I am not sure what to say about that.
As an old medic and firefighter, I missed my share of family things. Holidays were for spending time with your closest coworkers in the ER. New Year’s Eve, (my wedding anniversary), often meant spending quality time crawly inside a car wreak to get someone out alive. My one daughter’s high school graduation I was paged out for some little old lady’s heart attack in the middle of her party.
So, was I a bad father or am I the victim of a bunch of narcistic people that decided to have the worst day of their lives and dialing 911 to ruin my any and all 4 of my daughter’s special occasions?
You sacreficed your family time for the good of the community, which is a worthwile and selfless thing to do.
The post op shared is probably not about a person who sacreficed his family time for the good of the community or as a selfless act but rather out of greed for the paycheck at the end of the month.
How does transportation work when you were paged? Do you just take your own vehicle everywhere or did you leave the rest of your family to find their own way home?
This was a rural setting. So scheduling worked a bit different from it does in the big city.
First, we had just 11 people to provide 24/7/365 service. So, we would work 12hr shifts a week on as primary to respond first during the day. After a week of that you would move to the 12hr night shift for a week. Then you become secondary rig for 2 weeks. This meant you could stay home and only respond if the primary rig was busy. But you couldn’t leave town. And being a rural service, a second rig wasn’t always needed. So you could do birthday parties and such, but you might need to randomly. Or maybe you made only one call all day. Then you became tertiary and would only respond to All Hands On Deck emergency. You could even leave town and go shopping.
Only one time did my family witness me working call. We were headed out of town for Thanksgiving and there was a car accident-- a rollover in the ditch. My daughters got wide-eyed as I drove past the deputy controlling traffic and headed into the scene. We got close, I parked the car and jumped out and ran down the ditch. The car was on it’s side and the fire department was just finishing up securing the car. And I climbed in to start caring for the patient. The 2 EMT-Bs working that day were getting busy organizing the extrication and first aid supplies, (we suspected a broken leg). The boys had fun cutting the roof off enough and rolling the dash to free the patient, and we got them out and loaded into the ambulance. I watched the rig drive away, walked back the car got in, and we drove to Grandma’s house.
Interestingly, after that none of my Daughters ever complained about daddy missing a softball game or play ever again. When I had to skip out on the one Daughter’s graduation party, somebody asked her where I was running off to, I heard her laugh and tell them it happens all the time and I would be back in an hour or so.
One of the nicest parts of going from rural to a city was turning in that damn pager.
I do miss sleeping at night on shift, though.
I was at a local live show. The singer was talking about how she sacrificed so much to make the show, and tonight is her daughter’s birthday which she is missing.
Without missing a beat, a highly intoxicated woman slur-shouted “YOU’RE A TERRIBLE MOTHER!!!”
It was like all the air was sucked out of the room and we were in the vacuum of space and could not hear a single vibration of sound. The rest of the show was super low energy.
Was she wrong though?
Yeah it sounds pretty bad but we should not judge we do not know what she has been through
Explain the trauma that means a local singer can’t schedule a show for a different day
Turn on your imagination
Imagine the singer is trapped in an abusive relationship with her manager, who forced her to work that day. Maybe this is her only source of income and her kid has special needs. Maybe she’s divorced and the dad has the kid this birthday and she COULD show up but the dad would make a scene. All of these based on true stories.
😬
I was angry until I noticed what community this was posted to.
So much for keeping her off the pole.
I am blessed to have my current job. It was my daughters birthday earlier this week and on the morning of her birthday she came to me (I WFH btw) a bit upset as the plans she had made for the day had fell through as both her friends cancelled.
I was able to book that PM off work with 90 minutes notice and have it approved. Daughter and I had a great day :)
It’s apparent that his daughters birthday is important to her. If he or they supported or even slightly cared the people behind it he wouldn’t be missing his daughters birthday.
Fuck this corporate white washing bullshit.
Not sure what is more depressing: missing your child’s birthday or posting about missing your child’s birthday.
Missing your child’s burthday after already having missed it all the years before and your child already complained about it.
Photo’s of him with her as a baby 'cos that’s the last time they interacted in person
Fuck, dude. I just hope this is a satire account and some doctored image.
I work with tech bros.
They flex nonstop about how many life events they miss to be at work. It’s like a badge of honor to say stupid shit like “Ah my 4 YO is in the ER but I know how important this meeting is…”
“Ah my 4 YO is in the ER but I know how important this meeting is…”
And the meeting is just some dumbass monthly progress review where section heads brag about what ‘they’ (their team) accomplished in the last month, with at least half of it being bullshit, exaggeration, or preemptively taking credit for what they’re probably totally going to do next month. Nothing would change if the meeting was entirely cancelled and skipped.
It’s all about quantity in corporate. Performative employees get further quicker compared to quiet ones that actually deliver quality output.
Not to that extreme, but I’ve seen one say how their kid cried because they were away working on some tech bro stuff, and they never want their kid to go through that again. Except they didn’t have to do it in the first place anyway. It was literally a choice. They chose work because it was fun.
What a waste of a human life.
I missed a major life event one time to travel for work. Top ten dumbest thing I ever did. I don’t remember a damn thing about the trip, still remember missing the anniversary though.
Poor guy, at least he did what he could.
I have missed work events to be at something that’s important to my kids and I’ll continue doing that. In 20 years the only ones who will remember late hours and time spent at the office are my children.
When my coworkers plan meetings at noon I tell them to have fun without me cause that’s when I eat lunch. They don’t do that anymore.
Right. Or Friday after 2pm. Fuck off with your work shit, some of us want to leave for the weekend.
They know that.
What gives people feelings of power
Forcing your coworkers to sing happy birthday to your daughter, whose birthday your missing, during a meeting that already could’ve been an email.
Posting about it on LinkedIn
You decide!
I see this as they are so inefficient and bad at their job that they have to work all the time. Or they are so poorly respected that they aren’t allowed the time to take off work.
They should be shamed and made fun of every time they say shit like this.
This is such a great reminder that leadership is also about being human. Small moments like this say a lot about a team’s culture.
…or he could have gotten a day off to spend with his family on his daughters birthday. When we’re old and dying the only people who will remember how much we worked will be our kids. Do you want them to remember Dad always being away at work or do you want them to remember time with you.
The sad part is that the answer is already given to us, your family is just a source of labor, same as you, unless you take your time back and don’t ask permission and accept being unemployed.
