I have a job in software development, and I enjoy the work I do, my coworkers, and the pay is quite good. However, management keeps the work environment very… unsympathetic. Despite it being a programming job it’s very strict on working in office, and there’s a vibe of everyone just being a mistake or two away from being fired. This came to a head for me when I had a child recently and when my spouse was a couple weeks from her due date she started struggling to get out of bed to use the restroom or get food. However, when I requested to work from home so I could just briefly help her out a couple times a day (a frequency and duration of break which is totally fine in the office), I was made to start my paternity leave early.
I worry about coming across as out of touch, since having paternity leave at all makes me super fortunate, but it feels absolutely terrible having to give that time up and spend it without my kid because of my company’s resoluteness on this matter. (Side note: they’ve explained it to me as not wanting to make exceptions / “play favorites”, while not acknowledging that they themselves can just make the rule that you can be remote at will, when your spouse needs help, etc.) It’s enough for me to start looking at other opportunities when I am able, but I’m back at work without any bites. I just wish to work someplace that feels like it cares about its employees more. But man, job hunts are just so draining, and since my salary expectations are quite a bit higher than they were when I first got this job, the hunt hasn’t actually gotten any easier from me having professional experience. I just want somewhere I can work remote so I can spend more time with my kids, and as a pie in the sky optional requirement I want a democratic workplace, where I can more realistically expect business decisions to be in the employees’ best interests. But the very very few of those that exist are not really looking for new members, and with the kid already here I can’t take a risk on starting a new co-op that could take months to years to become financially solvent, if ever.
Realistically I can just keep working here which I realize puts me in a much more fortunate position than so many fellow humans, but I can feel the stress increase as the employees continue to get spread thinner and thinner, while the company’s massive success YOY does not proportionally scale to our own benefits or salaries increasing, and the parental leave incident has just left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth. I’m just not sure what to do.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s correct or rational, but I think that’s the impetus (insofar as there’s any real thought behind it). You’re probably right that there’s an element of cruelty for cruelty’s sake in there too, because capitalism is an inherently cruel and inhumane system. Still, though, I think there’s some sense that if we let people get at all comfortable, they’ll start demanding even more concessions. This seems especially prevalent after the COVID stuff: big capital saw that even just a few months of some workers being allowed to be home, the government covering some income, and generally the pointless immiseration slightly loosening up (or at least changing forms) almost brought the whole thing crashing down. People saw that living better, more fulfilling, less pointless lives was possible and started to question why we can’t always live like that. That’s dangerous. If you let someone work from home for a month while their partner is heavily pregnant and nothing really changes, why can’t they work from home more? If the government can help people who have lost their jobs until they find new jobs once, why not always? Why not just demand better conditions and threaten to quit if you can’t get them, then expect the government to keep you from starving?
That kind of thinking is an existential threat to big capital. It’s absolutely essential that most workers feel a sense of total precarity, to the point where they always believe they’re lucky to be in whatever shitty circumstances they find themselves in. The fact that in the very long term happy workers are more productive (and thus more profitable) workers can’t be admitted, because doing so runs the risk of leveling the playing field even slightly.