For MN Towers : if you are taking this thread for part of the Home Front research then there also other posts on the parallel thread in AIBU here.

cali gives up and thinks she really should go to bed
but might have just worked it out
HM FORCES

why wont things work for me?
*hm forces*
will try again

*HM FORCES*

My DH is in recruitment,and his company is very singles orientated. they have regular nights out which they go straight from work and stay out until the early hours. They also have a weekend away every year which is disguised as a sales conference but is actually just a weekend on the lash. Not as bad as some though.

On the other hand, I'm a teacher. Now it isn't 9-3 with 13 weeks off as it's sometimes percieved, but they are,on the whole, very supportive about family life. Although I have several hours per day of work to do outside the classroom, it is often my choice as to whenI do it. For example, I can pick my DCs up early and spend a few hourswith them, as long as I'm happy to start marking once they're in bed. Only downside is that I'm always at work during school hours, which makes things like assemblies, sports days etc difficult.

Just wanted to post a contrasting situation really!

i work in media, and i think its the same as the ad industry, everyone without exceptions over here is a big drinker/partier. all of the mothers who work here (and its the same in the worldiwde offices), all of the fathers, and all of the bosses included!!
it is not part of the job so much as it is part of the mood of the industry.

at our office i just dont get it. people who are married will stay and drink beers with their colleagues until very late, every day.

i always wonder - doesn't your partner want you to come home?

there are also always, lunches, dinners, parties, events, awards, lots of trips overseas where we party all night long, and spouses or partners are never present.

i work with my dh so we just go hang out with everyone togehter.

MrsSprat - I so agree.

Don't get me started. The agency-side does have a deserved criminally poor reputation for this sort of thing. Most people I know in the age bracket have either gone client-side, freelance or even down-shifted one way or another. I am currently contemplating whether to go back or look for somewhere that might place a little more value on grown-up behaviour. It's craziness.

advertising/sales promotion

Recruitment is usually like this - what sector is the business you are talking about?

It just astonishes me ... I keep saying (to dh) but you are catering for a homozygous workforce when infact that workforce is evolving with a spread of 25--40 year olds and so a heterozygous population with different needs and motivators ... surely the company needs to evolve too ... esp if it makes grand claims about beig so good a place to work that border on conceit

it's a house of cards imo ...

the response i get is ... that's the way it is in this industry (advertising/sales promo)

it will never change then will it until it is made to

so is there a sudden massacre of people aged 32+ male/female who god-forbid decide they want to have a family or just not go out on the lash night after night

Tricky isn't it. All of my bosses have been single or divorced and it definitely makes a difference to what's expected of you working-hours wise and socially. Used to rile me even before family arrived on the scene.

Also, as I'm now in my thirties, I just don't enjoy the majority of social events put on by the 'yute' anymore, which puts me roundly in 'old farts no-fun corner', when if we went out for a nice meal/lunch I'd be very content.

I think 'lash club' thing is typical - the boss agreeing that senior people should be going How ridiculous! I worked at an ad agency once in the new business dept where I was repeatedly told (including by the MD) that because I don't drink I was never going to get any business in for the agency 'you have to go out and get pissed with people, that's the job'. At the end of the year I'd brought in more business than all the other new business directors combined. Funny how a carefully thought out presentation can turn out to be more effective than drinking ten pints at Spearmint Rhino, isn't it?? I mean, it almost suggests that all that drinking and throwing money around isn't as valuable as brains and hard work after all? Surely that can't be so It is definitely not a family friendly culture.

(This was different company and different industry to the last job I left in order to be self-employed.)

I think there needs to be a fundamental shift in business values to accept that people with families might be more valuable as employees than borderline alcoholics. Is that really such a reach? It would seem so...

Fair enough. I've just been pleasantly surprised with my family-friendly new boss, I'm sat here with a chicken pox ridden DS for example without having to take time off. I assumed it was because she was a mother.

giddykipper - if only that were always true. Sometimes women (even mums!) at the top are worse...

don't know about that giddykipper, one boss I had had two nannies to ensure 24 hour cover for her 3 children

You need more mothers in charge, then it would change.

I agree.

I'm especially at the lash club. Is it really responsible to promote binge drinking and all its ensuing behaviour? Is that inclusive to people who don't drink for whatever reason (religious, personal conviction, health...)?

FWIW, when I was at Uni, there was a definite policy against these sorts of things. All posters and flyers advertising events had to be free from promises like 'half price booze', or 'all you can drink for £10'.

well what can you do when their HR manager in a recent interview of an outstanding candidate who honestly volunteered that she would rather work 4 days to have a day with her young children left the interview and said to DH

'well that won't happen, there's no way we can just have her doing 4 days"

(the guy actually has young kids himself!)

dh said ... "so you'd rather we had someone mediocre to go half-pelt for 5 days than someone who is excellent AND truthful ask that we consider 4 days"

YES was the response ...

my dh is senior enough and ballsy enough to have then brought it up with the boss suggesting it was myopic esp given that the kind of people they need with talent AND experience are likely to be in their early 30s with young families .. and the boss agreed that the candidate shouldn't just be dismissed on those grounds

but really ... how often does this happen and how often does nobody say anything to correct it?

And the reason I left mine too.

"oh off early again?" at 7.30pm
"no point even inviting you to the quiz night, is there?" well no, because it's on Wednesday and I pick up my son from nursery on Wednesdays. Which clearly makes me Not A Team Player.
"I've set up that call for 8pm tonight, so let's get a pizza in." I wanted to get home to bath my son, and I'm gluten intolerant.

Pah. Glad to be self-employed!

ooh - name and shame!

I agree - it's one of the reasons I left my last company

Am hacked off big time with the attitude in dh's company that's all for single folks without families and puts unfair pressure on those who have families ...

For example, DH got asked sarcastically 'did you have a good time last night' a few weeks back by boss when he didn't go to a summer party that finished at 0100 and then had people going back into london to then make their way home ... he said, 'yes it was great hanging out with my family ... especially as I was away all the week and weekend before and hadn't seen them properly for 10 days with work stuff'

boss was a bit astonished actually

it really fecks me off

also regularly gets told to participate in TCs that START at 8pm etc etc etc

and eyebrows raised if he leaves work 'early' at 1830 to get train (hours are 0900--1730)

and a few weeks ago the senior group were told that 'the lash club; (yes they have a budget and an actual club dedicated to the art of getting pissed) had complained to HR that senior people weren't going to the lashy-events ... and the boss agreed that they should attend more

there's FUCK ALL for families/partners etc

and yet they are in the sunday times top10 list as being a great company to work for and were recently on tv as having great benefits and good employee atmosphere

yes -- if you are 23, single, want to get pissed a lot or want to be at work/with work colleagues all the time

AIBU to think there need to be some changes and respect for people who work there who have families? What should be suggested?