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Comment by syspec | Hacker News Reader

Kind of a strawman argument, and a bit dramatic. The parent is discussing parents wanting to leave early and be given less work

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It's no more a straw man than the poster they were referring to; both describe their perspective of a described situation, from opposite sides.

Neither is discussing "leaving early", both are discussing "leaving on time".

If you choose to work unpaid extra hours then that's on you.

Fine. A strictly capitalist take on the situation: your inability to negotiate for desirable hours & wages is not the responsibility of anybody but yourself. Go work in a union if you want everybody to have the same contract.

You're really just doubling down on making the parents point huh.

Sure, if you insist on reading past the part where I expect everybody to demand better for themselves and I'm dismayed when they don't.

No disagreement with your argument about being protective about one’s time. But in your case you haven’t negotiated anything. You just go when you have to.

I mean it’s an implicit negotiation of sorts. If you can routinely leave work early and not get penalized for it, you’ve basically “negotiated” that arrangement.

This all comes back to the fact that everyone should be protective of their time. I’m single but regularly run errands, exercise, go grocery shopping etc in the “middle of the workday”. I get my work done. Nobody complains.

It’s just a matter of knowing and recognizing your own value.

I literally negotiated for the flexibility of my working conditions. Had to renegotiate when the pandemic hit.

Parents needing such negotiations may be a "hidden cost" that y'all aren't considering. Also, parenting is a ton of work so when I kick off the paid job, I'm still working 'til 9 most nights.

That’s awesome, it was clear for everyone involved what your situation is so things can be planned around.

Out of curiosity, was there ever any situation that your manager would reach out and ask for you to put additional time because of an urgent requirement / situation?

Yeah, there was a recent slow-emergency situation, which did require more work than I typically budget for. In that case, I ended up working after I put the kid to bed. It was the result of a bad decision by management, they were quite apologetic and my team got some un-accounted-for time off afterwards. If this turned into a regular thing, I'd quit with or without another offer in hand.

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