sing along with me:
One of these things are not like the other.
This would actually make more sense to me if you did have custody. It would still suck, but hey at least you would get to see your son without someone having to drive 140 miles. If you don’t have custody, it seems to me like you should have priority, since seeing your kid is a special thing for you.
Well, I am a “childless associate in a law firm” for all the time I don’t have my son down here with me. I think I get that same stuff as well. I do remember a fun conversation with my boss that entailed the words “I can’t cancel, she used to be a freaking model” coming out of my mouth, as if I somehow expected him to be in sufficient awe of my manliness to do the work himself…
I totally understand what you are saying. And it is, to a degree, my own fault. I choose to make myself available. But the way we tend to staff cases allows for a lot of flexibility between associates. I guess my rant is more at people at my level who think their own situations are more worthy than mine. It’s a piss poor rant generally, I just was feeling cranky when I wrote it.
And yes, Jayn_Newell, I agree - it would make more sense that way. But the world doesn’t seem to make sense all the time. Or very often. Or ever.
Have you talked to the other associates about it? Perhaps they think - well, they hope - that you actually are more flexible because you appear more flexible? (Not to knock you, but I wonder if all the associates are that callous, or perhaps they just don’t know you have your kid that weekend, or they’re hoping that you really are ok with it because they feel guilty.)
Ya’ know the judge in my divorce ordered my paycheck to be garnished automatically with out even giving me a chance to pay child support myself. Turns out it more convenient, but still, it’s the point of the matter. I own two homes and have excellent credit.(I’m not trying to be pretentious here) It felt like a slap in the face for the judge to automatically assume that I’m a dead beat Dad.
But really, aren’t all of us guys dead beat Dads? :rolleyes:
Fuck. That. Shit.
I choose not to have children precisely because spending my free time in certain ways is important to me. You can call it laziness or selfishness or whatever you want, but the fact is that my choice not to have kids was made largely because i understand how much time and effort they involve, and i didn’t want to do that. I shouldn’t have to give up on the free time i’ve purposely set aside in my life simply because you’ve made a different choice.
Now, because my time is more flexible than a parent’s time, i would be willing, in certain particular instances, to accommodate a parent who can only see his or her kids at a certain time. But the total amount of time off that we get should be the same. If i make an accommodation today because my time is more flexible, the parent needs to make an accommodation at a later date so that i’m not continually doing more than my share of work.
Yeah, those without kids are truly shit on in the corporate world. People should not get preference because they have kids, or because the kids live with them, or because somehow the mom is more entitled than the dad to have time off.
It took me a long time, but I have finally found employement where I can solidly claim my weekends as ‘my time’ and nobody dares to infringe upon it. At my last company, I was expected to work 14 hours a day, every day, so that the ‘people who have families can be home with their families’, and it sucked.
You gotta make that line man, and be willing to find another job if your employer refuses to respect that you are an employee not an indentured servant.
This is exactly the kind of shit that led me to my current position. Do you spell out in the offer letter how many hours a week, and how many weekends a month, are going to be expected as ‘work time’, or do you just give people shit when they agree to a standard full-time 40 hour offer and then get angry with you for treating them like a 24x7 slave?
I understand your frustration with this type of situation, but in Campion’s defense, i’m not sure that the “standard full-time 40 hour” work week even exists in law firms, at least not among the lawyers themselves. The secretaries or assistant might get to work regular hours, but i think it’s pretty much SOP that associates in private law firms have to grind out 80-hour weeks to stay in a job. It’s sort of a rite of passage, like doctors who work 80+ hours a week during their residency.
Not saying it’s a good or a healthy or even a logical thing, but that seems to be how those professions are.
Sez you.
person with kids “I cant work this weekend cause I have a bday party for my 8th spawn”
boss “looks like its you again this weekend childless one”
Childless one “in the interest of not remaining childless forever I am going on a date with a lovely lady this weekend and wont be able to work, and since I have covered for pwk about 50 times already this year its his turn”
actually had a conversation like this once. fuckers actually expected me to cancel weekend plans out of town at a bed and breakfast with this hottie I had been dating for awhile.
When I was an associate at a law firm, I was told I had to work that weekend. Which of course, I did. And I showed up at 8 AM on Saturday to start my work. A few hours later, the paralegal for our department showed up, with her kid in tow. The head attorney for our department had told her that morning to come into work. She couldn’t find a sitter on such short notice, but our boss told her she had to show up anyway. I was completely appalled. That was the day I decided to leave the firm. That’s not the only reason I left, but I was sick to death of the asshole, unprofessional partners I had to deal with, so I guess that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I don’t know what the point of this story is. Maybe law firms are stupid? Okay. That sounds right.
Law firms are crazed. I wrote a story years ago which started out to be on how women are still paid less than men for the same work, and ended up being about how women (mostly, but some men, too) trade other things for the salary, such as flexibility. For instance one couple, both lawyers, agreed that one of them would pursue the career while the other would hold back a bit and deal with children and household, and in their case it was him. As a result of this he was special counsel and was paid much less–about half as much, after only a couple of years. But usually it’s the woman who makes this kind of tradeoff.
Another woman I interviewed was working “part time” for the local branch of a large national firm. “Part-time” meant 40 hours. Paralegals at her firm made more than she did because they got paid for OT and she didn’t.
Another woman at a big firm said she’d be willing to work half the hours for half the pay, but she didn’t see that as a possibility. So she was sitting at her kid’s soccer game reviewing pleadings. (She later quit to become a professor.)
I looked at four professions–lawyer, financial consultant, doctor, veterinarian. The lawyers, doctors, and financial consultants all said you had to put in the hours, at the expense of whatever, there was no shortcut, if you expected to reap the rewards when you were in your 40s you had to put in the hours when you were in your 20s and 30s. One financial analyst said she never got married because she didn’t have time to have a relationship, and by the time she was established enough she was too old to have kids. She was in her 40s and was willing to sabotage the career of any woman who entered the profession after having raised children because they hadn’t had to give up their life for it.
Ten years after I wrote the story I was trying to revisit the people I’d interviewed. The guy who was special counsel was divorced, with custody of his kids. The woman who wanted to work half the hours was divorced, shared custody. The woman who worked “part time” had gone to full-time and was a partner and her husband, who had retired, took charge of most of the child care. The financial consultant had still never married. Overall it seemed like there were an awful lot of divorces in the legal profession.
Emphasis added.
While I think what some legal firms require in time commitment is ridiculous, I don’t have a LOT of sympathy for folks who make conscious decisions to forgo relationships, children and family in favor of high-paying jobs, then bitch about it later because they don’t have any of the things they eschewed. Nobody forced them into those professions, and they got rewarded for their choice with large salaries. For others, the reward isn’t great enough so they made the choice of more limited careers/professions with better home lives.
But they can’t complain that they put in absurd hours, for which they got paid a handsome sum of money, but they have no life.
The parents aren’t getting the preference: the kids are. If you don’t like it, find another society to join. Your individual choice not to have kids has no impact on the fact that existant kids need care, and most adults in our society agree that this is true, and our society is structured to ensure that kids get that care. You can’t opt out of that system and remain in our society.
Daniel
Thank You.
Simple - don’t do it. Just tell them that you have a prior family commitment and don’t go into details.
I’ve had to do that in the past. It doesn’t take more than once, maybe twice, for them to learn that you mean what you say.
It’s a funny thing. I had a coworker who one day in the elevator announced that she’d just paid off her house. Yes; burned the mortgage. Boy was I envious.
But she said it was easy enough, since she was working all the time and didn’t have children or, usually, a love interest, so nothing else to spend her money on–and she sort of wished she could trade it for a good man and some kids.
I did the other thing. Took myself out of the job market entirely for whole blocks of time, worked part-time, then I worked full-time and my husband did the part-time thing. The result of this is that we will NEVER be able to retire. We will never be able to catch up. But we are confident that our kids will support us in our old age (the older ones are doing quite well, at least so far).
Well said.
villa, I sympathize, I’m not doubting your experience, but mine is exactly the opposite.
My experience is that a man who takes the afternoon off to attend his kid’s soccer game is a freakin’ hero to be such a devoted dad, but a woman who does the same (let alone leaves early to say, pick up a sick kid at daycare) is a dilletante who needs to give some serious thought to her commitment to this job.
And that’s just among the *married *people. Divorced dads were given all kinds of special consideration, because their time with their kids is so limited, poor bastards. And single dads with full custody? Again, treated like heroes. Can you imagine? A man, raising a child alone? The awe, it overwhelms me. :rolleyes:
Single moms, on the other hand, tend to get “Oh, there’s a gas leak at the daycare and you have to leave? Okay, but you know, we’re going to have to talk about the problems you have balancing your work and your personal life.”
Because apparently raising children is a Very Important Job (in addition to being a Huge Personal Sacrifice) if you’re a man, and a part of Your Personal Life if you’re a woman.
This reads to me that single and childless people should suck it up and “do their part for someone elses kids”.
Danny boy, while you’ve been praised a couple times for this comment, kindly go fuck yourself with that attitude. It is a given that kids need care. There is absolutely NO doubt about this. However, it is NOT a given that I or anyone else be responsible for it. If anything, I pay more in taxes as a single childless person, so I feel I’ve done my share for your kids to enjoy that special deduction you oh so crave every year. Your welcome.
I’m sorry, but I DO NOT EVER RECALL joining the society that says single and/or childless people should pick up the slack left by absent workers due to children and “family issues”.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve helped parents out for their cause more then a few times, as a favor. But it should never be expected because you’re a parent.
Your individual choice to have kids has no impact on the fact that you are the one responsible for them. Not your coworkers.