Or maybe just band together and fight for more time off for everyone so you aren't at the will of a few billionaires obsessed with you as slave labor?

Oh yeah... Parenthood.... Real easy. We're doing it for the work breaks.

So I've seen in a previous job where someone was complaining that a guy was leaving at 4pm to get his kid and how it was unfair just because he had a child.

What that person bitching and moaning didn't see was that the parent was getting into work MUCH earlier than him, and would regularly log back on when getting home.

Sure there are some parents who take the piss, but there are also plenty of parents that put the hours in and more, they just need a little flexibility because childcare and the associated costs are a fucking joke and society isn't set up to enable single income families.

Oh that shit pissed me off so bad and smokers... I quit a job because they were going to move me across the country to fill a roll they could find a local because I was the single guy. I said no and they said I have "no choice" bad move, I have a choice.

Then they had 2 spots to fill, fucking dummies.

That "boss" went from senior director to basic manager in the next year for shit like this. Fuck you Adam.

Unpopular opinion here (I am also a childfree person)

As much as I don't want them, kids are the future of every society and we all suffer the consequences of a general societal parental inadequacy (the kids today will be our doctors, carers, drivers, etc)

So, while some places take it to a ridiculous extreme and act as if parents are just completely free of any duties, I do think that generally workers who have children, especially small children, should get certain benefits and have more relaxed hours to give them the space to be proper parents.

Of course in an ideal society all of us would have a significant amount of free time and we wouldn't need to bother with making any special treatment for parents because we would all have the time we need to do the things we want and if those things are being parents then parents will have the time to both be parents and also do some of the other things they want. Currently we don't live in that society and work is almost entirely consuming of our free time.

Before going that far, workers should consider explaining less. If you tell people why you can't work overtime, they will trivialize your outside commitments. If you "have another commitment" then they can't argue with the substance.

Of course your boss could still threaten to fire you, if it's the US with shitty labor law. But be smart, and stop providing the argumentative material to them.

Similarly, just don't answer the phone or text messages on your day off. Don't friend your boss on social media... If that's your baseline, again, they have less information to use against you, and all of the pointless arguments simply stop happening.

This is all surprisingly easy to do if you plan it out in advance. The key point is that your boss is not your friend and the company is not your family.

Kids are understandable. What (mildly) annoys me is the free pass for smoke breaks.

When you adopt a cat, you should be entitled to paid caternity leave.

I try to be very open and forgiving, as it's the same as what if I have a sick parent or spouse that I need to take care of. Same thing.

HOWEVER. I have a WFH job that is very heads down and forgiving on time, and most days we have 1, count it ONE meeting that lasts 15 minutes. A daily standup. I have coworkers with kids who miss it DAILY, usually because of childcare. How, how do you miss our ONE meeting? If your kids are at home then how do I trust that you are actually working most of the day if you can't set aside 15 minutes daily? If your kids need to be dropped off then I'm sorry but how does it take that exact 15 minute period every day? Can't drop them off 15 minutes earlier or later? (And yes, we've adjusted our daily times, but then after a month or so it starts happening again). To be fair I think they're just blaming the childcare.

I pretend to be an alcoholic so I can act like an ass at the work parties. I don't even drink.

People love to argue about whether kids count as work and whether they're voluntary but workers get old and retire. They need to be replaced. In our society we don't subsidize this process, even though social reproduction is part of the overall capitalist mode of production. They've convinced you to provide a replacement labor force for them and they are not paying you for your labor. And then they even get you to feel bad about it.

Everyone I work with has kids, so... We're all in the same boat?

Also, leaving the office whenever? You know that shit is falling under sick time or people are skipping lunches to have two hours off one day.

I remmeber reading a story about a lady or a dude who did this same thing.

They got elaborste with it too. They made it look like one of their nephews were actually their own child loool!

Do you have to provide proof you had a child?

I don't know what kind of job this person has, but this strikes me as the least empathetic statement a person could make. Yes, I have young children, and I learned that I knew nothing about parenting before having kids.

I'm pretty sure we sure be fighting a class war instead