techboots

@hytosis A dog needs "nothing more than a bowl of water and food?" Well, that's subjective. If that's the case, then I think your kid needs nothing more than a bowl of water and food too. Same thing.

Agree.

If the guy did try to contribute to work during his paternity leave, I'd respect that. But he didn't. He just kicked back and read "Lean In" in his spare time. His coworkers probably didn't even have the luxury of having enough spare time to read that book.

Yes. Coworkers definitely drag you down - especially those who game the benefits system or who play politics. If you don't see this, wake up and look around your cubicle.

And yes, if having a kid grants you 4 months of paid leave... it will definitely feel like punishment for the rest of the single guys stuck in the office. I have a dog and cat I need to take care of. If you get to leave to take care of your kid, I should get to leave to take care of my pets.

You might want to read my whole statement. I appreciate that there's a "beautiful, loving world outside the office."

It's precisely because of that that I wouldn't want to spend all of my time inside that office - I'd want to spend it with my family. And because of that, I wrote "families get in the way of work." It really is that simple. People with family have more beauty & love in their world, they realize what's important in life, and they spend less time in the office. And that's perfectly fine. But in such an environment, certain other types of people (bored single guys who really want to work long & hard) will not find themselves feeling entirely comfortable.

Companies tend to gravitate between the two ends... either super hard working, or laid-back family types. You can see that FB is drifing towards the latter. Which is perfectly fine.

Ok. Let's do this.

Let's form a company. We're co-founders, okay?

Now. I'm going to have a kid, take 4 months off, and leave work 5pm everyday. How do you feel?

Fully agree, life & family is more important. I think if I really wanted to spend more time with my family, I'd just quit the job rather than trying to play the benefits system to get 4 months of paid leave.

Families get in the way of work. It's just that simple. There's less time to pull all-nighters. Once a company starts encouraging "family people," it becomes a certain type of place. It's a type of place that doesn't really vibe well with entrepreneur-types or young single guys perhaps... but it may be the perfect sort of place for family types. Like Microsoft or Cisco. Facebook is becoming like that. It's not necessarily bad for everyone.

Looks like FB jumped the shark if they're employing guys who leave for 4 months, or gals like Sheryl Sandberg who leaves work 5pm every day.

I get it - yes, it's nice and wonderful. But... Frankly, I wouldn't want to work with coworkers like this. Entrepreneurs don't make silly justifications like this -- only employees play this political game. And quite frankly, I wouldn't put up with actions like this - I'd quit in a heartbeat, or tone down my work time as well to match. Hey, just because I don't have a kid, doesn't mean I shouldn't get time off - why punish me for that. Not fair. I'll take my time off to work on my own projects.

If you have a family, it may just be better to sit out of the game for a while rather than dragging the work quality of everyone else around you down.

So what's the consensus on this? I'm looking to integrate either Stripe or Simplify... which service do I go with?