Using Kids as an Escape Clause

A female coworker is always showing up late and leaving early because of some "emergency" involving her kids. I don't have any children, and this irks me. I know that having children is a big responsibility, but others in my office make it work. I feel as though she's using her children as an excuse to cover her own laziness. Where's the line?

Emergencies are rare. Poor planning does not constitute one. Your coworker is giving working mothers a bad name.

Having children is a full-time job; so is a full-time job. To be successful as a working parent you've got to build a proper support network to account for the eight-plus hours each weekday when you've got to be in the office. There is no way around it. Millions of people do it. If your coworker cannot fulfill her office duties, then she is defaulting on the promise she made to her employers and needs to make some changes to her support network.

The thing about having a proper support system is that it should actually give you considerable leeway during the workday. Whoever is watching the kids - a spouse, a nanny, daycare, grandma - understands that the office comes first and they, not your employers, need to be prepared to handle child-related inconveniences. 

Of course, having children does present other problems that are not so easy to manage. Once you get outside the workday window, handling office responsibilities becomes a big problem. The babysitter has a date; grandma has bingo; daycare closes at seven; your husband needs to work on his novel. A few readers took issue with a previous post about whether or not it was fair to ask people without children to shoulder the burden of staying late and traveling. Comments took issue with my assumption that those without children are typically younger and should accept the grunt work as part of working their way to the top. The readers pointed out that not all childless workers are young; duly noted.

The fact is that children should never intrude on work time unless it is a real emergency. And work should not expect to intrude on children time unless it's a similar crisis. Your coworker is not respecting this bargain.

To get her up to par is going to take some nudging from a higher power. If you confront her, she's going to either hit you with another excuse or play the mother card. You need to gently raise the issue with your boss. Prepare an offhand list of her indiscretions, but don't make it like you're monitoring her every move. Simply let it be known that you find her conduct to be unfair to others. Your boss is probably aware of the problem, and the fact that you've spoken up will require them to address the situation. Next time she pulls a fast one, your boss should slow her down.

Have a workplace-ethics dilemma? Ask it here, or email wherestheline@gmail.com.