to be riled by this comment from a colleague?

[dancingwithmyselfandthecat]

Someone I manage has requested emergency leave (unpaid - for the next couple of weeks) because her childcare arrangement for the holidays has fallen through.

I said that I would bring it up with my manager as soon as I could today, but explained that it is unlikely we will be able to accommodate the request because we are low staffed anyway (what with it being August and having accommodated other people's planned leave requests) and have some big deadlines coming up. I said that we may be able to meet her halfway, but she may need to make other arrangements, and if she needed some time today to ring around that would be fine.

To which she replied "Well, there's no way I can ask my husband because he earns more than me and has the more important job".

Now, I won't take this comment into consideration one way or another, but AIBU to be annoyed by it? From our perspective, she is a well-paid, full time employee with responsibilities. It is neither here nor there as to whether in a private context she and her DH consider him to be the "dominant" worker. And from a women-in-the-workplace/feminist perspective, what hope do we have of gaining greater equality when women treat their professional responsibilities in this way?

don't be daft, if one parent has to take emergency unpaid leave, of course you opt for it to be the lower paid parent.

We share chilcare emergencies and my DH earns loads more than me.

It's a strange view to take as they are both parents!

It sounds like she doesn't value her job.

She's looking at it from her own home and family life perspective.

I expect she puts her family and home before her job.

"what hope do we have of gaining greater equality when women treat their professional responsibilities in this way?"

You'll find a lot of men put family before work too.

She shouldn't have said that to you but if you refuse her request what do you expect her to do? Bring the children to work with her?

yanbu but agree you shouldn't take it into consideration as part of the decision , either way. Emergency leave is short term , ie a few days while she sorts out an alternative childcare not a licence to take unpaid leave at her convenience. If her children are school age there should be holiday clubs etc on offer she could book them into or a cm may have space if her regular charges are on holiday. Perhaps you could offer to be more flexible with start/finish times so she can do drop off and/or pick up. And yes her dh should cover some similarly.

She's entitled (not a question of you "accommodating" her) to reasonable unpaid time off to care for dependents. What's reasonable though wouldn't normally include caring for the children herself for the whole period, unless they have special needs which make it impossible to get another form of childcare. Basically though she is entitled to a couple of days until she can get something else sorted, then she should be back at work. Your operational needs don't get a look in in what is "reasonable", it's all about the need for the time off.

YABU (albeitly privately understandable from the feminist point) to get annoyed by something you can't change.

It is a very unprofessional comment for her to have made, agree with IntheRed - it sounds as though she doesn't value her job very much.

You'd have to manage if she was off sick for a week wouldn't you ?

Maybe you should look into how many people you let go on a/l at the same time if it leaves you so short

IntheRed - I think that's what annoyed me about it - not the comment itself, but the implication that she doesn't value her job (which comes out in other things too, so maybe I am unfairly loading this comment).

Captain and LIZS - I'm speaking to my manager and HR shortly to see what we can do - part time/leaving early and yes, maybe bringing the kids in (they are 7 and 9) if she is really stuck - we could put them in an empty office if she could bring books or an IPAD etc to entertain them.

Captain - yes we would, but being off sick isn't something that you can get around with emergency childcare or meeting us halfway.

Salacious she doesn't just want a couple of days. We accepted holiday requests carefully, there are enough staff to cover, provided someone with her expertise is here for some of the time - and if we made sure there was always slack there we would either a) have more staff than we could afford or b) never allow any of them holiday!

I have a decent, well paid job. However, I still earn less than half what DH earns. So if one of us were taking unpaid leave due to unforeseen childcare issues it would be me. No question of sharing it between us.

That's not anti-feminism, it's just practical. It doesn't mean I don't value my job. It just means that I'm not missing my mortgage payment just for the sake of ringing the feminism bell.

Of course the lower paid worker would request leave. But if she couldn't get it, then the higher paid parent needs to request leave.

Maybe it's not that she doesn't value her job but her family's financial survival is more important.

I'm torn on this.

On the one hand, she probably only means that her dh's wage covers more of their living costs and so she is unwilling to risk that in any way.

On the other hand, she was as thick as mince to say that to her own employer, who isn't going to care about her domestic priorities and rightly expects her to treat the job she is paid for, as important.

When two parents work, one of them is likely to earn more than the other and it is a fact of life that the higher paid job will get treated as more important - people work in order to finance their lives, they are not doing it just for fun. Tactless of her to have been so blunt about it though.

I think you may have no say in giving her this leave - she has dc and can't leave them by themselves! But it is irritating for employers.

...so saying there is 'no way' she can ask her husband is ridiculous.

I'm surprised she made that comment to you, it doesn't seem either appropriate or sensible when asking for an exceptional leave request.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all to be taken aback and annoyed by her having said it. However, as you say you will quite rightly not take it into account when dealing with the request.

From her perspective, she's probably very stressed that her arrangements have fallen through and she might be struggling to deal with her working life and an unhelpful partner. From a feminist perspective many women cope with full time work and the majority of child care/household duties on top; perhaps cut her some slack and consider that she is probably stuck between a rock and a hard place rather than not taking her professional responsibilities seriously.

In my old job I felt the same way as her but a) I would never had implied that to my boss an b) when H and I were still together I would have expected him to do his share. Which he never did as he too valued his job more than mine.

I was lucky in that I rarely needed emergency childcare as my mum lives nearby, but on the very rare occasions that I did need it I was granted it on the condition that it was either made up or taken as annual leave.

YANBU for the way she expressed it but I do think, when deciding who should take unpaid leave, it does make sense for it to be the lower paid earner in order for there to be less of a hit to household finances.

But anyway, emergency leave is meant to give you time to make new arrangements, not be the new arrangements.

Have you considered only hiring men? You can't have it both ways: if you want to empower the sisterhood you must respect the fact that family will always, always come first.

I think that you are reading to much into it, tbh.

She said what she did, after talking about money, so he may well have the more important job, from the perspective of the family.

You must not work in a high professional standard organisation, as I would be sacked, as would many I know, who put so much detail about an inicident in the workplace, on the Internet, or anywhere else.

You should of asked her directly what sheet and left it at that, or wrote a vague post about an overheard conversation.

PS. If you're contemplating her bringing her kids in as a solution, then you're clearly a very compassionate employer, and if she is genuinely struggling will probably be very relieved that that option is there.

It was a major foot in mouth comment but, like it or not, some jobs are more important than others and some pay more than others.

She was probably panicking and spoke without thinking. She might even be kicking herself right now for saying that to you. It's horrible when you have sorted childcare and think you have the long holidays covered but the plans fail through no fault of your own. She will have a million things running through her mind right now and just wants to sort things out.

When parents are looking at emergency leave, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the lower paid parent must be the one who takes time off. Both parents should pull their weight

Thanks everyone for different perspectives. I honestly hadn't thought about the pure financial aspect (I know, how stupid was that!) and just interpreted it as a "well, this isn't important to me" comment. She was daft to mention it, but she has a bit of a careless/negative attitude (not disciplinary level serious, just annoying) and I think this just tipped me over the edge.

As I said upthread, we will do our best, but our best can't be the rest of the month. She could, of course, just decide not to come in, but that would be a disciplinary matter. Obviously, in the short term the more stressful consequences would be how do we meet our deadlines, but I'm hopeful that she wouldn't want that on her employment record.