
Engineer Says Software Firm Cut Her Maternity Leave Short After Her Baby Died - elsewhen
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59n4j5/engineer-says-a-silicon-valley-software-firm-cut-her-maternity-leave-short-after-her-baby-died
======
ttul
I had a baby that died. It was an excruciating experience and nobody around us
knew what to do or say. From personal experience I can say it should be
treated as a grave mental health issue and companies should be forced to
provide a great deal of leave to both parents.

Whether leave is paid or unpaid, this should be treated in the same way as any
disability or health related leave. IMHO it would be cheap for companies to
simply buy infant life insurance for all employees and pay out $25,000 or so
if this horrific thing comes to pass. That would help everyone at a reasonable
cost since infant deaths and still births are so rare these days.

~~~
52-6F-62
I had a coworker who went through this. My bosses were very gracious. She was
on leave for some time, purely for mental health reasons. And I’m sure
returning to work with her job intact was a major comfort. Our direct boss at
the time would meet with her for lunch occasionally until she felt well enough
to come back. I’m willing to bet it was the best way it could have gone for
her in light of what she experienced.

She has since had a healthy baby and is usually beaming.

~~~
fghorow
I am happy to hear that she is beaming.

But, from personal experience, I would not assume that she is anything like
"over" losing the other child.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Maybe over the hump is a better way to describe it?

My own problems with seasonal / occasional depression have resembled something
of a bell curve- not bad at first, then _really_ bad, then not very bad. The
threat of depression never really goes away, but the likelihood of having bad
days generally dies down over time, especially if the gap from what you were
missing (IE child, job, spouse, sibling, family, pets) gets filled by
something else.

------
fghorow
Just in case there are other bereaved parents (of whom I am one) reading this.
I want you to know about an organization called The Compassionate Friends,
composed solely of family members of a deceased child.

[https://www.compassionatefriends.org/](https://www.compassionatefriends.org/)

"You need not walk alone."

~~~
nthnh
Thanks for sharing this!

~~~
fghorow
As we say at our local meetings:

"We are desperately sorry for the reason you are here, but we are glad you
found us."

(Edit: typo.)

~~~
einpoklum
It's ok to edit posts on this site; you don't have to mention your edit.

~~~
edejong
Unless it is a semantic edit.

------
pharrington
> In an email reviewed by Motherboard, an HR representative told Jennifer,
> “your situation could never be planned for so would never be communicated,”
> and “all normal situations don’t fit your situation.”

Jennifer was told that because _she_ couldn't plan for the tragedy,
_Informatica_ would renege its promises. Perhaps Informatica should plan a bit
more about what happens when you have incoherent policies and treat human
beings as disposable resources.

edit: updated for clarity

~~~
KaiserPro
I still don't understand how this is going to result in anything positive for
the company.

the whole point of an HR department is to stop anything developing that could
cause productivity issues for a company.

Cutting the leave short for because someone's child dies shows a stunning lack
of empathy or understanding of wider consequences for staff and company.

If I had found out that my company had pulled shit like that, then there would
be hell to pay.

what kind of emotional vacuum do these people live in?

~~~
dlp211
I have nothing (to my knowledge) but my opinion on this, but I wouldn't be
surprised to find that a majority of people just lack empathy.

~~~
folkhack
I'm speaking anecdotally but would 100% posit that this is true. One of the
biggest things I'm learning as an adult in a capitalistic society is that
empathy is an anti-pattern to how most medium-to-larger sized corporations
operate.

Recently I've really come to fully accept that HR at most companies is not
there for the employee (regardless of how they internally brand), vs. it being
a compliance department and a risk barrier between general employees and the
upper-crust. If something bad enough happens, they'll pin it on the HR
employee and fire them vs. taking accountability for the company's actions.

HR is not your friend.

~~~
XorNot
No but in terms of risk management HR is taking a huge gamble that a bunch of
people getting recruiter offers aren't going to go "you know what, screw this
place" and leave.

~~~
folkhack
Yeah here's the thing - if you get a better offer... Leave. If you operate
otherwise you're a fool.

~~~
XorNot
The idea that there's zero-cost to looking for jobs or switching jobs is
incredibly naive, doubly so if you're American.

------
einpoklum
The United States is infamous among world nations for lack of mandatory paid
maternity leave. Even the unpaid leave is incredibly short: Only 12 weeks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States)

This, while the total _paid_ leave available to mothers among OECD nations is
~54 weeks, including 18 weeks average paid maternity leave plus another long
period of paid parental leave following it:

[http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf](http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf)

~~~
cjbprime
That 12 weeks of unpaid leave is only for companies who employ more than 50
people, too. I expect most Americans work for companies smaller than that (and
so don't get the leave) but I haven't checked.

~~~
harryh
Your expectation is wrong:

[https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-
profes...](https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-
professional/article/more-americans-work-at-big-firms-than-small-ones-040717)

"Since 2014...34.3 percent worked at small companies."

And this is for "small" defined as <= 100. The percentage will be even smaller
for <= 50.

It's also important to note that it's wrong to say that employees of small
businesses "don't get the leave." Many small businesses will ofter leave to
their employees without a federal mandate.

~~~
cjbprime
Cool, thanks. Surprising!

By "don't get the leave" I meant "aren't guaranteed the leave", of course.

------
gamesbrainiac
I really feel so terrible for Jennifer. It was bad enough that her child had
passed away, but it was pouring salt on her wounds when her employer chose to
take away her leave days.

I think the old adage applies here, "make sure everything is in writing". She
was promised a promotion, but she did not sign a contract and nothing was set
in stone.

I learned to put everything in writing the hard way. If something is in
writing, even if it is an email, then it is hard for the company to go back on
their words. Having an actual contract is better, but having just about
anything written down is better than just about anything verbal.

I hope Jennifer recovers, and I hope that the company she has transferred to
treats her better.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You will _never_ get a promotion promised in writing. We also didn’t hear the
company’s side. I would bet that their version of the events did not include a
promise of a promotion. This happens all the time.

------
sethammons
She was given conflicting info on if her leave would be 6 or 8 weeks. Ended up
being 8. Baby died an hour after birth, so leave was cut from the 8 weeks to 6
due to no longer having baby-mommy bonding. No mention of time off for
mourning. The company has now amended their policy to 16 weeks for birth and
adoption, so this case would have been covered.

~~~
perspective1
Thanks. Lately Vice has been writing more and more outrage-bait titles/leads
and burying the true story way below the fold. I guess it gets them the most
shares.

------
lquist
It seems a bit insane to me that pregnancy leave is something we Americans
mostly leave to the discretion of employers. If we as a society care about it,
we should back it up with public dollars and public policy.

~~~
r00fus
It would require taxation and there’s a segment of the population and most
corporations who would fight that tooth and nail even if it only cost a small
amount in aggregate.

~~~
walshemj
Compared to the UK the social security system in the USA is fairly generous so
if that is affordable so would be maternity leave.

~~~
lazyasciiart
How on earth did you come to that conclusion?

~~~
walshemj
Absolutely compare what a single person gets on JSA to the much more generous
Unemployment benefits lasting much longer than it does in the UK

~~~
lazyasciiart
Wow, you appear misinformed. Unemployment benefits in the US vary by state, in
some states they last only three months. The amount you receive is based on
the income you had before receiving it, so it could be more or less than the
UK standard payments.

That aside, unemployment payments are funded as a completely separate system
to every other kind of welfare in the US and so they demonstrate nothing at
all about how other payments could be afforded.

------
sethammons
> Some companies have policies that can discriminate against people who are on
> protected leaves by denying them commissions they have already earned

Wtf? How can that possibly be a thing?

~~~
akudha
Do these people just sit around and spend time coming up with ways to screw
others over? How the fuck is this thing even legal, let alone ethical? Makes
me so mad

~~~
d357r0y3r
Nah, I don't think so. Most rules come about because one person, at some
point, abused the policy, and so the company tries to make a more explicit
rule to prevent the abuse in the future.

I don't know the specifics of this case, but maternity leave is absolutely
something that has been abused. My spouse worked with a woman who got hired
while she was pregnant, had the baby and took advantage of the company's
extremely generous paid maternity leave, and then came back in and quit on her
first day back. From the company's standpoint, this hire was simply a cash
giveaway and a huge loss.

~~~
akudha
_denying them commissions they have already earned_

The key word is here "already earned". Denying that doesn't make any sense,
any which way we look at it.

Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior
of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to
protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

~~~
d357r0y3r
> Still, punish the 95% (or whatever very high number) for the shitty behavior
> of other 5% of people? I understand it is business and companies need to
> protect their profits, but this is ridiculous.

Yeah, I agree. Just pointing out that this stuff rarely comes from mustache-
twirling villains and more often is just a misguided attempt to solve some
other related problem. Cutting off commission that has already been earned
sounds pretty bad.

------
mattrp
>> “Eight weeks of paid leave includes up to two weeks prior to the birth and
assumes a normal vaginal delivery,” an HR representative said write to
Jennifer

I bet if most companies simply got rid of the HR departments altogether, not
only would inhumane and repulsive policies like the above not exist, I bet
most employees would be happier and more productive.

~~~
brown9-2
I think this is naive. The HR department is simply the mouthpiece for the
policies that the company’s management wants.

~~~
reaperducer
Depends on the company. I've worked for companies where horrid HR people
recommended horrid policies to upper management.

It was their way of making themselves feel important, and most of the staff
feared the upper HR people.

~~~
walshemj
I think there is a lot of internalised custom and practice that HR adhere to.

------
cmdshiftf4
We're in an odd state of paralysis as a society. On the one hand, we
acknowledge that there are birth rate / population-related issues coming
rapidly down the pipeline at us, problems we acknowledge can only be solved by
either supporting existing citizens/families in having more children or mass
migration.

Through exhaustion with unaccountable corruption and reckless, ineffective
public spending by all parties on the political spectrum, our societies won't
support any social move (more taxes, better laws) in the name of the former,
whilst being by-and-large in opposition of the latter.

Neither of the above will help in themselves though without a drastic change
in the pressures requiring dual income families for mere survival, convergence
in the metropolis for work, stagnant income growth coupled with soaring costs,
especially around child rearing and education, and the modern narrative toward
women (largely by other women) that they're nothing unless they're building a
meaningful career for themselves.

While the rest of the Western World is by no means perfect and is still
suffering declining birth rates due to some of the factors listed above,
America's approach and policies toward social well-being - financial and moral
support for maternity leave, general time off work and compassion for the sick
- is utterly reprehensible. It is the most prosperous, wealthy nation on the
planet and seems to be content to resign itself to a society benefiting a very
small handful of people at a massive social, financial, economical and
physical cost to everyone else.

A mere 8 weeks leave for going through pregnancy and bringing a child - that
which we depend on for future taxes, productivity, volunteer work,
philanthropy, innovation and social policy - into the world and then 2 weeks
being cut in the name of money because that child died? How can anyone who
supports or justifies this look at themselves in the mirror in the morning?

If you deem your country / nation / peoples to be important and worthwhile,
its future to be crucial and investment in that future to be a necessity but
support these policies then you're either a monster or an utter moron.

~~~
dominotw
> population-related issues

don't we also have far more pressing carbon emissions issues though ? Isn't
population decline such a bad thing. Do we really need billions and billions
of people because its 'good for the economy'

~~~
cmdshiftf4
Population decline in and of itself is not a bad thing. The societies and
structures we've created, such as public pensions, do rely on continual growth
though and without it will face a crisis.

~~~
dominotw
so the only solution is to keep increasing the population ?

------
crispyporkbites
Her maternity leave was cut from 8 to 6 WEEKS

I had to do a double take there, I read it as months first time. How can a
woman give birth and be back at work in eight weeks? Six weeks seems
impossible baby or not, the recovery time for pregnancy and birth can be many
months.

If I were a woman living in a society like that I think I’d either not have
children or not work at all.

~~~
VladimirIvanov
I'm in the US and a coworker came to work the next day after giving birth.
There is no time allotted for maternity leave and she had already used her
vacation time at the beginning of the year before she was pregnant. I was at a
charity event with the CEO and he was laughing about it saying."she was born
to breed."

------
curiousgal
She got six weeks instead of eight. How dare they. She could've applied for
more days based on her psychological state.

Also how dare they not pay her _commissions_ earned by her team while she was
away.

I think the tone is all wrong here. Economically, it makes sense to
"discriminate" against pregnant women, so the discussion should be more
"Here's why you shouldn't do it" and less "How dare you do it!".

Just my $0.02 as a woman.

~~~
skrebbel
> Economically, it makes sense to "discriminate" against pregnant women.

I've heard this repeated a lot but I don't get it (I'm an employer). I mean I
can't think of many things that would hurt team morale and hiring reputation
more than treating a young female employee like shit just because she got
pregnant (let alone went through something as horrific as losing a child).
What kind of short-sighted psychopath boss would look at this any other way?

I mean, even when looking at it with dry unemotional money glasses, high
employee turn-over is a much more costly than the occasional paid pregnancy
leave.

I just don't get it.

But yeah I guess that's what your point is :-) it just _makes no sense_ to
discriminate against any of this stuff.

~~~
xenihn
>I mean I can't think of many things that would hurt team morale and hiring
reputation more than treating a young female employee like shit just because
she got pregnant

Anecdote time based on my experience in SV and tech, and second-hand anecdotes
from friends in NYC finance:

Curiousgal's viewpoint isn't uncommon. The harshest judgment in these
situations comes from other women. Men are generally more sympathetic, and if
they're not, they're too scared to say anything.

Women in competitive & high-paying fields like tech and finance can be brutal,
especially if they feel like holding off on having children was a sacrifice
that they had to make in order to establish themselves in their career.

I would not be surprised if this decision came all the way down from a female
manager, with men lower on the chain voicing opposition and being overruled.

~~~
jacquesm
> I would not be surprised if this decision came all the way down from a
> female manager, with men lower on the chain voicing opposition and being
> overruled.

That's very speculative and likely not true.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You’re lucky you didn’t bet him, because you’d have lost. I’d have bet against
you as well.

The SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer at Informatica when this incident
happened was Maureen Brennan. She’s also a former VP and BoD Trustee of the
Women's Health and Counseling Center in New Jersey, which focuses on
reproductive healthcare services.

~~~
jacquesm
And how do you know that she was the one to make this decision? And that men
below her tried to stop this but were overruled?

It all looks highly speculative to me.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Well, she owned the policy in question, and there’s no way that the head of HR
didn’t get wind of an escalation like this. I don’t know about the bit
regarding a man below her getting their decision overturned, but ultimately
she would have approved it. If a policy interpretation decision was
“mistakenly” made before it got to her, she would have been able to overturn
it, and evidently that never happened.

But yes, of course it’s speculation :)

------
esotericn
Isn't this a fairly clear cut case of constructive dismissal?

Asking someone to return to knowledge work after one of the most traumatic
events of their life is tantamount to firing them. They're not going in, if
they do go in they're going to be an emotional wreck.

------
padraic7a
This is horrendous.

The idea that six to eight weeks is enough for maternity leave in even the
best situation is pretty awful too.

------
mindslight
Is this not a straightforward result of making what would normally be _family_
or _personal_ leave contingent upon a specific purpose, rather than just
generally reforming labor laws for everyone? You can have a significant life-
changing death of _anyone_ in your family.

------
bb88
So people have been doing this thing called "management" for, what? centuries
now?

Why in 2017 (the date of this occurence) does management still suck at stuff
like this?

~~~
lemmsjid
I think the problem is that healthcare related stuff shouldn’t even be on
management’s plate. Managers and executives are usually not qualified to
decide what is good healthcare, but are forced to make decisions anyhow.
Healthcare should be managed at the societal level.

------
sjg007
Reading my employer handbook we get 3 days for bereavement for a child. It is
the most wtf thing I’ve ever read.

~~~
sethammons
Ours is five. I think that it is set for distant relatives dying so you can go
to a funeral. No way that 3-5 days is sufficient for the death of a close
loved one.

------
yalogin
Every manager fucked up in that company. The HR manager should have not
brought it up. The manager and his boss of the employee should have been
aghast at it and done everything possible to stop it from happening. That is
not how you treat a fellow human being let alone an employee.

------
lawnchair_larry
The individual was a sales person, not an engineer. A “sales engineer” who is
paid on commission is very different than a software engineer.

The article says she was given 6 weeks instead of 8 weeks. It also says that
it’s unclear if the maternity policy was even 8 weeks to begin with, and HR
didn’t seem to know. Apparently there are multiple policies, depending on
role?

I don’t know the “right” amount of time, but it seems like the difference is a
lot smaller than the headline and discussion are implying. I don’t think it’s
necessarily wrong or evil for a company to give 6 weeks off for a baby that
died on the first day. It absolutely does not fit the subtitle which says
“experience extreme forms of pregnancy discrimination”. Reasonable people
could debate whether it’s the most fair, but nobody can say getting only 6
weeks out of a possible 8 is “extreme forms of pregnancy discrimination”.

The article also says that an outside hire was made to fill a more senior role
that this woman hoped would go to her. She suspects that she did not get it
because she was pregnant, and the company insists that those are unrelated.

Should we just assume that every pregnant person who doesn’t get promoted is a
victim of discrimination? Non-pregnant people also don’t get promotions quite
often. While I’m sure that does happen for improper reasons from time to time,
and it must be frustrating, there isn’t anything to prove that is what
happened here. I’m sure it’s also frustrating that when it does happen due to
pregnancy, it’s impossible to prove.

There are some legitimately difficult problems when it comes to pregnancies
and employment. It’s illegal to not hire someone because they are pregnant, so
what do you do instead? If you’re a small company or a startup, you have
nobody performing that function, and you’re still paying a salary and
benefits. If it’s an unskilled role, sure you can contract a temp hire, but
that isn’t an option for senior roles or roles with specialized skills, even
if you could afford the contractor premium on top of the existing salary. I
honestly don’t know how I would handle that situation in a fair way.

The other issue she has is compensation. As a sales person, part of her
compensation was based on commission. Well, if she’s not at work, she isn’t
making sales, and therefore not getting commission on sales that don’t exist.
Ok, that sucks, but what’s the solution for people who take commission roles?
Someone else has to pay out of their commission? What if she were a realtor?
If she stops selling houses for a couple months, she isn’t going to make
anything either. But since they are self-employed, there’s nobody else to
point at and accuse of discrimination. She can’t demand that other realtors in
town chip in and cover the shortfall. Why should this be any different? She
feels she should not be “penalized”, but that isn’t a penalty, so this is
disingenuous.

The article then says “Discrimination is particularly flagrant in Silicon
Valley, where women hold just 5 percent of leadership positions.” But they
haven’t established discrimination as the reason for that, so it sounds like
the article, like many from Vice (although this author is new, it’s usually
that Lorenzo guy trying to spin facts and invent controversies) is more
interested in pushing a narrative. To borrow a term from tptacek, collecting
rageviews.

They then quote a lawyer who represents plaintiffs in discrimination lawsuits
against their employers. Clearly a real source of unbiased facts on the issue
at hand.

And a former Google employee filed a lawsuit against Google, who said: “The
memo described disparaging comments made by a manager at Google about pregnant
women being “overly emotional and hard to work with.”

This is not a wise comment for a male manager to make. But if the worst thing
they did was make a flippant comment like this (there is no allegation that
they acted on it, the basis of the complaint was simply that they heard the
comment), I would call it a fairly extreme reaction to get HR involved and
attack them on internal mailing lists.

The comment isn’t exactly unfounded either, it’s just un-PC, and one of those
things that we aren’t allowed to say, even though everybody knows that
pregnancy has a non-zero impact on emotions (for good reason!). Show me
someone who has either been pregnant or spent a lot of time around a pregnant
person who _hasn’t_ thought they had some moments of overly emotional
challenges here and there, and I’ll show you a liar. This guy’s crime sounds
like a lapse of judgment in vocalizing it during a moment of frustration.
Wait, was it a guy? Or did they leave that out and let us assume that? It
turns out, it was a woman, _who is also a mother_ , who made the comment. So
to reiterate, a woman heard her woman manager make a comment about another
woman being difficult to work with when she is pregnant, and decided to report
her to HR and rant about this injustice on internal mailing lists.
Unsurprisingly, her manager turned cold on her. Since the woman who complained
apparently also happened to be pregnant, it’s a little ironic that she went
nuclear over another woman’s comment that someone was difficult to work with.
You know what other unwise, flippant comments I’ve heard at work? “They can’t
touch me, I’m pregnant.”

She likely didn’t do much to improve anyone’s perception by going that route.
And considering the players involved, I don’t think this supports the “gender
inequality” claim. But hey, at least she is a martyr on twitter now, and she
is currently shaking down Google for a large settlement.

I think there is a lot of room for improvement on these issues. I don’t think
we get there by using underhanded scorched earth tactics. A paid pregnancy-
related leave might be something that the government has to provide for it to
work. Something like unemployment insurance.

~~~
cerved
Sales commission for a Pre-Sales role is complicated. You get commission for
deals that have been worked for 1+ quarters.

If a big deal closes that you worked on for the last year while you're on
leave, you wouldn't get commission. That's not right

------
wfbarks
How long was she originally going to take off, and how long did after this
tragic loss happened did the company ask that she return?

------
high_derivative
Well this may be a controversial stance, but her baby passed at birth. There
was no maternity leave to take any more.

What there was to take maybe was a bereavement leave.

~~~
dwoozle
Sure, but the bereavement leave for a child should be much more than 8 weeks.
And it costs so little to provide since it is relatively rare in the developed
world.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
This seems a little naive. No company offers more than 8 weeks of bereavement.
Most places I have seen are about 3 days. So 6 weeks is extremely generous if
that is the benchmark.

~~~
dwoozle
Yes, what I’m saying is that 3 days bereavement for the death of a child is
pathologically inhumane, even if it is depressingly common. It’s not “naive”
to call out terrible things, even when they’ve been so around that we have
come to think of them as “normal.”

------
thewarrior
I’ve found this to be one of the biggest flaws of capitalism itself. It’s
pretty clear that capitalism and humanity itself needs to invest in nurturing
the next generation in order to sustain long term growth, labour supply,
pensions (until full automation) and yet the very same system makes it hell
for anyone to actually have any kids. Just sucking the present workers dry and
harming both the workers and the system itself in the long term. Most people
are left with just enough money and energy to have one kid and barely survive
in their jobs while nothing suggests to me that things have to be this way.
The end goal of the economy has to be in producing human flourishing and well
being and not goods.

------
SamReidHughes
Title should be fixed to say Sales Engineer.

~~~
rsynnott
A sales engineer is a type of engineer (as the term is used in US English; in
some countries engineer is a protected term and programmers are rarely
eligible for it).

~~~
xenihn
People who drive trains are also a type of engineer. I kind of get where the
person you're responding to is coming from. It's not worth calling out when
the article is aimed at the general population, which doesn't care about the
distinction between a sales engineer and a software engineer. It would just be
confusing without an explanation, and that explanation would unnecessarily
bloat the story.

------
benanas
Do American corporations love fanatical capitalism the same way jihadists love
Islam?

------
rajacombinator
Name and shame everyone in the chain of command here so an indelible record of
their actions is left on the internet. Really the only acceptable solution.

~~~
sz4kerto
I think this is a particularly bad way of dealing with problems. We have
trials, laws and regulations for a reason; causing permanent effects on
people's lives based on a single article is wrong in my opinion.

I'm saying this while also thinking that what the company did (according to
the article) is despicable and insensitive.

------
baybal2
I think this is a bad way to deal with such people.

She needs to make name of the company known, and was the person who made this
decision. The internet will do the rest.

~~~
cryptozeus
That is the first line in the article “In early 2017, Jennifer, a sales
engineer at Informatica, a top Silicon Valley data management company”

------
baron816
> Discrimination is particularly flagrant in Silicon Valley, where women hold
> just 5 percent of leadership positions.

This is particularly inflammatory. Just because women hold 5% of leadership
positions, it doesn’t mean discrimination is the cause (or sole cause).

