I lost interest in Yahoo's survival when I learned, the day after her hire, that Mayer was pregnant.

(The woman.)

(Her house.)

In such a case, the so-called asset is actually a drain on the company. It's not like some other worker doesn't have to stop what they're doing to cover for the walking absentee.

You're not a parent! How dare you criticize? You have no right to pass judgment upon pregnant women who are looking for work!

Not that I believe any of this, Amy, but I figured I may as well get it out of the way, since we know that sentiments like this will soon be coming.

Evidently, if a fledgling businessman makes decisions that are in his best interest, he's guilty of job discrimination. Never mind that hiring a woman means a substantially greater risk that you're hiring someone who's going to quit to start a family, call in absent when the kid is sick, and expect four months of paid maternity leave, in addition to the paid vacation that all other employees are entitled to, and despite all this absenteeism, demands to be paid just the same as someone else who never missed a day.

The tax break, I think, is a good idea. If the law requires that a pregnant woman gets four months paid leave when the kid pops out, they should be compensated for it.

Zero in paid leave for me. Just sayin.

I picked the wrong job to get pregnant at (kidding!)

Pay off your car and start stashing the cash. I wish I had more than 9pm though- but that again, isn't anyone elses problem.

It takes planning and living in squaller for a bit to eeeek by. Oh well. The other side of "women's choice".

I actually paid for insurance (since I was 22) for this. So I'll get about 1/4 of my take home pay. Not sure yet if they'll tax it ( if they do - that will be the first time through this process I get pissed off or feel slightly entitled to any money coming to me).

It's not easy but if you can't have children without becoming a drain on others, here's a novel idea..... DONT DO IT!

9pm should have been 9 months. Damn you autocorrect!

Also, I am almost done paying off my car. I've been making double payments instead of eating out etc because I was making sure I was debt free BEFORE I was pregnant. Well. That didn't happen but I was able to refinance and get payment s cut in half (still making double payments) so in case I can't get it paid off at least there isn't the full burden of the payment for three months.

I've also become a big fan of the goodwill for maternity clothes (and eBay) and garage sales and used furniture for cribs and strollers.

People will make it happen when the money isn't coming in. And I confess, in a twisted way. It's really really fun learning to budget like this. Totally different than being a single gal that's for sure.

I work for a software company. It can take up to three months to be competent enough to actually start producing good integrated code. Add in that each coder usually has a few areas they focus on and the other coders only touch on rarely.

So if they hire a women that is three months pregnant, she will finally be up to speed in her third trimester. Then she goes out on maternity leave that will dump the work back on everyone else, especially if she takes the FMLA extended leave.

The company still needs to get the software out on time regardless of the personnel issues. There is a difference if the lady has been working for the company for a while. It's like planning for someone's surgery. And if you say "What if a person got in a car accident?" the reply is "Will the person be back?" In other words the company can decide whether to hold the slot or fill it.

But the most important reason to end discrimination against pregnant women has to do with what kind of society we want to live in.

I just hate that passage so much.

Listen, friends of mine are pregnant, OK? I got bona fides. I've known women who made babies in an up-close-and-personal way.

But "what kind of society we want to live in" has been used to shoehorn all manner of freebies and into our budget, and we are outta fuckin' money. The wealth that these ninnies want to pass out with such pouty lips and googly eyes has to be created by someone. Specifically, someone else: If our correspondent, Miss Quart, wanted to put a pint of her own money into "the kind of society" she wants to live in, that would be one thing. But that's not what she means at all, is it?

This is flatly WRONG:

We can admit that pregnant workers may be less profitable employees than nonpregnant workers in the short term, yet choose to value aspects of life beyond economic productivity.

No, we cannot "admit" that: The certainty that pregnancy is a profound distraction is too fundamental to tolerate such theatrically-burdened recognition. Kitten, this is not about psychological manipulation, OK?

No, we cannot "chose to value" things in the marketplace beyond what the market was designed to facilitate: The mutual fulfillment of self-identified needs. The market isn't there to host your schoolgirl daydreams about compassionate strangers any more than the church sanctuary is there to accommodate your orgies. (The Catholics got confused about this, and there was Hell to pay.) No auto racing in the shopping mall; no neurosurgery in coffee shop.

For the record, in the last year I've identified and put controls (or in the process of putting them in place right now) that will save the company I work for about a million dollars. This is quantifiable and I intend on holding it up because I won't get a bonus or increase in salary for doing it because its MY JOB.

On the flip side - if I need to take 3 months off to have a baby - and don't ask for handouts while doin it (or pats on the back or coddling etc) then I am damn well gonna do it. I I was a crappy non productive employee, I am quite positive things would most certainly be different

But don't lump all women in with these others. It's nice to know that my job WILL be there when I get back because some "law" says so. But quite honestly, I don't do my job any more or less rigorously knowing that - because at the end of the day, I am confident without the law they would accept me back to my position. It's just how it is.

I agree with Crid too, btw.

Economics rewards if you are doing the right thing, and that doesn't include having some legal Protections or legislated "societal values".

If you are a great employee doing an awesome job, the laws are not really relevant to you (in reality) at the end of the day because, you are or will be worth the three month leave (much like a star employee who falls suddenly- and temporarily ill).

These laws seem designed to protect the majority of those who don't do a good job, plan ahead or value their jobs like they should....

I'd rather the law be gone. I think we'd be better off in the long run. I think it would be more of an incentive to Either put in the work or stay at home selling Avon. I think it would also discourage getting knocked up by a man who is gonna leave you high and dry....

> I am confident without the law they would
> accept me back to my position.

Righteously so; you create wealth. When you leave the office, things are worth more to them than they were when you came in that morning.

I seriously fear that about between 72% and 77% of America, the most productive nation on the surface of this globe, has no idea how that works, or that it applies to all of us.

And PLEASE BELIEVE THAT I KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE: It's not a "woman" problem, or even a "pregnant" problem.

82%.

87%.

And in France, it's even worse. (Translated.)

Thing is, we got nowhere else to go.

88%.

I was pregnant during my first job for a PBS station in LA, 25 years ago. I was energetic (of course! I was eating for two!), dedicated, resourceful and cheap. As a contract employee, I did get health insurance, and took 3 months unpaid leave off after having my son--just in time for my project to gear up. My boss was so freaked out by the whole thing that he sort of hid from me. I didn't expect the place to cater to me, and I still don't. If I'd been on staff, I think the situation might have been different but I made the choice, because I was and am a grown-up.

First, the FMLA does not require paid leave, just leave w/o being fired for it. I think this is reasonable, but I also think that choosing not to hire somebody who is imminently going to be out for 3 months is also reasonable - depending on the job.

When I got pregnant about 6 months into my job, it could have been disastrous. What did I do? I found an employee in a rotational program (there are several in the government), and arranged for her to cover my job for her 3-month rotation... starting when I went into labor.

To the best of my knowledge, everyone appreciated that I took the time to make sure my position was covered, transitioned my replacement in, wrapped up some big projects before I left, and kept in the loop while I was out. My replacement then phased back out when I got back.

She got mentoring and exposure to a different group and job position. My job was covered, and while it was highly inconvenient for everyone, it was less so than some people who had unexpected severe health problems and were out on sick leave for months.

In short, I agree that a lot of it is how you handle it. We can value having non-monetary values and appreciate them, but we don't have to value it monetarily.

We can admit that pregnant workers may be less profitable employees than nonpregnant workers in the short term, yet choose to value aspects of life beyond economic productivity.

-------------------

That annoys me so much. I value pregnant women plenty, and am happy to. Valuing people doesn't mean giving them a job that someone else is in a better position to fill. Valuing your pregnant, unemployed neighbor might mean that you go over and, I dunno...help her out? Offer her an interest-free loan or just a gift if she and that valuer-in-chief, her baby's father, are having hard times? Maybe you can show other pregnant women, strangers to you, that you value them by donating to or volunteering for one of the myriad charities set up to help pregnant women. If you want a society that values women during their pregnancy, for things beyond their economic productivity, then *you* go work on that. Don't tell me the employer, and the employees who pick up the slack, who *I* have to "choose" to value and how I have to show that value.

Crid: "No auto racing in the shopping mall;"

Killjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdGxR-aU6o

I'm just about convinced that the only way attitudes like Quart's will change is economic collapse.

Listen... OK... I get it...

But "values" is a weird word to use after you've approached someone and asked for a paycheck (money! green! lettuce!) in exchange for work, and they've agreed.

I understand that this is the 21st century. No slavery, no fair putting employees or their welfare at risk without safeguards, etc. Triangle Shirtwaist, right? I hearya, I hearya!

But let's look at how we've positioned ourselves and our children and their children for the times ahead... We're camped on the muddy banks of Shit Creek, OK?

Talk of "values" sounds hollow and transparent when over the last fifty years every constituent in this economy — able/disabled, educated/unschooled, savvy/naive, lazy/enthusiastic — has done their God Damnedest to express, through LAW, their certainty that the highest value is, in fact, lucre.

The wealth we need is going to have to be created. Not taken from the rich; created.




In other news, you should watch this in the highest resolution you can handle, even if you don't usually go for that kind of thing.

I've stated my position on this issue many times, on many other blogs - and always catch crap for it. But, I still believe that I'm right on this. So, for whatever it is worth . . .

No amount of laws will ever cause women to be viewed in the workplace the same as men - never!

Politicians can legislate all they want - laws generally do not change beliefs, laws change behaviours.

The only thing that will make things equal is when men can quit their jobs to become stay-at-home dads with as much ease as women. Or when a man calls in "sick" because his children are sick, or when a man leaves work early to pick up the kids from daycare as much as women do. And I'm not referring to laws, I referring to most of society and how men view themselves.

When an employer has to wonder if a young married man (or even single for that matter) will entertain the possibility of quiting work (or even asking for baby leave) to become a stay-at-home dad then that employer will consider women to not be more of a risk than a man.

"But the most important reason to end discrimination against pregnant women has to do with what kind of society we want to live in."

There are various reasons I, too, hate this statement... but the biggest is that she doesn't mean society she means government. Perhaps she simply doesn't delineate the two.

I'd like to let go the idea that this whole 'preggers' thing is somehow NEW. That we somehow have never had to deal with it before. Geez, how did we procreate before? musta been an interesting system.

Oh, yeah, it's not PC to say such things because it points back to the bad old days of division of labor, and we certainly can't be having that.

Essentially the opposite way of saying this, is that men are simply overachievers because they don't take time out to get pregnant, therefore the best way to make everything equal is to force men to take paternity leave equal to what women take, so that the drag on productivity is equally shared within business. Business can then price in this cost so that society will equally share it.

[Sweden has tried something like this I think, with varying success... but importantly they are a really small homogeneous country.]

There that should fix everything. We respond to the lowest denominator, and make everyone entirely equal. Oh, and we need to outlaw working more than 40 hours a week, becuase hey, that's not fair...
oh, an entrepreneurs should be outlawed because they make make more money than they should...

maybe it would be better if govt. owned everything because then you could force everything and everyone to be equal...

but man is it going to hurt when they cut me off at the shins to make me the same 5'8" as every other man.

This asymmetry in our existence between male and female used to be taken into account within societies, but somehow went off the rails in modernity... and it seems that somehow we are not responding to that.

Amy, won't you be my neighbor? Please? I keep my yard tidy and send my good strong middle-school boys (people who I actually do get to dictate values to) over to do yard work for anyone who needs help.

Seriously, though, that's exactly what I mean and I wish Alissa Quart would do something similar for her poor pregnant friends wallowing in their oversize sweaters instead of telling everyone else to just hire them. We do live in a society that values pregnant women (and old people and sick people and other folks who aren't at their peak of economic productivity) but the market =/= society and that's a *good* thing.

Keep in mind it is not always just the employees efforts that are lost...the copmany made need to pay some one to cover. One of the places I worked at had to hire a contractor to cover for one lady...and that was not cheep.

You can have similar things happen with a guard call up. So that should be thought of also.

I agree completely that we don't owe women a workplace reward for getting pregnant. Employees are paid to work, not make babies. Of course a company should not be forced to pay extra for it.

However, I think it's different for a top-performing employee who has proven her worth over the years. At my company, it takes several months for someone to really start adding value, and a few years of subject matter expertise makes an employee very difficult to replace. In most cases, it's easier and faster for the rest of the team (about 30 people, counting offshore) to pick up the extra work for 6 or 8 weeks than it is to try to train a temporary replacement or even a permanent replacement. I know because I've been on both sides of the issue, and I'm now prepping to take over the post-deployment phase of a big project for one of my contractors when she goes out on leave. Far easier for me to do it than train a newbie.

A couple of men who have had to take an extended leave were given the same treatment. That philosophy is part of what helps us attract top-notch talent. Of course, employees who show up everyday and never have issues that affect their work are definitely more cost effective. But at a very large company that requires a highly-specialized skill set, turn over is even more costly.

At a small company, I can see that it would be a big problem.

> Amy, won't you be my neighbor? Please?

Perhaps I amuse easily, but...

OK, I CERTAINLY amuse easily, but...

...In context, that's among the top twenty blog comment opening lines I've ever seen here.

This is the all-time champion. Nothing that you or I or Amy has written has even come close.

Heck, I screwed up the link.

Women will finally be valued as equals to men in society when they are all packing heat to compensate for the strength and size difference.

For the record, I love pregnant women, OK?

1. Big Tits.

2. Harsh, Volatile Moods.

3. Mind on Other Things.

Mapping through the vagaries of H.R. policy is not a big habit with me. I've been freaking freelance almost my entire life.

What I object to is the composition policy around touch-feely rhetoric, as if they rhetor didn't have VERY specific targets in mind for the largess of the greater community... That target usually being themselves.

Because honestly, don't you want to live in the kind of society where every bitter 54-year-old bachelor is provided with a vintage Super 400 at zero cost to himself?

Of course you do.

I worked at a software company and we were going on a hiring spree for a major new project. We hired a woman to be the software architect and 6 months later she went on maternity leave. We had 60 people depending on her and she was not there. The project failed and most of us were laid off.

If she had no been pregnant, would the project have succeeded? Probably not but it did not help. The real problem were the other two leaders on the project who were both men. If they had been competent we probably could have covered for the woman's absence.

That's a nice set of strings there, Crid, but my idea of a 400 Super has different curves... but as a bitter 47 year old bachelor, I should still be entitled, yeah?

http://motoburg.com/images/ferrari-400-super-america-02.jpg

people drive to work in cars

Christ that's beautiful... And no less pleasing the the well-trained ear. I'm not even a car guy, though I once used a wrench on a thing in the backyard when I couldn't find a hammer.

Even without a deep education in sports cars, there's some non-specific collection of details that speaks to the subconscious... You just know it's part of the Breadvan / 250 GTO continuum.

Whaddya suppose he'd want for it?

Never mind. (I read somewhere that in advanced Judaica, you're not permitted to ask the price of something unless you're seriously considering buying it. That strikes me as an absolutely BRILLIANT personal boundary. My happiness has increase tremendously since I've tried to pack it into the toolkit.)

(As you can see, here as with the Clapton, above, it doesn't always fit.)

Great things are going to happen with technology just about five days after I'm dead, certainly. But in considering the big view, I just couldn't have picked a better year to be born than 1959. Design miracles like that Ferrari were happening all over the civilized world as it brushed off the bloody dirt of the Big One. The fact that I was too young to appreciate them (the Stratocaster, the Slimline phone, the IBM 360, the Concorde, etc) in an articulate way means nothing, because it's fucking emotional... You remember what these things meant to the brothers and uncles who aspired to have them.

If you drive that to work, I'm pretty sure you get a blowjob before the big meeting. And when you walk into the conference room a few minutes late, nobody says anything.

Today brought us another piece about Mayer.

"... yet choose to value aspects of life beyond economic productivity"

And by this she really means we should 'choose to force other people to give us their money' for doing nothing. That doesn't sound like values I want to promote in society.

"I worked at a software company and we were going on a hiring spree for a major new project. We hired a woman to be the software architect and 6 months later she went on maternity leave"

I have a small software business, just three or four people and a limited budget. We do OK but the economy's not exactly booming. We don't have a giant vault of cash out back, Scrooge McDuck style. We only have enough cash to make one major new programmer hire - if this were to happen to us on servicing a major contract, it would probably sink the company. No thanks, not taking that chance, and nobody is entitled to demand that I 'must' give them my money ... and then to add insult to injury imply I'm selfish or that I somehow "don't value aspects of life beyond economic productivity" just because I don't want to throw my life savings at someone and sink my business. Sure I value maternity, but it is ONLY that "economic productivity" she derides that allows any woman at all to have reasonable quality of life through raising a child.

And it is possible to have and raise children and still add value to a business. Many woman do it all the time. She is actually putting those other women in a bad light by now implying that pregnant women must be an economic drag on a company or that pregnant women in general imply entitlement to someone else's money for nothing. They aren't necessarily so ... as long as you 'overall' are contributing to the bottom line, then it's mutually beneficial for the company involved and for the pregnant women, and many women succeed at this. My own wife did this just fine.