LEAN IN:Elon Musk Says Attending the Birth of Your Child Is ‘No Excuse’ for Missing a Work Function

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't be everything. You must choose. I have no idea where this notion of having it all comes from. You can't have it all, period. So choose and stop the whining already.

What are you talking about? How is attending the birth of your child "having it all"? Is the ability to attend a parent's funeral "having it all"? Is calling in sick when you've been hospitalized "having it all"? No one is this extreme.

[Anonymous]

It is indeed extreme. But in truth it is in fact a matter of priorities, isn't it?

That's why you hope for children to have two parents to raise them.

One parent whose priority it is to provide the financial family support.

The other parent whose priority it is to manage all else. Mostly.

But certainly the father should be encouraged by his workplace to support his wife during the birth of their child.

No other experience in life can ever come close to seeing a child coming into this world.

[Anonymous]

Well Elon's first ex-wife said her husband is an azzhole and his second wife left him also so I'm not too surprised.

[Anonymous]

Female lawyer here. I went into labor while working, walked a coworker through a case while breathing through contractions, had my baby via natural birth, and was back to working from home that evening. In my situation, I had a boss as unreasonable and awful as Elon Musk. My "leaning in" was not by choice and I am still resentful to this day. I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Female lawyer here. I went into labor while working, walked a coworker through a case while breathing through contractions, had my baby via natural birth, and was back to working from home that evening. In my situation, I had a boss as unreasonable and awful as Elon Musk. My "leaning in" was not by choice and I am still resentful to this day. I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.

PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't be everything. You must choose. I have no idea where this notion of having it all comes from. You can't have it all, period. So choose and stop the whining already.

Generally, one in such a position exercises this choice by not having five kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually had a discussion with DH about this. DH says that if you put yourself in Elon Musk's shoes...you see where he is coming from. He sees himself as advancing the future of mankind. He is putting men into space, he is coming up with innovative ways of preserving energy. If you believe that you are truly changing the world, and that is your main priority, it would come at the expense of every other thing, including work life balance. In a few hundred years, if all this suceeds, Elon Musk will be written down into the books of history just like Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison. Children on the other hand...that's a very personal decision and not overarching impacting mankind's future. People reproduce all over the world everyday.

Of course what Elon Musk does not understanding is many people don't think about the future of mankind, they also care about their own personal lifes and children. But if you see Elon's mindset, you can see why he would think diverting from that grand cause shows a lack of priority.

So he decided to have five kids as accessories?

He wod not e the first who did that and definitely not the last. Think of aristocracy who outsourced all their child rearing.

And look how well all of them have turned out.

[Anonymous]

That's very sad. The man has achieved a lot in his live -- but I feel bad for those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Female lawyer here. I went into labor while working, walked a coworker through a case while breathing through contractions, had my baby via natural birth, and was back to working from home that evening. In my situation, I had a boss as unreasonable and awful as Elon Musk. My "leaning in" was not by choice and I am still resentful to this day. I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.

PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

Sounds like a nightmare situation all around for everyone involved...

And very extreme on all of your parts.

[Anonymous]

I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.


PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

While your boss certainly sounds awful, and I understand why you wanted to get out of the job, intentionally making crucial mistakes seems unfair to your clients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.


PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

While your boss certainly sounds awful, and I understand why you wanted to get out of the job, intentionally making crucial mistakes seems unfair to your clients.

The mistakes were more of the variety that made him look like an idiot to our clients and other partners, or at least gave everyone the impression that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing (which was the truth anyway). He had long relied on me to cover his disorganized, ADD behind. Once I stopped doing so and even started making mistakes of my own that I knew he was too incompetent to catch, I just had to stand back and let everyone see him for what he was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.


PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

While your boss certainly sounds awful, and I understand why you wanted to get out of the job, intentionally making crucial mistakes seems unfair to your clients.

The mistakes were more of the variety that made him look like an idiot to our clients and other partners, or at least gave everyone the impression that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing (which was the truth anyway). He had long relied on me to cover his disorganized, ADD behind. Once I stopped doing so and even started making mistakes of my own that I knew he was too incompetent to catch, I just had to stand back and let everyone see him for what he was.

You did exactly the right thing. Kudos to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.


PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

While your boss certainly sounds awful, and I understand why you wanted to get out of the job, intentionally making crucial mistakes seems unfair to your clients.

The mistakes were more of the variety that made him look like an idiot to our clients and other partners, or at least gave everyone the impression that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing (which was the truth anyway). He had long relied on me to cover his disorganized, ADD behind. Once I stopped doing so and even started making mistakes of my own that I knew he was too incompetent to catch, I just had to stand back and let everyone see him for what he was.

The moral of the story is that bosses like Elon Musk, who are petty and selfish and bully workers at extremely important moments that these moments will never get back, had better watch out. There are many ways to pay someone back in their own coins while appearing complaisant and hard working. When you treat people shabbily, you more than kill morale - you breed the kind of resentment that can make people deliberately undermine you.

[Anonymous]

Well I also think Elon Musk is in a unique position. I feel like the people salivating to work on projects like Space X are millions. If one engineer decides its not for him, there are hordes to take his or her place. very different from a dismal big law environment. Elon is truly in a employer's market so to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I paid the boss back by leaning way out afterwards and doing the bare minimum until I left. I also made some crucial mistakes and made myself hard to reach at moments when he really needed me. You fuck me, I'll fuck you. Until he showed such disregard for me during my labor, I had been the type to go above and beyond and be perfectionistic about every detail.


PP here. I also didn't get a maternity leave. In hindsight, I am sure that my former boss wishes he had been more humane. He got me to work, but the work was of greatly reduced quality and I made his life hard in passive aggressive and difficult to confront ways for sheer spite.

While your boss certainly sounds awful, and I understand why you wanted to get out of the job, intentionally making crucial mistakes seems unfair to your clients.

The mistakes were more of the variety that made him look like an idiot to our clients and other partners, or at least gave everyone the impression that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing (which was the truth anyway). He had long relied on me to cover his disorganized, ADD behind. Once I stopped doing so and even started making mistakes of my own that I knew he was too incompetent to catch, I just had to stand back and let everyone see him for what he was.

The moral of the story is that bosses like Elon Musk, who are petty and selfish and bully workers at extremely important moments that these moments will never get back, had better watch out. There are many ways to pay someone back in their own coins while appearing complaisant and hard working. When you treat people shabbily, you more than kill morale - you breed the kind of resentment that can make people deliberately undermine you.

Exactly.