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> I honestly don't know what I would have done with the
> information, but I certainly would have been taken aback and
> may have even commented out loud that it was a discriminatory
> remark (probably off the cuff without checking my head first).
>
> That's just rotten, let alone illegal.
Yabbut... It's rotten, it's illegal, but geez! *Somebody* has to be
there to do the work!
I've taken four maternity leaves in the past eight years (from 3
different companies.) That's a LOT of paid time out of the office! And
while I still think that I was overall a productive member of my teams,
there's really no denying that these companies hired me, I worked for
6-12 months, and then I was OOO for four months.
I have five children. *That's* time out of the office too, for one thing
and another. And I'd have to be blind not to realize that that has some
impact on my team. My office mate can't announce that he's taking a few
hours to go out on his boat, but "school play" is my free pass to a
morning off work. It's *not* fair. And certain types of managers,
certain types of teams, can't absorb that.
There's a line there somewhere. As a hiring manager, you *do* have to
think twice about whether to hire someone that's going to take a
maternity leave right when your product is launching. The unfair part is
assuming that any woman between 25 and 40 is that woman.
I'm looking back over this, and I can't tell if I'm communicating what I
want to say clearly. I'm not an advocate of discrimination in the work
place, of course. But I'm not sure that parents or people who intend to
become parents should be a protected class. I don't think it's
reprehensible to know that your team can't absorb a four-month maternity
leave easily. And I've *always* appreciated managers who were up front
with me about the need for face time, a rigid work schedule, etc and let
me make an informed decision on whether that was something I could live
with.
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