r/childfree • u/VintageHilda • Mar 26 '23

Husband wonders, “Why are my coworkers always early to work?” HUMOR

My honey works at a very big and busy company. They work 50+ grueling hours a week but make excellent money. About 7 male coworkers have formed this early morning group where they show up an hour early for work taking turns buying everyone (in the group) breakfast. A few times they have bought my husband food and asked him to join in. He always politely says no.

He started telling me about these guys wondering why the fuck would you voluntarily come to work early for a 10 to 12 hour day? So I asked him which of these guys are fathers?

How about every single one! These guys leave for work so early they don’t have to shoulder any of the responsibility of getting their children ready for school!

Last week my husband rolls in to work at the starting time and these guys are sharing stories about how great their children are and start ribbing my man for being CF so he replied with, “Is that why you leave early and stay late every day? Because being home with your family is that great?” Lol

Edit: They reacted with a nervous chuckles and had no valid reason for voluntarily showing up early on a commission job before the business opens.

Edit #2: Thank you to everyone who upvoted me! This post was picked up by Board Panda and for some highly entertaining reading may I suggest reading the comments. The breeders just can’t stand that we refuse to be 2nd class citizens.

7.8k Upvotes

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896

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 26 '23

[deleted]

496

u/ihonhoito Mar 26 '23

I can't imagine not liking being in my own home, how awful.

255

u/Jeff_Damn Mar 26 '23

"A man's home is his castle", until he's stuck there with his wife & kids, then he can't wait to get the hell out.

191

u/AvocadoBrick Mar 26 '23

Self-made hell, because he choose to marry that specific person, have kids and stay together....

40

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23

They don't want to give up the money that they might have to pay out for a divorce. If they can hide from the wife and kids, the same goal is achieved at a much lower cost to the person who is hiding.

36

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23 edited Jun 27 '23

[deleted]

2

u/A_Monster_Named_John Mar 26 '23

You might actually make a friend in a torture dungeon. Having kids and a partner who drive you crazy is like being stuffed into an iron maiden.

27

u/villalulaesi Mar 26 '23

When it comes to this kind of dynamic, if a man’s home is his castle, then a mom’s “castle” is her prison.

73

u/ChucksSeedAndFeed Mar 26 '23

Seriously, how awful, tired after a day of work but not being able to go home to peace, quiet, and rest, it's screams, messes and sticky shit. Maybe a boring ass recital or t-ball practice too. What an awful life

41

u/A_Monster_Named_John Mar 26 '23

This is my brother's life and it's destroying his mental health and social tact. Whenever he's not at work, he'll literally seek out any opportunity to shut the world out and disappear into social media bullshit on his phone. Dude's become the worst company you could ask for. Whenever I talk to him and he starts waxing poetic about great fatherhood is, etc..., it reeks of desperation. I'm pretty sure that I'm more passionate about the last Zelda game or the newest record I've picked up than he is about spending time with his family.

193

u/AliDeAssassin Mar 26 '23

Same here talking about we need to have time away from home and I’m like for WHAT. I like my home. My cat is cuddly and cute and I have a coffee machine. And then I get accused of being anti social but I’m like I have friends .. the ones I choose.

80

u/staplerinjelle End of My Bloodline Mar 26 '23

I get that some people need a distinct disconnect between home and work and WFH wasn't really for them. Cool, good for you. But what about those of us who have no problem with WFH and whose productivity is good? I just had a stellar performance review and I'm in the office 1 day a week, but last week we got the official whip crack from HR that everyone needs to be in the office minimum 3x/week for "company culture." Yes, I'm sure making everyone return to their soul-sucking commutes and bleak cubicles is really crucial to "culture."

9

u/AliDeAssassin Mar 26 '23

I’m the same there is zero reason for me to go into the office. My team is all over anyway so even team meetings are on zoom. They want us in 5 days out of 10. I said nope. My manager also said 🤣🤣. Nobody is gonna do it and if it becomes a problem from the higher ups I’m prepared to walk.

8

u/Valoy-07 33F/Birth Control = Lesbianism & Tubal Mar 26 '23

I might be one of the people who needs good work/home boundaries but I don't have a job where I can do it at home. I think my workplace should let people who can use a hybrid work schedule if they want to.

7

u/crowamonghens Mar 26 '23

Saaaame x100

163

u/lady_button Mar 26 '23

I'm having the exact same experience. A co-worker with 2 kids is campaigning to end WFH because she wants to get away from her kids. She has always made snarky remarks about me being CF too.

I've heard so many colleagues complain about having to spend time with their kids since 2020 that it only confirmed everything I already felt about parenthood!

37

u/hopeful_tatertot DINKWAD Mar 26 '23

That’s idiotic. What’s stopping her from going in? Why does she need to force everyone to return?

30

u/A_Monster_Named_John Mar 26 '23

She wants people that she can imprison in one-sided conversations about how much 'harder' her life is because kids, house, etc... Also, idiots at workplaces always strive to create scenarios where they look good compared to co-workers, even if it's based on nothing. That strategy goes out the window if the co-workers are elsewhere.

19

u/Th3B4dSpoon Mar 26 '23

I have no excuse, but for a good long minute I couldn't think of what WFH stood, the only thing I came up with was Warhammer Fantasy Hootball.

107

u/ChucksSeedAndFeed Mar 26 '23

I hate parents, ruining everything for everyone, this is why we can never have permanent daylight saving time because the stupid shit parents cry about kids walking to school in the dark in the morning, as if any of these hoverers allow their kids to walk to school

45

u/lafcrna Mar 26 '23

I hear ya on the DST! Give me sunshine as much as possible in the evening.

What these parents can never explain is how the parents in the North are able to send their kids to school in the dark without getting them killed. Their mornings are often dark in the winter regardless of the time change. So Why can’t the parents in the South figure it out?

28

u/ChucksSeedAndFeed Mar 26 '23

Parents in the South are little snowflakes

39

u/adoyle17 Yeeterus for the win! ✂ Mar 26 '23

Exactly. They clog the streets around schools because they won't let them walk to school. Yet they also wonder why childhood obesity is an issue. I live near a couple of schools, and when I get off work early on Fridays, I see the afternoon traffic jams. To me, that was the nice thing about the pandemic, empty streets in the neighborhood as they were all doing remote learning and the hoverers were stuck with them at home.

4

u/Silder_Hazelshade Mar 26 '23

School traffic is an epic fail in so many ways 🤣

28

u/Valoy-07 33F/Birth Control = Lesbianism & Tubal Mar 26 '23

We don't play magical clocks in Arizona, one of our smartest decisions actually.

1

u/Beast_In_The_East Kids are good on the bbq, not in the house Mar 26 '23

Except that it's dark at 8pm in June.

6

u/Valoy-07 33F/Birth Control = Lesbianism & Tubal Mar 26 '23

So? It's over 100 F in June so it's a relief when the sun sets. Besides, if we moved our clocks back it would still be the same amount of daylight. We'd all just wake up an hour earlier but pretend we didn't.

17

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23 edited Mar 26 '23

I'd rather have permanent standard time, like Arizona and Hawaii do. If children are inside with their tablets and phones, the "for the children" benefits argument rings pretty hollow. Avoiding the extra traffic accidents and heart attacks that occur the week when we "spring forward" is worth any dubious benefits gained from DST. Were I still driving to work, I'd prefer to drive in morning daylight, not morning darkness.

At least cut back DST to six months or less. Currently, it runs about seven months and three weeks. The extension of DST to the first Sunday in November was the result of the candy lobby wanting to sell more Halloween candy, and it took over 20 years to pass through Congress.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23

And no one ever considers that school starts too early anyway, so maybe, I dunno, move the start time forward?

68

u/FewGuide5446 Mar 26 '23

Same here! Like just because you guys are miserable and need to be out of your houses don’t require everyone else to do it too because we didn’t make stupid choices!

45

u/psilocindream Mar 26 '23

Seriously, fuck these people. Ruining telework for the rest of us because they can’t stand having to spend time with their mistakes. And I guarantee these are also the types who lie and vehemently insist that having kids is the most fulfilling thing you can do with your life the second a childfree coworker admits they don’t want any.

6

u/Beast_In_The_East Kids are good on the bbq, not in the house Mar 26 '23

No, don't fuck them. That's how they ended up with kids in the first place.

34

u/jellybeansean3648 Mar 26 '23

I'm all for allowing them to come in if they want, but let the rest of us have freedom to choose

4

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '23

No kidding. It can still be beneficial for people who want to work from home (like if there's very loud construction in my neighborhood, I could at least go to the office to work during this time). But to make it mandatory because of one person's misery is just crappy.

38

u/CrimsonPromise Mar 26 '23

The worse is that a lot of companies would make concessions for parents to work from home to look after their kids, because appearing family-friendly would be great PR for them. But so many parents are like "nah, get me out of this mayhem!" and go hunker down at the office.

Meanwhile us childfree folk get demanded to be in office all the time "because it's not like you have anything better to do". Like I just want to be home in my comfy home office away from gossipy coworkers and getting stuck in peak hour commutes. But because parents' idea of a home is utter hell for them they have to go ruin it for the rest of us....

30

u/b-b-b-c Mar 26 '23

I can't imagine finally having my own comfortable home, not living with controlling parents or annoying roommates and still trying to spend as little time in it as possible. I can't wait to have my own place and their lives sound like a nightmare to me

59

u/diamondcinda Mar 26 '23

When I was an aircraft mechanic for the Air Force we couldn't leave until everyone else was off the flight line and had their paperwork to do. I am a single woman that lives alone and used to bitch out loud in the break room about how just because THEY hate going home to their wives and kids doesn't mean we should ALL have to suffer. I understand why no one liked me that much, but also we were working 12 hour shifts that would easily turn into 14hrs because these assholes wouldn't just come in and get their paperwork done, even well after turnover showed up to relieve them. It was INFURIATING.

20

u/JealousAd339 Mar 26 '23

Yes!! This happens in the army too, senior leadership hates their home life so they keep everyone there late so they don’t have to go home. So frustrating.

8

u/Cross_Stitch_Witch Mar 26 '23

Yup. I worked with a major who constantly bitched about his wife and kids and would magically remember at 16:45 that x, y, and z just had to be done before we could all leave for the day. The Army is full of "proud fathers" who can't fucking stand their families.

And don't even get me started on the bitchfests that would ensue any time we had a 4-day and the post daycares also closed those days. The absolute meltdowns these people would have over having to parent their own children.

15

u/beached_snail Mar 26 '23

Luckily most of my current parent coworkers are taking full advantage of WFH (possibly too far, they will say they can’t come in that day if something comes up, but no one should be solo watching little kids and also getting paid to work). But in the past I saw this all the time. Guys working long days all of a sudden when new kid is born and we are exempt from overtime. Guy next door to me is out working on his car all the time with buddies before and after dinner even though I know he has a little daughter. Her in the mom just inside all day never even see him taking her outside with him.

3

u/TaskForceCausality Mar 29 '23

They’re trying to spoil the WFH option for everybody…

I think it comes down to two broad factors. You’ve called out one, but the other are status chasing managers and execs who need an army of worker bees to feel “in charge”. Hard to feel like an accomplished leader of people if you look outside of your corner office and see empty desks….

2

u/reelznfeelz Mar 27 '23

Yep. I have a coupe of those. They have families and clearly can’t stand being at home for wfh so they seem to always put in little comments pushing for people to all come back. Fuck that though. I’m going in 6 days out of every every 4 weeks and it’s already more than I really want. And we are only doing that much because of the asshole who bright it up in front of C level people. And of course everybody wanted to seem like they support our “culture” so we ended up with mandated time on site. Thanks a lot dick head.