I wait to give my opinion, because sometimes the first few opinions influence the rest of the answers. I have an opinion already, although I am interested in hearing everyone else’s. I don’t see why anyone would think I am waiting to hear opinions to go along with the crowd or not, I have no problems on other Q’s giving my opinions. Also, changing an opinion because you hear more information on a topic seems like a good thing to me not a bad one, so I don’t see the problem there either.
I assume Buttigieg was reachable by phone and still aware of what was going on in the country, and this story is a stupid distraction. Democrats wanting to push the topic of parent leave (I do support new parent leave) and Republicans wanting to be contrary.
I do think people in high positions like the president, secretary of state, governor, etc, if they have to choose they should be putting country or state first over family. They are in the position for a finite time and their responsibility is awesome (as in big) and the needs of the many outweigh the few.
There are soldiers who miss the births of their babies and the first few weeks or months of the baby’s life all of the time. I do not think this usually needs to be a choice though, or it shouldn’t be anyway. In most situations I think new parents can and should be accommodated no matter their position when possible. This goes to workplace flexibility in general. A silver lining to covid is pushing the envelope of flexibility.
If the employee or appointee needs or wants a lot of time completely off from work and there are pressing state decisions to be made, then they need to have someone temporarily fill their spot or resign. I don’t really think this would come up much, because as pointed out, we have the technology in emergency situations and of course in government there are also large staffs taking care of many every day situations.
I do not think being president or having a position in the cabinet is the same as working at Macy’s or AT&T. I think that is not taking into account the real importance of some jobs vs others and sacrifices some positions are expected to make.