I don't get this... Male engineers have kids and date too. Female employees, engineer or not, get pregnant. "As a female engineer" I would prefer if people -- including fellow women -- stopped treating us like we are some kind of exotic species.
The questions and answers here aren't necessarily specific to women. The idea of the series is just to ask women engineers questions and see what they say.
I'm a male engineer and single father. So I'm responsible for all of the facets of child rearing including but not limited to dealing with a sick kid. All of the talk of making workplaces better for people with families seemed really foreign to me. I would prefer that my company not even be aware of the concept people having children. It's none of their business. Of course it's not practical for companies to have zero awareness, but the less they are involved the better. If I prioritize X over work, then that's an opportunity for someone else to move into that slot and get the promotion. It doesn't matter if X is boogie-boarding, playing video games, or taking care of a child.
I support extending maternity/paternity leave for everyone. But if I take 3 months off work every year for 4 years in a row I shouldn't expect to get the same raises and promotions as everyone else. If at N years of tenure I get more vacation days? Time spent on paternity leave shouldn't count towards that. It's the same as if I chose to take 3 months off to section hike the Appalachian Trail.
Yeah I am another female here who doesn't get it either. I would much rather read "Ask an Engineer" posts that highlight women and men. When they do highlight women, make it about their engineering talents not this stuff. I feel these types of posts actually do a dis-service to female engineers and don't highlight their skills & talents. But what do I know?
As a man I can say that there are lots of problems in my life that women don't deal with, so I can only assume it is the same for women.
There are of course shared problems that both men and women face (obviously!) but getting something from a women's perspective is something that people could find useful.
As someone dating a fellow engineer coworker, I'm definitely curious to see further input on this sort of thing. She's incredibly smart and competent, but has received comments basically accusing her of sleeping with me to get ahead, or that she's only done so well because she's had my help and favor. (I don't have reports or any managerial power, but I am one of the most senior engineers on the team)
I've definitely spent a fair amount of time teaching her things, but it's been in no way her taking advantage of me, and I don't use any of my influence to help her more than I would anyone else. She's earned every accolade and piece of praise she's received, and it's heartbreaking to me to see these kinds of comments directed at her. Even without my help, she'd be incredibly successful - she's one of the smartest people I've ever worked with.
Due to this sort of thing, we keep the relationship fairly private. Some people know, either because we've shared it with them or because neither of us are particularly great at hiding it, but it means that we have to at least attempt to keep something that brings both of us a lot of happiness a secret. Since we have lots of co-workers on facebook, etc, I even have to be extremely conscious in things like tagging us together in group activities. We have to remember to try and keep at least some distance in work related social gatherings. That stuff is hard on me - as much as I try to imagine how hard that is on her, with everything else she deals with at work, I know it's even harder.
I have to quash a desire to be overprotective of her on this sort of thing, and other inappropriate encounters she's had at work, because she's an adult woman who wants to take care of things without me stepping in. I've got to respect that - but I would find it absolutely fantastic to be able to share with her stories of people who have been in similar situations and how they handled it.
I know none of that is expressly what was discussed here, but I think it's a problem that affects females in the workplace a hell of a lot more heavily than it does men, and it's certainly not the only thing. Sexism is alive and well, and I don't see how people talking about it does anything but help.
> Never assume that all your employees are straight, all your employees only date one person at a time, all of your employees define dating the same way you do, or that you’ll know if your employees are dating. I think a flat prohibition of romantic relationships in your company is going to be very hard to enforce; most likely, your employees are not going to disclose their relationships.
Red Flag. Key advice: don't shit where you eat.
The problem with these sorts of things is that people have feelings and often react poorly when things implode. If you have people with their varying views of what's ok and what isn't doing their thing, you're going to have a big problem on your hands.
The corner cases are really painful to deal with. My wife had one where an ambitious female working for her was sleeping with 4-5 directors, created awkward situations, then started a lawsuit/eeoc complaint. The three months of depositions were lots of fun.
I witnessed one where two high-level director level people were engaged, which was great, until the male was discovered to be also "dating" a subordinate. He had to transfer, but there was nowhere to go due to his level, so he got canned. It was a bad situation on every dimension.
I mean sure it's good advice but a prohibition of romantic relationships doesn't actually work. When people get close after working together romantic feelings can happen its only natural. A study from 2006 found 40% of office workers had a romance with someone they worked with. 40% [1]. Hell, anecdotally almost half of everyone I can think (that I know personally of course) in a relationship I know met their spouse at a place where they both worked.
Yeah there are reasons why it's a bad idea. Yeah it shouldn't happen with supriors. But it will happen and a flat out prohibition on it will cause more harm than good. If you flat out prohibit it then it won't get reported and then no one will know about the possibile conflict of instrest that needs to be handled properly.
If you have open policies regarding this and encourage people to notice management and that they won't get punished then you can make arrangements to ensure no conflicts of instrests occur (or at least minimize them).
I would be curious if there have been studies between the two schools of thought.
Unfortunately for work-place romances the 'rule' is that you either get married or the guy quits.
That is NOT a hard and fast rule and is not universal, but generally that is how it works out (anecdata). How a same-sex/multi-person/trans relationship works out usually, I have no idea and would love some perspectives on it from HN.
> My wife had one where an ambitious female working for her was sleeping with 4-5 directors, created awkward situations, then started a lawsuit/eeoc complaint.
Ambitious is not the word I would use to describe this type of person.
Unrelated, but as a 21 year old (male!) who knows little about society, human psychology, etc., can I ask with sincerity what is probably a really dumb question?
Why do companies/society need to accommodate people who have kids? Why are maternity/paternity leave a thing? How come we don't expect people to price the fact that having a kid is a lot of work that will inherently set their life back into their decision of whether to have one?
Is it really so "evil" when one makes the assumption that someone with kids is on balance less dedicated, more tired, more preoccupied, etc. than someone without? Can't we rephrase that as, someone who has a matter in their life they need to spend hours a day on will have less time for other things? Is that discrimination?
The thing about a Netflix room for sick kids really reminded how good we've got things in Denmark. I have two days off every time a kid gets sick, no questions asked, as does my partner. I work in the public sector though, so I'm not sure what the standard arrangement is in the private sector.
Well, the reality in America is that in most places you can take time off if your kid gets sick... you'll just be "downsized" during the next "reorganization" if you ever do.
I believe even in the private sector at least one day is typical ("barnets første sygedag"), because the union framework agreements of the major unions include it as a standard clause.
I'm in the UK and have never had a problem taking time off to look after a sick child, although I work for a company which is generally excellent about these things (I took something like three months off after our kid was born due to complications).
If you’re going to have a policy on employee romantic relationships, my suggestion would be to focus on relationships where one partner is in a position of authority over the other ... And yes, this policy should be clearly spelled out in a company handbook – it shouldn’t be something your team is confused about or has to ask about.
This pretty closely describes the situation at the Fortune 500 company I worked at for a time. I thought it worked pretty well.
>> Dorothy : I’ve never seen policy on employee dating that was effective. I’ve seen policies that made sense in theory – i.e. like don’t date within your reporting chain – that lead to bad outcomes in practice – people hiding their relationship.
I used to follow that, exempting advances from flirty or relatable coworkers, but working in startups there are so many exceptions where you stay for a year or two maybe.
First, its not long enough to really get to the awkward part. This isn't an absolute clearly, but you should be able to play along during the various phases of attraction and relationships, as employees come and go, you being one of them.
Second, there are many quirky work environments. Like when you sublet from a larger startup. Then you get the pool within your startup as well as all the other people in the other company that are totally fair game, where both people are immune to the other company's HR gimmicks.
A more useful policy would be to understand the consequences, like adults.
If you agree that there has historically been a disparity between the genders and you agree that there is currently an gender disparity in the workplace, it is not much of jump to believe that elevating women could help to correct that problem.
I see a lot of comments on posts like these claiming that it is sexist or just reproducing the problem to give women visibility or an advantage in the workplace. Usually these comments are supported by anecdotal evidence. I think these comments are supporting the status quo. Given the mountains of evidence showing gender disparity today in hiring, salary, etc, as well as the historical fact of women's position vs men over the last few thousand years, shouldn't we be leaning in the direction of trying things out?
I'd like to see some thoughts on "unlimited vacation." How many of the ladies work at companies with this policy, and how do they decide how much to take?
I've worked at places that allowed many of the flexibilities mentioned.
I sometimes felt that it was more socially acceptable for men and women with kids to use the WFH and leave early flexibilities than it was for those of us who are child-free.
People often "feel" all sorts of rules that aren't real, then modify their behavior based on these unreal rules they've perceived, then harshly judge others for not living in the exact same dreamworld. I'm endlessly amused by it.
Honestly I upvote this simply because women get asked and can reply uninterrupted, I don't actually care all that much about what they say just that they have been given the space to say it (as none of these engineers are the one I married).
It isn't ideal, but there seems to be no good path forward. If this simply makes women more visible and more empowered to talk on HN, that will be a step forward.
The point of this series is that a lot of women engineers already do get asked all sorts of awkward questions, or worse, are subjected to uninformed assumptions.
This Q&A series is intended to put information out in a public form to help preempt some of that.
The first thing that strikes me is that the first two questions asked of a female engineer are about kids and relationships. Of course those things are relevant to some women (though hardly all), but they're just as relevant to men.
I know tons of male engineers with kids (I'm one of them) who have to leave early to pick up kids from day care, or suddenly can't come in because their child is sick. Many work 4 days a week in order to have more time for their family.
I was expecting this to be a complaint that the only questions people ask female engineers are about kids and dating, instead of engineering. Who can tell which way public opinion will spin these days!
The burden of parenthood doesn't always fall solely on mom. I rushed home from work early Tuesday because my son had been crying non-stop for 3 hours (he had stomach issues, which caused him to enter a negative feedback loop).
My wife and I have a plan in place, she is 1st responder, solely because she commutes by car, and is 20 minutes away.
However, she is out of town at a conference, so I am the primary parent on call.
That is also to say nothing of what it's like to be a middle aged person and have to care for an elderly parent.
Basically, life happens, and work needs to account for that. If you as an employer are lucky, you can be in a field that can easily replace Humans with Robots/Computers.
As a boss myself, I let my team know, they can have as much time necessary to handle their personal lives, as long as they deliver.
[+] [-] nserrino|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbcowans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Consultant32452|9 years ago|reply
I support extending maternity/paternity leave for everyone. But if I take 3 months off work every year for 4 years in a row I shouldn't expect to get the same raises and promotions as everyone else. If at N years of tenure I get more vacation days? Time spent on paternity leave shouldn't count towards that. It's the same as if I chose to take 3 months off to section hike the Appalachian Trail.
[+] [-] 20years|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stale2002|9 years ago|reply
There are of course shared problems that both men and women face (obviously!) but getting something from a women's perspective is something that people could find useful.
[+] [-] urda|9 years ago|reply
These issues impact men as well, and to move on we need to stop treating one sex differently than another.
[+] [-] cthalupa|9 years ago|reply
I've definitely spent a fair amount of time teaching her things, but it's been in no way her taking advantage of me, and I don't use any of my influence to help her more than I would anyone else. She's earned every accolade and piece of praise she's received, and it's heartbreaking to me to see these kinds of comments directed at her. Even without my help, she'd be incredibly successful - she's one of the smartest people I've ever worked with.
Due to this sort of thing, we keep the relationship fairly private. Some people know, either because we've shared it with them or because neither of us are particularly great at hiding it, but it means that we have to at least attempt to keep something that brings both of us a lot of happiness a secret. Since we have lots of co-workers on facebook, etc, I even have to be extremely conscious in things like tagging us together in group activities. We have to remember to try and keep at least some distance in work related social gatherings. That stuff is hard on me - as much as I try to imagine how hard that is on her, with everything else she deals with at work, I know it's even harder.
I have to quash a desire to be overprotective of her on this sort of thing, and other inappropriate encounters she's had at work, because she's an adult woman who wants to take care of things without me stepping in. I've got to respect that - but I would find it absolutely fantastic to be able to share with her stories of people who have been in similar situations and how they handled it.
I know none of that is expressly what was discussed here, but I think it's a problem that affects females in the workplace a hell of a lot more heavily than it does men, and it's certainly not the only thing. Sexism is alive and well, and I don't see how people talking about it does anything but help.
[+] [-] foobarian|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
Red Flag. Key advice: don't shit where you eat.
The problem with these sorts of things is that people have feelings and often react poorly when things implode. If you have people with their varying views of what's ok and what isn't doing their thing, you're going to have a big problem on your hands.
The corner cases are really painful to deal with. My wife had one where an ambitious female working for her was sleeping with 4-5 directors, created awkward situations, then started a lawsuit/eeoc complaint. The three months of depositions were lots of fun.
I witnessed one where two high-level director level people were engaged, which was great, until the male was discovered to be also "dating" a subordinate. He had to transfer, but there was nowhere to go due to his level, so he got canned. It was a bad situation on every dimension.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|9 years ago|reply
I mean sure it's good advice but a prohibition of romantic relationships doesn't actually work. When people get close after working together romantic feelings can happen its only natural. A study from 2006 found 40% of office workers had a romance with someone they worked with. 40% [1]. Hell, anecdotally almost half of everyone I can think (that I know personally of course) in a relationship I know met their spouse at a place where they both worked.
Yeah there are reasons why it's a bad idea. Yeah it shouldn't happen with supriors. But it will happen and a flat out prohibition on it will cause more harm than good. If you flat out prohibit it then it won't get reported and then no one will know about the possibile conflict of instrest that needs to be handled properly.
If you have open policies regarding this and encourage people to notice management and that they won't get punished then you can make arrangements to ensure no conflicts of instrests occur (or at least minimize them).
I would be curious if there have been studies between the two schools of thought.
[1] http://www.siop.org/Media/News/office_romance.aspx
[+] [-] sbov|9 years ago|reply
To that point, what was the dating policy at your wife's company?
[+] [-] Balgair|9 years ago|reply
That is NOT a hard and fast rule and is not universal, but generally that is how it works out (anecdata). How a same-sex/multi-person/trans relationship works out usually, I have no idea and would love some perspectives on it from HN.
[+] [-] antisthenes|9 years ago|reply
Ambitious is not the word I would use to describe this type of person.
[+] [-] FT_intern|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
Please don't bring a sick person into the office for any reason. This is why work-from-home policies are so important.
[+] [-] _xhok|9 years ago|reply
Why do companies/society need to accommodate people who have kids? Why are maternity/paternity leave a thing? How come we don't expect people to price the fact that having a kid is a lot of work that will inherently set their life back into their decision of whether to have one?
Is it really so "evil" when one makes the assumption that someone with kids is on balance less dedicated, more tired, more preoccupied, etc. than someone without? Can't we rephrase that as, someone who has a matter in their life they need to spend hours a day on will have less time for other things? Is that discrimination?
[+] [-] rmchugh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clifanatic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jon-wood|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_7|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
This pretty closely describes the situation at the Fortune 500 company I worked at for a time. I thought it worked pretty well.
[+] [-] gkya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudjacker|9 years ago|reply
First, its not long enough to really get to the awkward part. This isn't an absolute clearly, but you should be able to play along during the various phases of attraction and relationships, as employees come and go, you being one of them.
Second, there are many quirky work environments. Like when you sublet from a larger startup. Then you get the pool within your startup as well as all the other people in the other company that are totally fair game, where both people are immune to the other company's HR gimmicks.
A more useful policy would be to understand the consequences, like adults.
[+] [-] jeffrom|9 years ago|reply
I see a lot of comments on posts like these claiming that it is sexist or just reproducing the problem to give women visibility or an advantage in the workplace. Usually these comments are supported by anecdotal evidence. I think these comments are supporting the status quo. Given the mountains of evidence showing gender disparity today in hiring, salary, etc, as well as the historical fact of women's position vs men over the last few thousand years, shouldn't we be leaning in the direction of trying things out?
[+] [-] cbcowans|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmiller2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Trombone12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bettyx1138|9 years ago|reply
I sometimes felt that it was more socially acceptable for men and women with kids to use the WFH and leave early flexibilities than it was for those of us who are child-free.
[+] [-] oldmanjay|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beachstartup|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Trombone12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balls187|9 years ago|reply
You want to ask woman engineers about family matters? That seems analagous to giving your wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday.
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwrestler|9 years ago|reply
This Q&A series is intended to put information out in a public form to help preempt some of that.
[+] [-] sokoloff|9 years ago|reply
Bravo for that CEO! Things like that engender crazy amounts of respect and loyalty.
[+] [-] mcv|9 years ago|reply
I know tons of male engineers with kids (I'm one of them) who have to leave early to pick up kids from day care, or suddenly can't come in because their child is sick. Many work 4 days a week in order to have more time for their family.
[+] [-] Hondor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pravda|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Prisen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symbiote|9 years ago|reply
The situation is similar.
[+] [-] bettyx1138|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knorker|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] balls187|9 years ago|reply
My wife and I have a plan in place, she is 1st responder, solely because she commutes by car, and is 20 minutes away.
However, she is out of town at a conference, so I am the primary parent on call.
That is also to say nothing of what it's like to be a middle aged person and have to care for an elderly parent.
Basically, life happens, and work needs to account for that. If you as an employer are lucky, you can be in a field that can easily replace Humans with Robots/Computers.
As a boss myself, I let my team know, they can have as much time necessary to handle their personal lives, as long as they deliver.
[+] [-] dbg31415|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Grishnakh|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] logicallee|9 years ago|reply