How unprofessional was this?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Op, I would end this thread. It happened, your supervisor was fine with it. Some people agree it was fine, some people don't. You're torturing yourself by responding to everyone.

Agreed, this is simply a pile-on of Mean Girls at this point.

Seriously.

OP - why haven't you ended the pandemic and figured out Ukraine!?!? You are just a slacker.

Op here - hahah thanks this helped. Jeez this thread has gone off the rails. I guess I should either quit my job or endanger the life of my child by giving him Benadryl and putting him in his crib with toys he could choke on or strapping him to a high chair while he screams so I can take a work call. Great options. Glad everyone is so understanding.

OMG this is the craziest thread on DCUM and that is really saying something. I really hope you guys aren’t locking your kids somewhere to scream. Unless you are actually ending the pandemic or preventing WWIII no call is worth it. If you are a working mom right now and you can’t cut another mom some slack you are…not nice. My oldest was like this, could not be contained or distracted at this age. We just got the official ADHD diagnosis. Not saying that will be your kid too, just kids are different.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am a Director. I would have rescheduled the meeting if my staff member was going to be mentally MIA. I probably also would suggest they use PTO because they are not working while watching a toddler.

Omg MR DIRECTOR. I bet you are losing employees every day and have no idea why.

Losers like Mr Director don’t understand that you don’t get to treat women like garbage anymore. People will just quit on you.

Oh and if I was your colleague I would report you for harassing this poor mom in a tight spot with her one year old baby.

Grow up Director.

How about stop being entitled. OP is two rungs down and yet she decided not to inform her superiors of her dilemma and foist her cranky child on them. I imagine that some people would have chosen to reschedule and some would have chosen to proceed. But it is not OP's call to decide how to proceed. She should have advised them of the situation and allowed her superiors to make the decision. Bad call on her part.

Stop being entitled? Do you think basic human rights are an entitlement? She is a mother, and it is a pandemic. Only the oldest, most dead wood Directors would take this approach. Trust me when I tell you they’re wondering how to get rid of you behind the scenes.

NP and mom of two who has been in OP's situation several times -- she absolutely should have tried to reachedule or warn them that she had her kid.

[Anonymous]

You should have requested the meeting be rescheduled.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How do you have a two year old with no safe place for him? That’s insane.

Op here - where would you put a 2 year old? Or strap them to what? I am confused.

DP. Mom of 7. You don't have a pac-n-play? You don't have a crib? You don't have a contained small room that is child safe with a baby gate set up?

I would have moved heaven and earth to reset my laptop and camera so that my kid was in a contained thing (aforesaid pac-n-play or crib or small room with baby gate or something) and I would have a veritable treasure trove of amusements for him. Then I would have pieced them out as needed for the duration of the call.

I also would have endeavored to take him outside for 2 hours. I would have literally run his little legs off so that by 10:45 he could barely keep his eyes open and by 11 he would be out like a light.

I also would have called every single friend I had to get someone over to my house OR even hired a sitter from Care.com.

I think you had a lot of options. I don't think you exercised any of them.

Dont listen to this lady- she has 7 kids. Clearly she has poor judgment and no self control.

Op- no one cares. If they felt you were unprofessional, that’s on them. Don’t hide your kids or put them in a baby dungeon. Covid exposures are a fact of life. Don’t feel bad and don’t give it a second thought.

LOL. I am dying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel your pain, but very unprofessional. (I have a 6month old, 3 year old and 5 year old)

Typically what I do is work super hard to occupy them while my meeting goes on. Ipad, snacks, candy (if needed!), nap time and I lock myself in a different room.

You lock yourself in another room, with kids that young? Holy hell.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Did you give them a heads up that your toddler would be joining your call? The second you realized he wouldn't be in daycare you should have let them know. Then if they cared, they would have rescheduled. If they knew and didn't care....well they gambled with the kid being a disruption. If you didn't let them know ahead of time, that's poor form and highly unprofessional

This is my take. I'm completely sympathetic, but in these situations it's important to give a heads up... that way it can be determined if
1. Reschedule meeting
2. Do meeting without you
3. Do meeting with you, but with understanding you might have to leave

+1 It was pretty unprofessional. It sounds like you ended up wasting two people's time and the meeting needs to be rescheduled anyway. The issue isn't that your child is home sick. It's how you handled it (or didn't).

I have to agree OP. And I wonder, was it not a ploy on your part to show your supervisors just what a "supermom" and worker you are? I have raised 4 children. Sometimes you just plunk that 2-year-old in front of Sesame Street for 30 minutes.

Op here - jeez no it wasn’t a way to show I am super mom. We needed to have the meeting since I am a manager and we are in the midst of a reorg. I was trying to connect with my boss’ boss (who is super busy) to give him feedback from my team.

Also as I have said in my previous responses my kid won’t watch tv for 30 minutes. I have tried. It doesn’t work. I have 2 older kids. It works for them but not him.

So why didn't you tell them in advance that you had a child care issue and let them decide as to whether to reschedule? As the subordinate, that is what you should have done. But instead, you decided for everyone that they should be subjected to your difficult child.

Op here - yes I realize I should have done that now. To be honest it was a last minute decision not to send him to daycare once we found out we were potentially exposed. Since the rest of us are all vaccinated without symptoms the older kids could go to school. So I was scrambling this morning trying to get older kids to school and take care of 2 year old and didn’t have time to think about the 11am meeting and send a preemptive email out. I should have done that.

To my kid’s defense I don’t think he is overly difficult for a not even 2 year old. Just your typical almost 2 year old. Who you cannot leave unattended for a 30 minute meeting.

OP- your kid sounds normal, and you know that. Most of the people on this Board haven’t worked since the 80s and think their outdated mindset still applies. Relax. No one cares. You did really well! Tomorrow is a new day. Please don’t feel like you need to build a baby dungeon.

[Anonymous]

Haha this happens every day at my work - I would apologize but it wouldn't be an issue. Everyone is aware of the current reality.

Last week a new employer introduced herself and immediately told us which of her three children was her favorite - now THAT was noticeably weird/unprofessional.

[Anonymous]

I’m an attorney.

Your husband could have asked, during a four hour call, to carve out half an hour to take the kid.

You also could have put him in a crib or playpen or something in another room and had the oldest kid watch him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an attorney.

Your husband could have asked, during a four hour call, to carve out half an hour to take the kid.

You also could have put him in a crib or playpen or something in another room and had the oldest kid watch him.

This is the right answer.

And you should’ve told your boss that you had an unavoidable conflict and that you’d be on the call in listen only mode, not on video. Bring on video was a huge distraction for everyone else—that’s the most unprofessional part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an attorney.

Your husband could have asked, during a four hour call, to carve out half an hour to take the kid.

You also could have put him in a crib or playpen or something in another room and had the oldest kid watch him.

This is the right answer.

And you should’ve told your boss that you had an unavoidable conflict and that you’d be on the call in listen only mode, not on video. Bring on video was a huge distraction for everyone else—that’s the most unprofessional part.

+1. Unprofessional. Just reschedule call, go off video, or put kid in crib/pack n play. 2 years in, we know the drill. I’d have been pissed if one of my employees wasted my time like this. We’re all balancing crap so if you can’t be on calll, do co-workers/boss a solid and give heads up so they don’t have to carve that time out (maybe they were slammed, too?).

[Anonymous]

Pretty unprofessional, but these are the times.

As a boss, I understand, though. It happens. I always try to PM the person and let them know they can hop off to deal with the situation and come back. Or if I can't PM them, I say, "Hey Jen, why don't you take care of what's going on and join back."

Honestly, if your boss didn't say something similar, that's unprofessional too, IMO. No one is paying full attention to the meeting when someone is dealing with a temper tantrum kid on-cam. That's just a fact.

And I'd rather an employee bring a kid on-cam for a meeting than miss the meeting completely or spend hours trying to line up alternative care instead of working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends - did you lay it all out there ahead of time? Everyone I work with has kids, so I would send an email first thing in the morning saying "I am so sorry, but my child is home with a Covid exposure and my husband is unavailable to watch him during our 11:00am meeting. Would it be possible to reschedule to 3:00pm? If that's not possible, I just wanted to make sure you aware that my child will be in the room with me and I will try my best to occupy him, but there's a possibility he may be a big distraction." AND THEN if he was having a tantrum during the meeting, I would stop, apologize, and turn the camera/sound off. It's distracting to the people you are Zooming with if you keep the camera on while your child is right there.

This is exactly the way to handle it.

[Anonymous]

Well, now that I've read the whole thread and realized that it was a *possible* COVID exposure and you made a decision to keep the kid home (he wasn't excluded by center rules).... you should have just sent him, if the meeting could not be moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She can’t get a sitter w a possible covid kid at home. A lot still won’t come. That’s the whole problem parents are in!!

A whole lot more will come now with vaccines, a less deadly variant and falling case rates. Did I kiss the part where she even TRIED to hire a sitter?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Two years into this thing you should have a few last-minute sitters on speed-dial, a neighbor/friend nearby who might be able to pitch-in, and a safe space for the baby. Absolutely unprofessional - you're not the only one with kids - we've all made adaptations with difficult kids - you just chose to not plan for the worst case scenario for whatever bizarre reason. The defensiveness and snowflake attitude is also off-putting. People like you need to be put back into the office because you're just abusing the flexibilities at this point and ruining it for those of us with real back up plans.

It's amazing to me that two years in some people aren't reflexively offering others some grace.

Because it's been *two years.* Many of the rest of us have backup plans, and backup plans for those backup plans. Why can't OP?