company observation

[tielan]

My fellow contracting colleague leaves the house at 6am and lives at least 30 minutes away by car and probably longer by public transport. He's always in here by at least 7:30am. He frequently doesn't leave until after 5pm, which means he'll probably get home around 7:30pm.

I...do not understand that.

The cynic in me observes that there's probably an element of 'getting out of the housework/childrearing' aspect of it. I may not have a male partner (or any partner at all), but my observations and reports from other married and partnered women do not encourage me as to the value of a man in halving the workload.

He's maybe in his 50s-60s? Which is also noteworthy because most of the other men in the office are in their 30s-50s, and right now my inbox is full of notes saying various men in this strata will be unavailable today or this afternoon or from 11am to 12:30pm as they take family members to appointments and care for sick kids and deal with their own medical stuff.

This office is flexible with their time and their hours. You might be called on to work after hours or weekend, but they seem to be good about compensating accordingly.

Maybe it's the team leaders themselves: one is home today looking after said sick kid, another is a forty-something woman with a family, and the last is a single man who gets in around 8:30am and makes a concerted effort to leave by at least 5:30pm if not 5pm.

It's a somewhat different culture to the last office I was in, where people routinely worked back until 7pm and later. I like it much better, too.

--

Anyway, going to see Black Panther tonight. I'm sure it will be good and my friends' responses fill me with delight, I'm just...struggling to enthuse right now.

Comments

[deird1]

I may not have a male partner (or any partner at all), but my observations and reports from other married and partnered women do not encourage me as to the value of a man in halving the workload.

Yep. My husband is actually really good at this stuff, but every time I talk about him at all I get expressions of longing and disbelief because he actually HELPS. The general consensus among mums is that the men who actually help are the ones who have, at some point, had the kids by themselves for the day - because then they actually understand how hard it is.

[tielan]

Even some of the men who take the kids are 'helpless' - the number of times I've heard women on a camp say, "And when I get back, I'll have to do everything that hasn't been done, even though I left a list of things to do."

And that's not even counting the effort that "a list" takes, to say nothing of "when I say 'do the dishes', I also mean 'go through the house and hunt up the coffee cups in the study' not just wash whatever's in arm's reach and not even turn around to notice the dirty pans on the stove..."

[kore]

Yeah, with some dudes there's the performative helplessness, or the sudden and complete Lack of Clue, whenever they do get talked into helping out. Or not dealing with the garbage until it's so full stuff is spilling out. "But you didn't ask me to, how can I read your mind?" &c &c -- JUST FUCKING LOOK AT IT, BRO

[kore]

(YOUR ICON)

[deird1]

Isn't it awesome! I wanted it for many years. :)

[tjs_whatnot]

I've been lucky enough to work for parents that for the most part, are really big on the shared work and not just the dad doing things when they're told, or given a list. The family I'm with now, the dad works from home a few days a week and also gets home from work earlier than his wife, so he relieves me with the kids and keeps the house tidy while home working. In exchange, she has summers off and does more of the parenting then. Even in their "chores" they don't really follow gender norms. He cooks, she mows the grass and takes out the trash... neither of them really are that big on dishes and laundry, but then again, that's what they have a nanny (me) for, right? ;)

[tielan]

Honestly, I never yet met someone who's really big on dishes or laundry, it's just that SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT and guys get away with "not doing it and not doing it and not doing it and okay if you nag me to do it I will but I'll do a crappy job of it" most of the time and in the vast majority of relationships.

But yes, there are always exceptions.