5 ms·

I saw the writing on the wall when she cancelled the work from home policy and forced a lot of parents to either quit or start coming into the office. While, on

by iaw 11y ago

I saw the writing on the wall when she cancelled the work from home policy and forced a lot of parents to either quit or start coming into the office. While, on the flip side she had an executive package that included day care right off of her office. I decided I would never work for a company that hired Marissa Mayer after that. I screen my employers more carefully than they screen me, and that move showed she didn't give one shit about any of hers.

greyman 11y ago
But wasn't that move following her observation, that (some of those) work from home people just haven't work?
- iaw 11y ago
  Yes and no. The stated objective was to improve collaboration in "hallway and cafeteria" discussions [1]. Privately, former Yahoo employees said that the policy led to "people slacking off like crazy, not being available, and spending a lot of time on non-Yahoo projects," which is a problem with the management of employees not the policy itself. If someone is working from home and not meeting their duties they should be fired. Eliminating the policy was a band-aid, having hard conversations and getting rid of the slackers (and their managers) would have been the cure. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/26/us-workplace-flexibility-idUSBRE91P0S720130226 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/26/us-workplace-flexi...
- ryanfitz 11y ago
  I bet if she scanned the work from office people she would also find people who just don't work.
  - iaw 11y ago
    At one horrible startup I worked for I would do 3 hours of work and then wait out another 6 hours because of the 9 hour face time expectation. I had high output because I'm good at what I do but they couldn't wrap their heads around not having me there constantly. I ended up quitting because I was tired of watching my boss browse Facebook and sports blogs all day.
    - aswanson 11y ago
      Guessing they didn't get a good exit?
      - iaw 11y ago
        Before I got there they rolled the dice and walked away from a $250MM acquisition offer and ousted their original CEO. They were somehow able to acquire additional funding before I left but, based on the numbers I saw, they were using questionable models to indicate that they were more profitable than they are. They still exist and will probably take another 18 months to wither and die. The experience taught me to look hard for red flags and to hold my company as accountable as myself.
        aswanson 11y ago
        Absolutely, you are as much of a business as your employer.
- 67726e 11y ago
  My old boss had a very relevant point about why the company would fire folks as they did. If you have a guy on your team who usually doesn't work enough or comes late and leaves early you can fire him, or put up aa time clock, but the second you put up that time clock you've just alienated all the other good employees who didn't need babysitting. If people abuse the system, fire them and don't punish the loyal and hardworking. Mass punishment may work in the military, but this is the private sector and I have options.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    Mass punishment is also pretty shitty in the military.
    - pc86 11y ago
      It's much different though in that the goal to get the group to a point where it is self-correcting (e.g. of new troops).
- humanrebar 11y ago
  That might have been a machete approach to a problem more appropriate for a few dozen scalpels. Maybe Yahoo didn't have time to sort through all those cases, but it shouldn't be surprised that: 1. Yahoo might have pushed out many people who didn't deserve it. Many of them are working parents and perhaps people with disabilities. 2. Yahoo might have pushed out "cheaters" without really telling them why, leaving them disgruntled about work-from-home policies instead of embarrassed that they were caught not doing their jobs. 3. Yahoo singled out a certain category of "cheaters" unfairly. I'll bet $5000 that there were at least twenty always-at-their-desks Yahoo employees who "wasted" a significant amount of time on HN, facebook, reddit, Yahoo video, or just talking about hobbies and sports with coworkers. Taking the ax to at-home slackers and ignoring the general slacker problem is slightly unfair. It doesn't project communication and transparency; it teaches employees to hide their routine from their bosses as much as possible.
discardorama 11y ago
> I saw the writing on the wall when she cancelled the work from home policy Disclaimer: I was at Yahoo when she came and implemented this policy. It irritates me to see uninformed people making such blanket comments. You have no idea what the policy was; I do. Let me explain it, in the hope that you (and others with this mindset) may learn something about it, and maybe even change their views. There was a group of Yahoos ( < 200 ) who had a permanent work-from-home exemption (if you can call it that; there was never much of an enforced policy earlier). They never came in to an office (except for the occasional IT issue and package pickup). There were a couple of incidents where these remote workers were found to be moonlighting. So a study was done to see how many of these remote workers actually VPNed in. After a month or two, it turned out, a good number of them were actually working part-time. So a blanket ban was issued, with the caveat that if you could make a compelling case, you would still be allowed to WFH. In fact, a colleague of mine continued to work from home after this policy change. A number of strong people continued to WFH; a few were let go; and the rest had to hoof it to office. Now, the mistake Marissa made wasn't with this policy; but it was in how she didn't go the next step: holding the managers of the shirkers responsible. Which brings me to my thinking about why it's so hard to turn around Yahoo: the middle management. (Please do me a favor and read PG's excellent post http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html after you're done reading this). Yahoo is filled with managers whose sole contribution is survival. There is no accountability for screwing up. Fucking up products badly has never gotten anyone fired. Did you know Yahoo went through 3 different iterations of an attempt at a "social network"? Each and every time, sane minds pointed out that the concept was bad, the UX was bad, etc.; and yet the managers prevailed and it went down in flames, as predicted. The joke in Yahoo used to be: throw everything into version 1.0, because you never know if there will be a version 1.1. Marissa is failing not because she's a bad CEO (having seen Yahoo CEOs like Terry Semel, I can assure you she's the best they've had in the last 10 years); it's because she has no supporting cast. She trusts people too much. One manager once said to me (about her): meh, she'll be gone in a couple of years; I'll still be around. He had been there since 2001, and had no intention of moving anywhere. Collected fat paychecks by taking credit for others' work. And he was just one of many, many in there. Over the years I encountered so many people like him, where you had no idea what actually they contributed to the company. /rant
snowwrestler 11y ago
I'm a parent. "Working from home," if the kids are also in the home without supplemental childcare, is bullshit. It is impossible to parent children and do good technical work at the same time. You know how folks complain about open office plans? Because of the distracting noise and potential for interruptions? Well imagine an open office with coworkers who have no sense of social tact, cannot take care of themselves, and have a constant deep need for your attention. That's what it is like for a parent to work at home and parent their kids at the same time. So when I hear that parents at Yahoo were using "work at home" as a substitute for childcare, I think that Yahoo did the right thing by cancelling the policy. That is pretty clear abuse of it.

by iaw 11y ago

greyman 11y ago

But wasn't that move following her observation, that (some of those) work from home people just haven't work?

iaw 11y ago
Yes and no. The stated objective was to improve collaboration in "hallway and cafeteria" discussions [1]. Privately, former Yahoo employees said that the policy led to "people slacking off like crazy, not being available, and spending a lot of time on non-Yahoo projects," which is a problem with the management of employees not the policy itself. If someone is working from home and not meeting their duties they should be fired. Eliminating the policy was a band-aid, having hard conversations and getting rid of the slackers (and their managers) would have been the cure. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/26/us-workplace-flexibility-idUSBRE91P0S720130226 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/26/us-workplace-flexi...
ryanfitz 11y ago
I bet if she scanned the work from office people she would also find people who just don't work.
- iaw 11y ago
  At one horrible startup I worked for I would do 3 hours of work and then wait out another 6 hours because of the 9 hour face time expectation. I had high output because I'm good at what I do but they couldn't wrap their heads around not having me there constantly. I ended up quitting because I was tired of watching my boss browse Facebook and sports blogs all day.
  - aswanson 11y ago
    Guessing they didn't get a good exit?
    - iaw 11y ago
      Before I got there they rolled the dice and walked away from a $250MM acquisition offer and ousted their original CEO. They were somehow able to acquire additional funding before I left but, based on the numbers I saw, they were using questionable models to indicate that they were more profitable than they are. They still exist and will probably take another 18 months to wither and die. The experience taught me to look hard for red flags and to hold my company as accountable as myself.
      - aswanson 11y ago
        Absolutely, you are as much of a business as your employer.
67726e 11y ago
My old boss had a very relevant point about why the company would fire folks as they did. If you have a guy on your team who usually doesn't work enough or comes late and leaves early you can fire him, or put up aa time clock, but the second you put up that time clock you've just alienated all the other good employees who didn't need babysitting. If people abuse the system, fire them and don't punish the loyal and hardworking. Mass punishment may work in the military, but this is the private sector and I have options.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  Mass punishment is also pretty shitty in the military.
  - pc86 11y ago
    It's much different though in that the goal to get the group to a point where it is self-correcting (e.g. of new troops).
humanrebar 11y ago
That might have been a machete approach to a problem more appropriate for a few dozen scalpels. Maybe Yahoo didn't have time to sort through all those cases, but it shouldn't be surprised that: 1. Yahoo might have pushed out many people who didn't deserve it. Many of them are working parents and perhaps people with disabilities. 2. Yahoo might have pushed out "cheaters" without really telling them why, leaving them disgruntled about work-from-home policies instead of embarrassed that they were caught not doing their jobs. 3. Yahoo singled out a certain category of "cheaters" unfairly. I'll bet $5000 that there were at least twenty always-at-their-desks Yahoo employees who "wasted" a significant amount of time on HN, facebook, reddit, Yahoo video, or just talking about hobbies and sports with coworkers. Taking the ax to at-home slackers and ignoring the general slacker problem is slightly unfair. It doesn't project communication and transparency; it teaches employees to hide their routine from their bosses as much as possible.

discardorama 11y ago

> I saw the writing on the wall when she cancelled the work from home policy Disclaimer: I was at Yahoo when she came and implemented this policy. It irritates me to see uninformed people making such blanket comments. You have no idea what the policy was; I do. Let me explain it, in the hope that you (and others with this mindset) may learn something about it, and maybe even change their views. There was a group of Yahoos ( < 200 ) who had a permanent work-from-home exemption (if you can call it that; there was never much of an enforced policy earlier). They never came in to an office (except for the occasional IT issue and package pickup). There were a couple of incidents where these remote workers were found to be moonlighting. So a study was done to see how many of these remote workers actually VPNed in. After a month or two, it turned out, a good number of them were actually working part-time. So a blanket ban was issued, with the caveat that if you could make a compelling case, you would still be allowed to WFH. In fact, a colleague of mine continued to work from home after this policy change. A number of strong people continued to WFH; a few were let go; and the rest had to hoof it to office. Now, the mistake Marissa made wasn't with this policy; but it was in how she didn't go the next step: holding the managers of the shirkers responsible. Which brings me to my thinking about why it's so hard to turn around Yahoo: the middle management. (Please do me a favor and read PG's excellent post http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html after you're done reading this). Yahoo is filled with managers whose sole contribution is survival. There is no accountability for screwing up. Fucking up products badly has never gotten anyone fired. Did you know Yahoo went through 3 different iterations of an attempt at a "social network"? Each and every time, sane minds pointed out that the concept was bad, the UX was bad, etc.; and yet the managers prevailed and it went down in flames, as predicted. The joke in Yahoo used to be: throw everything into version 1.0, because you never know if there will be a version 1.1. Marissa is failing not because she's a bad CEO (having seen Yahoo CEOs like Terry Semel, I can assure you she's the best they've had in the last 10 years); it's because she has no supporting cast. She trusts people too much. One manager once said to me (about her): meh, she'll be gone in a couple of years; I'll still be around. He had been there since 2001, and had no intention of moving anywhere. Collected fat paychecks by taking credit for others' work. And he was just one of many, many in there. Over the years I encountered so many people like him, where you had no idea what actually they contributed to the company. /rant

snowwrestler 11y ago

I'm a parent. "Working from home," if the kids are also in the home without supplemental childcare, is bullshit. It is impossible to parent children and do good technical work at the same time. You know how folks complain about open office plans? Because of the distracting noise and potential for interruptions? Well imagine an open office with coworkers who have no sense of social tact, cannot take care of themselves, and have a constant deep need for your attention. That's what it is like for a parent to work at home and parent their kids at the same time. So when I hear that parents at Yahoo were using "work at home" as a substitute for childcare, I think that Yahoo did the right thing by cancelling the policy. That is pretty clear abuse of it.