7 ms·

>The shift in policy affects roughly 200 of Yahoo's 12,000 employees. I see this statistic and I'm reminded at how much of a disingenuous uproar the policy cha

by parfe 13y ago

>The shift in policy affects roughly 200 of Yahoo's 12,000 employees. I see this statistic and I'm reminded at how much of a disingenuous uproar the policy change caused. Every time I read comments regarding this issue I'm more convinced the real issue is who issued the policy, and not the change itself. A new mother canceling work at home while simultaneously raising her own child in the office is not hypocritical. It supports her position. And yes, a private nursery is a perk she receives as CEO. A CEO gets a nursery: Outrage! CEO gets a private bathroom, private airplane, private car, meetings on the golf course, etc: normal operating procedure. I wonder why the nursery gets singled out for ridicule?

mitchellhislop 13y ago
Not to mention that she paid for it herself.
tenpoundhammer 13y ago
The internet has basically become a place for disingenuous uproar. There should just be a site called disingenuousuproar.com
- mathgorges 13y ago
  On it!
vor_ 13y ago
It seems a bad thing to me to expect that employees give up telecommunication even for family reasons when the CEO doesn't have to endure such a tough choice because they get a special CEO nursery.
- bradshaw1965 13y ago
  Male CEO's can act like alpha animals, take what they want and flaunt blingy perks, but let a woman build a nursery... Employees never get the same perks as CEO's.
  - nightski 13y ago
    Right because male CEO's have never been ridiculed.
    - bradshaw1965 13y ago
      When they are they laugh in the face of the peon daring to question his greatness.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > If the male CEO goes out of his way to exempt himself from the rules that his employees have to follow, then yes, the disgruntled employees have a valid point. But Meyer is being criticized for the nursery, a perk which made it more convenient for herself to follow the no-telecommuting policy, not to exempt herself from it.
      - vor_ 13y ago
        The issue is a CEO who can afford to build themselves a nearby nursery for their newborn yet expects employees who can't afford such a privilege to follow a policy that prevents them from telecommuting in order to enjoy the same sort of family time.
  - vor_ 13y ago
    I don't understand where this response is coming from. I said nothing about gender. I can't actually think of a situation in which male CEOs, and male managers in general ("pointy haired bosses"), aren't relentlessly mocked. Attempting to portray a sexist double-standard seems like a stretch and a refusal to address the actual issue.
- Joeri 13y ago
  On the other hand, can you really combine taking care of a baby with getting real work done? For some people and some babies, sure. But i switched positions on this topic when confronted with the noisy reality of my own son.
jsight 13y ago
I see this statistic and think it makes the stated reasoning even less logical. From the article: "people are more productive when they're alone," and then stressed "but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together." Really? 200 of 12,000 people were the difference between a collaborative environment and a non-collaborative one? I am willing to accept that their reasons may have been good, and may work for them. I simply disagree with virtually everything that they have chosen to describe as their reasoning.
vondur 13y ago
That's total BS. As a CEO she is paid well enough to easily afford having a live in nanny or a nanny for the day. Having a nursery just for herself comes across at completely unfair. Would you be willing to work for such a boss? I'm going to guess most of their best coders could easily get a job working somewhere else.
- iand 13y ago
  She pays for it herself. It isn't a perk.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    I'm guessing regular employees wouldn't be allowed to build something with similar proximity if they pooled their cash. Still a perk.
  - vor_ 13y ago
    Does her no tele-commuting policy not make her inconsiderate of employees who can't afford to build their own nurseries in order to spend the same amount of time with their families that she does? The message she is sending is that she expects people working for her to make a sacrifice that she has gone out of her way to avoid.
- tyree732 13y ago
  Your response I think only enhances the point parfe was making towards the end. She probably could afford most of the perks her jobs provides, but for some reason a nursery gets singled out as some outlandish thing. The fact is that they are perks, and being as she is at the highest position in a large company, she correspondingly gets the best perks. If you were offered or fought for a great perk as part of compensation for a position, would you turn it down because you could afford the perk without them giving it to you for free? Or, saying it another way, as a software engineer, you are paid well enough to easily afford your vacation days unpaid. Having paid vacation days for yourself when so many people in the world don't comes across as completely unfair. Would you be willing to work with such a person?
lnanek2 13y ago
Couldn't really care less about her myself. No work from home changes it from a company I might work for to one I won't. It's incredibly valuable to be able to just sit and code some days with no interruptions. I did a stint at IBM once too and they were all for flexible working and had many studies backing it up. They saved a lot of money on offices and got better work done. Re childcare, it does seem crude to rub the CEO only nursery in employees faces like she does by having it at the company. I know companies that provide free day care to all employees. If I was an employee like her who wanted my kid around and not in her position, I'd jump ship and go to one of those. Does she go around telling her employees how much more she earns than them as well? I hope not.
- guyzero 13y ago
  Per the article, Yahoo need innovation, not raw productivity. A bunch of Yahoo employees at home coding thousands of tested lines a day aren't going to help the company if it's all the same old crap Yahoo has been putting out for years.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
The private bathroom, private airplane, private car, meetings on the golf course, etc are ultimately superfluous. Slash them, and nothing bad happens. The nursery is an entirely matter altogether. Without it, you either work from home or find daycare for the baby.
- parfe 13y ago
  I do not see the distinction you drew between daycare and a car service. Why is one superfluous and the other not? Why does nothing bad happen if you cut the private plane, but something bad happens if you cut the nursery? I hardly think finding daycare for your child is a "bad" thing. At least not any worse than needing to take the time to drive yourself to work in a personal vehicle you pay to maintain.
adrianhoward 13y ago
I see this statistic and I'm reminded at how much of a disingenuous uproar the policy change caused. Yup. This. It's also interesting to see how much of the uproar comes from folk who work at Yahoo (as far as I can tell - none of it.) The two folk I know who work there, who would both love to telecommute, think the move to ban telecommuting was a really, really good one. They're both smart, driven techie folk who could get a job anywhere. Jobs that would probably pay more than they're getting at Yahoo. They've gone from polishing their resumes and considering resignation a few months back, to totally enthusiasm now. Whatever Mayer is doing internally from what I can see, from talking to folk who actually work there, it seems to be working.

by parfe 13y ago

mitchellhislop 13y ago

Not to mention that she paid for it herself.

tenpoundhammer 13y ago

The internet has basically become a place for disingenuous uproar. There should just be a site called disingenuousuproar.com

mathgorges 13y ago
On it!

vor_ 13y ago

It seems a bad thing to me to expect that employees give up telecommunication even for family reasons when the CEO doesn't have to endure such a tough choice because they get a special CEO nursery.

bradshaw1965 13y ago
Male CEO's can act like alpha animals, take what they want and flaunt blingy perks, but let a woman build a nursery... Employees never get the same perks as CEO's.
- nightski 13y ago
  Right because male CEO's have never been ridiculed.
  - bradshaw1965 13y ago
    When they are they laugh in the face of the peon daring to question his greatness.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > If the male CEO goes out of his way to exempt himself from the rules that his employees have to follow, then yes, the disgruntled employees have a valid point. But Meyer is being criticized for the nursery, a perk which made it more convenient for herself to follow the no-telecommuting policy, not to exempt herself from it.
    - vor_ 13y ago
      The issue is a CEO who can afford to build themselves a nearby nursery for their newborn yet expects employees who can't afford such a privilege to follow a policy that prevents them from telecommuting in order to enjoy the same sort of family time.
- vor_ 13y ago
  I don't understand where this response is coming from. I said nothing about gender. I can't actually think of a situation in which male CEOs, and male managers in general ("pointy haired bosses"), aren't relentlessly mocked. Attempting to portray a sexist double-standard seems like a stretch and a refusal to address the actual issue.
Joeri 13y ago
On the other hand, can you really combine taking care of a baby with getting real work done? For some people and some babies, sure. But i switched positions on this topic when confronted with the noisy reality of my own son.

jsight 13y ago

I see this statistic and think it makes the stated reasoning even less logical. From the article: "people are more productive when they're alone," and then stressed "but they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together." Really? 200 of 12,000 people were the difference between a collaborative environment and a non-collaborative one? I am willing to accept that their reasons may have been good, and may work for them. I simply disagree with virtually everything that they have chosen to describe as their reasoning.

vondur 13y ago

That's total BS. As a CEO she is paid well enough to easily afford having a live in nanny or a nanny for the day. Having a nursery just for herself comes across at completely unfair. Would you be willing to work for such a boss? I'm going to guess most of their best coders could easily get a job working somewhere else.

iand 13y ago
She pays for it herself. It isn't a perk.
- rhizome 13y ago
  I'm guessing regular employees wouldn't be allowed to build something with similar proximity if they pooled their cash. Still a perk.
- vor_ 13y ago
  Does her no tele-commuting policy not make her inconsiderate of employees who can't afford to build their own nurseries in order to spend the same amount of time with their families that she does? The message she is sending is that she expects people working for her to make a sacrifice that she has gone out of her way to avoid.
tyree732 13y ago
Your response I think only enhances the point parfe was making towards the end. She probably could afford most of the perks her jobs provides, but for some reason a nursery gets singled out as some outlandish thing. The fact is that they are perks, and being as she is at the highest position in a large company, she correspondingly gets the best perks. If you were offered or fought for a great perk as part of compensation for a position, would you turn it down because you could afford the perk without them giving it to you for free? Or, saying it another way, as a software engineer, you are paid well enough to easily afford your vacation days unpaid. Having paid vacation days for yourself when so many people in the world don't comes across as completely unfair. Would you be willing to work with such a person?

lnanek2 13y ago

Couldn't really care less about her myself. No work from home changes it from a company I might work for to one I won't. It's incredibly valuable to be able to just sit and code some days with no interruptions. I did a stint at IBM once too and they were all for flexible working and had many studies backing it up. They saved a lot of money on offices and got better work done. Re childcare, it does seem crude to rub the CEO only nursery in employees faces like she does by having it at the company. I know companies that provide free day care to all employees. If I was an employee like her who wanted my kid around and not in her position, I'd jump ship and go to one of those. Does she go around telling her employees how much more she earns than them as well? I hope not.

guyzero 13y ago
Per the article, Yahoo need innovation, not raw productivity. A bunch of Yahoo employees at home coding thousands of tested lines a day aren't going to help the company if it's all the same old crap Yahoo has been putting out for years.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

The private bathroom, private airplane, private car, meetings on the golf course, etc are ultimately superfluous. Slash them, and nothing bad happens. The nursery is an entirely matter altogether. Without it, you either work from home or find daycare for the baby.

parfe 13y ago
I do not see the distinction you drew between daycare and a car service. Why is one superfluous and the other not? Why does nothing bad happen if you cut the private plane, but something bad happens if you cut the nursery? I hardly think finding daycare for your child is a "bad" thing. At least not any worse than needing to take the time to drive yourself to work in a personal vehicle you pay to maintain.

adrianhoward 13y ago

I see this statistic and I'm reminded at how much of a disingenuous uproar the policy change caused. Yup. This. It's also interesting to see how much of the uproar comes from folk who work at Yahoo (as far as I can tell - none of it.) The two folk I know who work there, who would both love to telecommute, think the move to ban telecommuting was a really, really good one. They're both smart, driven techie folk who could get a job anywhere. Jobs that would probably pay more than they're getting at Yahoo. They've gone from polishing their resumes and considering resignation a few months back, to totally enthusiasm now. Whatever Mayer is doing internally from what I can see, from talking to folk who actually work there, it seems to be working.