<p>I’m guessing that it’s a sellers’ market for the people that Yahoo wants.</p>
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<p>I’m in the office in track pants and a baselayer top at the moment. I dress a little better during the week but it’s still pretty casual.</p>
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<p>We lost several people to a startup that operated in this way. They had university professors that worked part time, some part-time workers I think (I assumed that they had other part-time jobs) and full-time workers but no offices. They had a very high-powered VC firm behind them and they got bought by one of the big CA tech companies.</p>
<p>I’ve done some open source work in an organization that worked this way. It’s an interesting way to work but definitely not for everyone.</p>
<p>BC- not for everyone or every organization. You have to leave it to the responsible people to make those decisions for their organizations. No one size fits all.</p>
<p>What are you responding too? Could you quote?</p>
<p>I understand that you can’t have checkout people at Whole Foods or McDonalds working from home. I do think that it does result in more work for managers and employees that come in all the time but that it’s a given in some jobs, either because the group is distributed or it’s required by the people that work in the field and it’s a sellers’ market.</p>
<p>Are u seriously equating having one’s baby in the office in a customized suite adjoining one’s office, with other exec perks like 1st class air travel and a parking space in the company garage? </p>
<p>I can think of few things more demoralizing to working parents then having to listen to Mayer brag that she’s back at work after only 2 weeks maternity leave because she had an “easy baby”. Yes, she actually used those words.</p>
<p>Is she going to even allow her employees a ‘coach class’ nursery on site?</p>
<p>GMTplus7 - with all due respect, do you work outside of home? Yes, I do equate having a customized nursery to flying 1st class, because most men do not have to care for an infant. Just for the record, Marissa didn’t brag about being back at work after 2 weeks, many women made a big deal out of it, like you. She probably had an easy baby, unlike some of our babies, who were colicky. So what? Good morning to you. Did you wake up to make your kids’ breakfast, or did your ama do that for you? Sounds harsh. Sorry. Being there, done that.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with Mayer coming back to work after 2 weeks. I know several women who chose to do so. And maybe she does have an easy baby, more power to her. Maybe she will change her tune when the baby gets older, who knows. I think her decision was silly - if there were lazy bad apples, thn fire them, don’t force them to come into the office. But her own personal 2 week leave -that’s her business.</p>
<p>I think the difference with her customized nursery is that she is expecting parents who may have been using wah arrangements to now have to figure out childcare arrangements, juggle schedules, waste time commuting, etc … While her baby is in the nursery next door to her office. What she is demanding of her employees … is something she doesn’t even have to think about for herself.</p>
I am sorry, but those employees shouldn’t have been babysitting their kids when they should have been WORKING from home. I view Marissa’s nursery at work as a perk because she needs to work longer hours than other employees. I don’t think she would have chose to go back to work after 2 weeks if Yahoo didn’t ask her (make her). I think it was a compromise.</p>
<p>She was hired to turn around the company. She saw that a significant enough amount of employees were abusing the wah perk. She tried turning it around other ways first without success. It could also be a way to do layoffs without actually having to fire people.</p>
<p>How long she had maternity leave and what she does in her office with her baby is no one’s business. If people want those perks - become a ceo! It might not be worth the trade off.</p>
<p>As a business owner, I’m sure it looks like I have tons of perks to the office staff who leave at 4:30 and don’t have a care in the world after their workday ends. Sometimes these “perks” are really focused on making people more productive, not spoiled. </p>
<p>She has to make difficult and unpopular decisions, but her job is to turn around the company, not put the employees wishes and desires ahead of the health of the company.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether or not the new policy about WAH is wise, fair, unfair, or not. But I do agree that if this CEO was a man, all the flak would be about the policy, NOT whether or not he was back at work two weeks after his child was born, nor would we be hearing one thing about the perks he enjoys as a CEO of a major corporation. Women are judged so much more harshly when they find themselves at the top, imo.</p>
<p>I used to work with a woman who was head of sale at an IB. She had 4 kids and she had 4 nannies. The firm had a car service available to her so she could go to her kids’ activities most efficiently. She chaperoned on various school activities. She baked or bought goods for her kids’ fund raising. Her husband helped out a lot whenever she needed to travel, but more often than not, her kids wanted her to be there. She was so good at what she was doing that the firm was prepared to do what was necessary to make her life easier.</p>
<p>One of D1’s friend father is a CEO at a bank. He used his company plane to fly to NYC to take his daughter to a concert then to Asia for a meeting. Without a private plane, he couldn’t have made it to both events. I don’t think anyone objected to it.</p>
<p>@oldfort, we are a dual career couple w very demanding job schedules. We hired nannies when our kids were small, but we never threw our private childcare arrangements in the face of our associates and said hey you slackers, why aren’t you achieving more-- we can do it; it’s a piece if cake! </p>
<p>This is what Mayer is doing to her subordinates.</p>
I think anyone who works outside the home in a big way would need a lot of support, whether it is from work or personally able to afford it. When I worked overseas, I had a housekeeper and a driver at my 16 year old’s disposal. I never had to worry about getting her to and from any where she needed to go to. I was able to leave her at home to be cared for by the domestic staff, which I wasn’t able to afford in the US. The fact that we are even questioning a young female CEO’s need to have a nursery at work while male CEOs are allowed to have many other perks is a sign that “Baby, we HAVEN’T come a long way.”</p>
<p>Did you really just say this, SanSerif? This is EXACTLY why people are suspicious of WAH arrangements. People know where the office is when they take the job and (give or take) what kind of commute they will be dealing with. They know what the working hours are. They know that they are supposed to be WORKING, not taking care of their kids and pretending to work.</p>
<p>@oldfort, I work overseas now as an expat and have the driver, maid etc etc. But I don’t rub it in faces of the local staff with whom I work along side, and say Hey, why are you producing as much as me. This is what find objectionable about Mayer’s nursery</p>
<p>So GMTPlus7 - if your firm had asked (demanded) you to go back to work 2 weeks after given birth, what would you have done? I was 5 months pregnant with my first child when a firm recruited me. I was upfront with them about my situation. It was a great opportunity for me. They told me that they would let me stay at home for 3 months, but I had to be available. I had to choose between staying at my old job or go for an opportunity I always wanted. I negotiated with this firm for the best deal I could get for myself, my family, and my career. I was probably the first “work from home” at that company. Marissa negotiated for a nursery for herself so she could be more available because of her job. Maybe there could be a childcare on site in the future for Yahoo? I just don’t understand why we are so readily to knock down another female, just because WE didn’t do it that way.</p>
<p>GMTplus7 - I am sorry, the only reason you are able to afford to have driver and maids is because you are an expat. You are having more privileges than your local staff. If you were a local, you most likely wouldn’t be able to afford all of those perks. So yes, you are able to care for your family better than other staff at your company. Just because you are having the service provided to you at home rather than at work doesn’t mean you are not robbing at your local staff’s face. They all know what you have and what they don’t have. You are no better than Marissa at Yahoo.</p>