One employer was reportedly considering cutting caregivers’ salaries by 20 percent to compensate for an anticipated drop in productivity.
If a company I worked for did that I would immediately start looking for a new job. I'm not a caregiver, I don't have kids, and it wouldn't affect me as a policy, but the idea that the company I work for could be so completely unfeeling and unreasonable, and would choose to ignore the reality of what's happening in people's lives, means it would instantly become a place I wouldn't want to work at any more.
The fact is most people, especially in tech jobs at large companies, put in way more time and effort than they're actually supposed to. For the company to think that's OK but then to cut wages or fire people as soon as that person isn't able to put in 100% for a short time due to a global pandemic is just a dick move. And the number one rule in life is really simple: don't be a dick.
> I'm not a caregiver, I don't have kids, and it wouldn't affect me as a policy,
And that's probably why you can say "Ah, my employer is being a dick, time for me to quit!"
People who are parents, caregivers, and breadwinners might not so easily be able to walk away from 80% of their current salary and risk having 0% for the foreseeable future while they look for uncertain future employment during a pandemic.
From the context I think maybe the company was considering the pay cut and sought legal advice from the quoted lawyer. They probably weren’t public about their considerations and this attorney was just offering up an anecdote about an unnamed client as an example of the type of employment law-related questions he’s been asked during the pandemic.
> In addition to working parents seeking legal counsel, employers have been trying to figure out their legal obligation to employees with school-age children during the pandemic. One employer was reportedly considering cutting caregivers’ salaries by 20 percent to compensate for an anticipated drop in productivity, according to a Boston employment lawyer.
100% Agreed. My employer has refused to comply with state mandates and has had us working from the office the entire pandemic. For those that eventually talked the owner into allowing WFH (in November) took a 20% cut.
I once declined a job offer after someone in management discussed their “greening” strategy, which was structuring the company so that older and (more expensive) employees wouldn’t be able to stay.
IANAL, but from what I have heard from lawyers here in Canada, cutting %20 of your salary all other things being equal is considered a "constructive dismissal" and you can sue your employer for that.
> In employment law, constructive dismissal, also called constructive discharge or constructive termination, occurs when an employee resigns as a result of the employer creating a hostile work environment. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is, in effect, a termination. For example, when an employer places extraordinary and unreasonable work demands on an employee to obtain their resignation, this can constitute a constructive dismissal.
Ageism in tech is very real and every software engineer needs to plan for it in their careers.
Simply look around any tech center company and look around. It’s mostly younger crowd. The graybeards are few and far between and in mostly few senior roles.
Even transferring to middle management doesn’t help much. The same type of younger crowd are brought in to keep up the appearances. The olds are few and far between in director and up roles.
It’s simple reality that happens, there’s an age cutoff, and it’s not as old as people think. It’s definitely not the official retirement age.
Keeping up with latest tech stack helps. Moving up the seniority levels helps. Moving from company to company helps.
Entrepreneurship helps, you as owner can hire yourself, but you’ll most likely hire younger people for your company, which perpetuates the ageism cycle.
I think this only applies to start ups. However, if you aren’t keeping up with current trends you’ll be left behind. There are plenty of large corporations with older .NET or Java devs.
Eyeing a farm and full-time pottery here. Retiring ASAP. Employers are dwindling if you want to work somewhere that isn't supporting war criminals (directly and indirectly) or who are generally just too fucked up for a sane rational thinking person to stomach coming in every day.
I'm on a great gig now but I'm planning for a not so wealthy retirement. Being free to think is my priority. Sundry corporations want the opposite, no matter what they say.
> Simply look around any tech center company and look around. It’s mostly younger crowd. The graybeards are few and far between and in mostly few senior roles.
> Even transferring to middle management doesn’t help much. The same type of younger crowd are brought in to keep up the appearances. The olds are few and far between in director and up roles.
I think you have to be more specific. I could totally believe that WRT to SV tech startups and other younger companies, but they often seemed focused on fashion and in some cases be places where only the young and stupid would be willing to work.
There are "tech-centered companies that" are different. For instance I work at a company that's basically evolved to be a tech company, and if anything, our development groups skew old.
Personally, I'm still worried more about outsourcing than ageism.
I know of a contracting firm that is made up of all senior developers. The rate is very high but people pay it. Many corps laid off FTEs and kept the grizzled old contractors during the pandemic. There is too much work to be done and wrangling young devs to get it done is a nightmare. The greybeards can slot in and start contributing immediately (limited as they come up to speed of course) while new devs (less than ten years) may not have enough previous experience to see a new framework and understand it's scope and what can or should be expected from it.
Is there really widespread ageism, or can that be explained by there being 6x more programmers now that 20yrs ago, by the high pay allowing early retirement for those who want it, and by people with more experience self selecting away from "opportunities" which might succeed in attracting new grads who don't know their worth?
Not to say that specific instances of ageism don't exist or aren't a problem, but in the context of "planning for it in my career" I haven't seen evidence that would make malice more likely than other factors for tech's age distribution. Does that evidence exist?
Nobody said it's malicious. In this industry, every year of experience has diminishing real returns. That is to say, I'm embarrassed by my relative effectiveness many years ago as a new dev. It was mostly thanks to defaulting to the latest and greatest tools. The bits of wisdom and trickery accumulated over the years certainly help, but they don't really move the needle in a way that would justify substantially higher pay, or consideration over younger, less jaded/burned out candidates. The industry's most commonly used CS knowledge can easily be acquired in a year.
Overall it's a pretty lousy line of work, but it beats being an Uber/Instacart serf... what a world.
I don't relate, or I'm not fully understanding your point. In my opinion, experience in the tech world helps leveling with more gifted brains. There might be a complicated concept that a brilliant brain will master immediately or after 1/2/5 years while a good-enough but not-so-brilliant brain will need 5/10/20 years to master it.
So, since not every company is FAANG that can appeal to and are constantly looking for those brilliant brains, there are many companies in which experience will help you to improve your position and salary.
>>Keeping up with latest tech stack helps. Moving up the seniority levels helps. Moving from company to company helps.
I think this is the key. I'm over 50, and never had any issues with ageism (or none that I'm aware of). I took a new position in Nov. and was lucky enough to be able to pick and choose, as there is a shortage of people that can do the work.
If you're more expensive then average, you have to have skills that pay better then average. If your competing against recent grads with much lower cost, you have to be able to show the value in paying you more.
I suspect as techies, we just assumed the "20% raise at each new position" would continue forever. Now we have to work harder to show why we're worth the additional cost.
Part of it is that us old greybeards have been around long enough to see what works and what doesn't. IT is more "cult"ish than most industries. There are long-held destructive beliefs that cause projects to fail or other problems. For example... RESTful APIs. If you're building a single-page web app then it's probably going to work really well for you. If you're replacing a B2B api that "does something", you're gonna have a bad time.
> sent a message to his team letting them know he would probably be “getting bugged more” by his kids due to his wife’s new high-level job
I don't get how this was supposed to work. He's just putting his employer before the fact that he is going to be working less hours for same pay? Or I'm misinterpreting and it's supposed to mean something else? Why didn't he ask for paternity leave or didn't try to negotiate for a different schedule?
I think the most charitable read of the article is that he was not actually working less hours for the same pay. My read was:
- he alleges his productivity didn't change - his availability changed due to the unpredictability of his children's needs, but "he always made up the time he spent helping his sons, he said"
- he believed this was OK: "especially considering messages from upper management noting that parents with school-aged children shouldn’t be penalized"
- he alleges his direct manager was unresponsive to his communication about the change in his personal circumstances -- one imagines that he was hoping she would work with him to figure out a path forward that worked for all parties
These are just claims in a lawsuit that are yet to be tested in court. It seems to me like it's quite possible three things are true: (1) Wayfair had the right to fire him, (2) Wayfair shouldn't have fired him, and (3) even if they should have fired him, they handled it poorly.
I had the same thought. Are you really legally entitled to simply changing your working hours like that? Here in Scandinavia you probably are, but probably not in the US.
It greatly depends on the industry, the specific company, and the specific language of your employment contract. As an engineer I've never worked at any company that required a strict daily schedule and if any of my employers had tried to hold me to one I would have either quit on the spot or let them fire me, depending on my mood. A lot of my colleagues have been perfectly fine with a regular 9-5 schedule though; I value flexibility, but it's not everyone's first priority.
I believe typically not, but if you gave that freedom to other employees and then didn't in this scenario, you might be running afoul of laws against discriminating based on family status.
I know many of this cases around the industry with friends that work at tech companies and no one really cares about it. On the news and marketing they picture themselves as really work-life balance but this is the truth about their work policies at the end of the day.
I know many such cases as well. Unfortunately it's hard to prove discrimination and the laws are not in favor of the employee in most states. So apart from a news coverage like this article, I doubt much comes out of these lawsuits. Seems futile to pursue.
This honestly doesn't surprise me at all. I used to work at Wayfair and the average age there was staggeringly lower compared to everywhere else I've been. It's easy to foresee how the employee walkout that they had a number of years ago resonated with them but child care responsibilities may not. Employees that were pretty high-profile and just had newborns were pretty well treated, as far as I knew. The vast majority of the managers there at best were newlywed but still no kids.
And the suit should be filed here.
Note in France you have no where as vibrant of a job market and quite lower pay on average, because it is overly burdensome to fire someone who is bad. There is balance between free market and too much govt regulations.
Maybe you're thinking my use of 'fired' in the archaic sense, but laid-off, made redundant, let-go, are equally the same terms when it's against the will of someone trying to keep a job.
The lowest bar I ever saw was a woman, but a new mother (baby was at home), get 'let go' after she came to me asking me how she could keep her job, because the managers were not giving her any work. I tried to give her some of my overflow, but was later scolded for doing so, and she was 'let go' that Friday. This is among many experiences I've had, including witnessing some nasty acts against my wife when she was 'let go'. The manager who fired my wife was at our wedding just a couple months before.
'Richard DiBona, a 53-year-old software manager at Wayfair, sent a message to his team letting them know he would probably be “getting bugged more” by his kids due to his wife’s new high-level job.'
The obvious solution being for Mrs. DiBona to retire and apply herself full-time to raising the kids. That would totally free-up Richard DiBonas' time.
Seriously though, no business owes an employee extra privileges in relation to their domestic arrangements.
“And he always made up the time he spent helping his sons, he said.”
If this is true and he met important deadlines, it is difficult for the company to justify his removal. They lose a quality employee for basically no reason, especially given the decentralized (remote) nature of work these days.
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[ 12.6 ms ] story [ 1975 ms ] threadIf a company I worked for did that I would immediately start looking for a new job. I'm not a caregiver, I don't have kids, and it wouldn't affect me as a policy, but the idea that the company I work for could be so completely unfeeling and unreasonable, and would choose to ignore the reality of what's happening in people's lives, means it would instantly become a place I wouldn't want to work at any more.
The fact is most people, especially in tech jobs at large companies, put in way more time and effort than they're actually supposed to. For the company to think that's OK but then to cut wages or fire people as soon as that person isn't able to put in 100% for a short time due to a global pandemic is just a dick move. And the number one rule in life is really simple: don't be a dick.
And that's probably why you can say "Ah, my employer is being a dick, time for me to quit!"
People who are parents, caregivers, and breadwinners might not so easily be able to walk away from 80% of their current salary and risk having 0% for the foreseeable future while they look for uncertain future employment during a pandemic.
I didn't say I'd leave. I said I'd start looking for a new role. Leaving before you have a new job to go to is a terrible idea in this situation.
Why would they make such 'considerations' public to employees, so they can take a hint an find another job?
then how do we know this was wayfair. really confusing.
> In addition to working parents seeking legal counsel, employers have been trying to figure out their legal obligation to employees with school-age children during the pandemic. One employer was reportedly considering cutting caregivers’ salaries by 20 percent to compensate for an anticipated drop in productivity, according to a Boston employment lawyer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal
Simply look around any tech center company and look around. It’s mostly younger crowd. The graybeards are few and far between and in mostly few senior roles.
Even transferring to middle management doesn’t help much. The same type of younger crowd are brought in to keep up the appearances. The olds are few and far between in director and up roles.
It’s simple reality that happens, there’s an age cutoff, and it’s not as old as people think. It’s definitely not the official retirement age.
Keeping up with latest tech stack helps. Moving up the seniority levels helps. Moving from company to company helps.
Entrepreneurship helps, you as owner can hire yourself, but you’ll most likely hire younger people for your company, which perpetuates the ageism cycle.
There seems to be a growing not-a-joke joke of waiting to age out of tech and start their next career as the thing they actually want to do.
I'm on a great gig now but I'm planning for a not so wealthy retirement. Being free to think is my priority. Sundry corporations want the opposite, no matter what they say.
> Even transferring to middle management doesn’t help much. The same type of younger crowd are brought in to keep up the appearances. The olds are few and far between in director and up roles.
I think you have to be more specific. I could totally believe that WRT to SV tech startups and other younger companies, but they often seemed focused on fashion and in some cases be places where only the young and stupid would be willing to work.
There are "tech-centered companies that" are different. For instance I work at a company that's basically evolved to be a tech company, and if anything, our development groups skew old.
Personally, I'm still worried more about outsourcing than ageism.
Not to say that specific instances of ageism don't exist or aren't a problem, but in the context of "planning for it in my career" I haven't seen evidence that would make malice more likely than other factors for tech's age distribution. Does that evidence exist?
Overall it's a pretty lousy line of work, but it beats being an Uber/Instacart serf... what a world.
So, since not every company is FAANG that can appeal to and are constantly looking for those brilliant brains, there are many companies in which experience will help you to improve your position and salary.
I think this is the key. I'm over 50, and never had any issues with ageism (or none that I'm aware of). I took a new position in Nov. and was lucky enough to be able to pick and choose, as there is a shortage of people that can do the work.
If you're more expensive then average, you have to have skills that pay better then average. If your competing against recent grads with much lower cost, you have to be able to show the value in paying you more.
I suspect as techies, we just assumed the "20% raise at each new position" would continue forever. Now we have to work harder to show why we're worth the additional cost.
I don't get how this was supposed to work. He's just putting his employer before the fact that he is going to be working less hours for same pay? Or I'm misinterpreting and it's supposed to mean something else? Why didn't he ask for paternity leave or didn't try to negotiate for a different schedule?
- he alleges his productivity didn't change - his availability changed due to the unpredictability of his children's needs, but "he always made up the time he spent helping his sons, he said"
- he believed this was OK: "especially considering messages from upper management noting that parents with school-aged children shouldn’t be penalized"
- he alleges his direct manager was unresponsive to his communication about the change in his personal circumstances -- one imagines that he was hoping she would work with him to figure out a path forward that worked for all parties
These are just claims in a lawsuit that are yet to be tested in court. It seems to me like it's quite possible three things are true: (1) Wayfair had the right to fire him, (2) Wayfair shouldn't have fired him, and (3) even if they should have fired him, they handled it poorly.
Glad to be living in France, where you must have a good reason to fire people.
I brought this up to my manager ONCE, only by saying having children during this time is difficult, and thankfully was not fired.
I think our society is in trouble if we cannot support one another during ups and downs. Is this apathetic capitalism the standard in the US?
You have a very low bar expectations of getting fired.
The lowest bar I ever saw was a woman, but a new mother (baby was at home), get 'let go' after she came to me asking me how she could keep her job, because the managers were not giving her any work. I tried to give her some of my overflow, but was later scolded for doing so, and she was 'let go' that Friday. This is among many experiences I've had, including witnessing some nasty acts against my wife when she was 'let go'. The manager who fired my wife was at our wedding just a couple months before.
Apathetic capitalism reigns supreme.
The obvious solution being for Mrs. DiBona to retire and apply herself full-time to raising the kids. That would totally free-up Richard DiBonas' time.
Seriously though, no business owes an employee extra privileges in relation to their domestic arrangements.
Apathetic capitalism.
We could expand this statement by saying no business owes a disabled employee extra access, or no business owes an employee maternity leave.
If this is true and he met important deadlines, it is difficult for the company to justify his removal. They lose a quality employee for basically no reason, especially given the decentralized (remote) nature of work these days.