Are You Entitled?

Here we go again - another person taking her grievance to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal because her employer denied her right to dictate her own hours and disrupt the work schedule.  What is it with people who make lifestyle choices, then whine when they find out that maybe they should have thought about the consequences before "doing their own thing".  This time it's pregnancy that's the issue and the impact the new baby has on the mother and her working life.  Nobody said it was easy, nor is it any surprise to anyone that babies take up a lot of your time and that it's unbearable being away from them.  But this was her choice.  She was the one who carried the baby for nine months, so is it too much of a stretch to assume that she had at least seven months to contemplate and decide what to do about work hours once the baby was delivered?  Exactly what has her decision to do with her employer except to share the good news?

 I've got some news for this woman:  your first responsibility is to your child; your employer's first responsibility is to his customers.  As for the government - they should have nothing to do with your situation at all.  Whining to the government because you can't accept your employer's terms is pathetic and costly to the taxpayers of this province who don't know you at all.

Of course, we all know the results of her petition.  Surprise, surprise - the Tribunal agreed with her and ordered her employer to not only change their scheduling to accommodate her, but offered her compensation for her gall.

Executive Privilege

Just when I thought that was the end to the whining, it began anew.  This time it's the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, one Sheryl Sandberg who harps on about the glass ceiling of prejudice and responsibility that women can't cut through.  She believes that it's time for employers to address upwardly mobile female employees with the age-old question "do you plan to have a family?"  As a newly-married young woman I remember being asked that very question and thinking that it was a) none of the employer's business and b) highly inappropriate, even assuming that I wanted a family, which I did not.

Miss Sandberg believes that women on the fast track should be approached by their employers to enter into this discussion and that employers have the obligation to guide women through their child-bearing years.  I suppose it has some merit if you have invested thousands of dollars in training for an individual, plus paid out mega-bucks in salaries throughout her employ.

But Miss Sandberg works for Facebook, a company that produces nothing and has made little or no significant contribution to the world unless you confuse connecting people with actually knowing them. And for this she is paid $300,00 per year, according to her 2011 pay packet, plus - and here's the real kicker - 38,122,000 worth of stock options and restricted stock units.

Did I mention that Miss Sandberg is promoting her latest book?  Or the fact that she has a net worth of $l.6 billion, has an Honours MBA from Harvard University, and was listed as one of Time's Top 100 Most Influential People?  Oh, and by the way, she is married with two children.  Does this sound like your typical role model or anyone most working women would know?

Her critics are quick to jump in.  "Her exhortation contains more than a note of reproach," says Anne-Marie Slaughter, the first female policy director at the U.S. State Department.  "Woman like Sandberg cannot possibly be the standard against which even very talented professional women should measure themselves".

 I can't help thinking of all the women in the world who consider themselves lucky to have any job at all; women who struggle to make ends meet; women who don't have the word "executive" or "nanny" in their vocabulary or let alone their sight-range.

I guess it's the old cup half empty/cup half full thing.  When are we in the highly-developed Western world going to learn to appreciate how extraordinarily lucky we are, learn to shut up, and just get on with the business of living the best way we know how using our own two legs and merit?

If we really want to do something for women, why don't we concentrate our efforts on the women of the world who have little choice in family planning, who must accept their fate and make the best of things with little or no medical care, family support, money, or means of making any.  Why doesn't Miss Sandberg do something for those women instead of ramping her attention on those who are already privileged?