I'm sure glad my employees have me as a boss and not one of you guys. I can't imagine what the 25 year-old single mother of a three year-old (her husband is still in India trying to get over here) would do if I wasn't flexible about her start time. We start work at 7:00 am. Her daycare doesn't open until 6:30, then she has to drive from the NE to the SE. Sometimes she is on time and sometimes she is five to 20 minutes late. I would never give her grief for this and as the business owner I expect her coworkers to work a little harder in her absence. The employees that don't have the responsibility of small kids? They better be on time or have a very good excuse.
When her kid is sick I let her stay home to nurse him guilt free. She is paid by the hour but I'll sometimes throw a few extra hours on her pay cheque if I can see her hours are short because she's had issues with her child and has had to miss work. I know some bosses would not care about her situation, but I can see her situation from her perspective and can see she needs some extra support from her village.
Maybe some of you guys are in a parenting situation that for whatever reason isn't difficult, but you are remiss in your responsibility as a member of society to think you are excused from the big-picture effort required from us all to raise and help raise the next generation.
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