could work remotely from home. There are lots of jobs where that just isn’t possible. I would hope in jobs where it is possible, the bosses/managers get it, shit happens.
Georgia. Kids 14 and up are allowed off without a parent, but they aren’t allowed to watch their younger siblings. If they get off at the babysitter’s, the sitter would have to meet them.
My source for this is a girl at work with school-age kids. My own kids were latchkey kids.
Where I work, if you have arranged your own sub from the approved sub list, the supervisors don’t care if you are home because the fourth season of Lou Grant just came out on video.
If your kid was sick, and you couldn’t find someone to stay with him, and couldn’t find a sub, you wouldn’t be in trouble, but if this weren’t the first time in a blue moon, you might be asked to bring in a doctor’s note. If you simply couldn’t find a sitter for a healthy child, you’d be told to bring the kid with you. I work in a preschool, and occasionally teachers with slightly older children, like first or second graders, have brought them to work when they had no childcare. If they are in the older rooms, they just do what they other kids are doing, for the most part. If they are in the toddler rooms, they actually can be helpful. They love the fact that they are able to read picture books to two-year-olds, and the toddlers regard them with awe.
It’s never been a problem. I realize most people aren’t that lucky, though.
And the action is that they “may” be brought back to school. How much do you want to bet that seldom happens, because if Atlanta public schools have enough money for after school care for kids whose parents aren’t right at the bus stop, they are possibly the only district in the country that does?