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Interesting blog post on Marissa Mayer's no WFH move...
And the debate continues...this is an interesting, in depth perspective:
https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/02/27/yahoo-kills-telecommuting-three-cheers-for-marissa-mayer/
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Re: Interesting blog post on Marissa Mayer's no WFH move...
My take from that - I'm tired of people trying to fight a "cause" for me. She and Mark's sister (can't remember her name suddenly....) want women to be equal to men in the office, etc. Well- good for THEM. When that means working 120 hour weeks, i'm not interested and I'd rather not have anyone tell me that this is what I'm supposed to strive for.
How about working on getting men - and really all people - to realize that obnoxious hours like that shouldn't be the norm? how about getting parents - moms AND dads - to realize that having children means putting in TIME w/ those kids?
Why is this all about being successful in business? What about being successful in your family life?
I just feel like the focus here is totally wrong.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I wish there was a clapping icon because I totally agree. I am sick of feeling like it is one or the other. If I take a step back I am doomed for life etc? I am also sick of being expected to do two or three full-time jobs at work and be paid for one and told I should be happy to have a job at all in this economy. To be honest I think the ability to work at home has made this worse, not working from home all the time but just being connected now my boss thinks it is fine to interrupt my dinner, I should work before bed etc? I went on a job interview and the interviewer told me that part of my job required me to check blackberry before bed, which means I could end up working until 2 am? really I am sure that press release, unless in time of crisis, can wait until I get in at 8.
I think this says it all:
"Silicon Valley, home to Facebook, Google, Airbnb,none of most desirable companies make room for a personal life. They don?t have to. They have plenty of people hoping to give up their whole life to the company."
It's one of the main reasons I chose my career as a teacher. I knew I would have balance and be paid decently, but not a lot. DH on the other hand, works for a huge oil company. He gets paid a lot, but he's also more stressed, works more, and has strict deadlines all the time.
He has "flex time" where he can come in as early as 6AM so he can leave by 4. He has to work 80 hours in the office every 2 weeks and gets every other Friday off. If our child is sick or something comes up, he can work from home, but he asks to do this less than once a month.
He doesn't have as much time for a personal life compared to me because, like the article states, the company can find plenty of people to work for them who would be fine without that because of the pay. Can't say that for the teaching profession...
I completely agree with this and think it is a choice that both men and women have been making for decades. We all make choices in our career, and just becasue you have to work crazy hours in one company doesn't mean that there aren't companies out there with more flexibility. Both my husband and I have made changes in our careers to change to jobs with more flexibility, because we knew that this was something we wanted when we started a family - we also did this without sacrificing salary or potential growth. People can have it all - they might just not be able to do it all at Yahoo, Facebook, or any other company like that.
Sure, there are a number of jobs where the discussion is irrelevant; someone mentioned the POTUS. But let's face it. There's one president. But how many female lawyers, doctors and investment bankers do we have and how many of them need to sacrifice EVERYTHING just to have some semblance of a successful career?
I agree. Problem is she cant see past her own way of life. Sure take away telecommuting for your VP's and President, they live the job and get paid well for it. Its the data programmers and middle management who are loosing because their CEO doesn?t understand some people are happy making a decent salary in a job that fits their lifestyle.
**Siggy Challenge What You're Looking Forward to Most after Baby Arrives**
I haven't read the replies yet, but here is my response to the article. It makes a lot of sense. It's true that we can't have it all, let's just admit it and stop trying. If you want to have work-life balance, then Yahoo (or any F500) is not for you.
I know we all hate the people who ask working mom's "why did you have a baby if you're going to let someone else raise it?" For most of us, this is an unfair question b/c we are parenting our children outside of those 40hrs/week that we work. Well for Marissa Mayer, I would love to ask her this question. If she is working 100hrs/week, when is she spending any time with her child? I'm sure her round the clock nannies are the ones raising her baby.
One problem I have with this article is that the author says that since Marissa Mayer works 100/hrs a week, she can hold all her employees to the same standard. This is just not fair. She is making millions of dollars compared to the average employee. She can afford to give up everything, she can afford FT nannies, personal chefs, maids, housekeepers. The average employee has to run their household as well as their job.
On the whole, I'd say I agree with the blogger. I just think that it's a shame that this is the reality. But like the blogger states, we all have choices. Personally I would never choose to live like that.
To me, the "why" part of the question doesn't matter as much as the "so what?"
Let's take medical residency just because it's a field I know. Residency used to not have any work limits and young doctors routinely had to work 120 hours a week; actually, it was called "residency" because you practically lived at the hospital. Now work limits are capped at 80 hours per week. We're also seeing changes in primary care. Instead of treating patients in the office and then doing rounds in the hospital, we now have a division of labor where PCPs work in the outpatient setting and hospitalists do inpatient. All of these changes had a number of drivers, patient safety included, but they're all examples of the way medicine has evolved and become a profession where women and men no longer have to make extreme sacrifices. And women are the ones entering the field in record numbers. I don't know about you, but I like having more women doctors.
So my point is that maybe the "something" that "needs to give" is our attitude about work.
I concur! Family comes first for me, and I'm happy to work an environment where that's the sentiment across the board. Male or female, you can and should be able to take time for your family.
I recently went to a transportation seminar on alternative modes of transportation and how cities are dealing with it. Seattle encourages it's major employers to allow for telecommuting to keep traffic volumes down and allow for more efficient travel. (Especially during construction or major events) They found in the process, that not only are employees happier with the ability to telecommute 1-2 times per week, but they're also happier because commute times aren't as ridiculous as they could be with less traffic. They also found productivity was up...because as it turns out happier people work harder...and less time commuting means less stress and a shorter workday overall.
I read someplace, that the thought was this was a way to weed out people without doing layoffs. I can't help but wonder if that's a big part of this: let's see who is reallllly dedicated and who will jumpship.
It's a struggling company, they are desperate and looking to "shake things up" at work. Well, this has done that. And I feel like we forget that there are people who like to telecommute don't have kids. So this isn't just a parent issue, despite so many of the arguments surrounding it seeming to focus on working moms.
While I can see the blogger's point, that you can't do everything. People have to make choices in life. There are only so many hours in a day, so people prioritize. And if some people want to work a billion hours a week, well good for them. Although I think most people, parents/single/DINKs, like a balance of work/personal life.
ITA with PPs that the notion that in order to succeed we a) have to be CEO of a huge company, and b) that means having no life outside of that company, is flawed. I have zero desire to be the head of a fortune 500 company, even if I could do it on a 40hr week, I don't want to run a company, period. However, I do think there are lots of positions that demand/expect ridiculous hours and I think the mindset/culture needs to shift. Partly because I don't think it's healthy for the individual, but also because I don't think it's healthy for society at large.
I don't know that saying an employee must work in the office equates with demanding a 100hr work week though. I am not able to WFH due to the nature of my job, however, I only work 40hrs a week. And I am rarely expected to stay late/come in early/weekends, although it does happen occasionally for special projects. I just don't think she's expecting her low-level people to be at the office 24/7, just that the must be at the office M-F.
Didn't read the replies, skimmed the post. I don't think there was anything earth shattering in the article, but I completely disagree that you need every employee in your company to be 100% dedicated to work. That is ridiculous. I made a decision to work PT from home. I understand that I will be mommy-tracked and I am sidlining my career. I see our VP who has 3 yo twins and I do not want to be her. She works 100 hours a week, but her partner does stay home with the kids - I do agree with that part of the post, if someone is going to be that dedicated to work you need the other spouse to stay home. That being said, my company benefits from me working PT from home, I'm cheap! I'm doing about 80-90% of my previous FT work, for 60% of my previous pay and about 30-40% of what I could get at a different company FT. I work for a fortune 500 company and not everyone needs to be working 100 hours a week to have a successful company.
While everyone wants to harp on the negatives of WFH, which I agree there are some, noone likes to look at the bottom line that it saves a company money.
I totally agree with all of this!
My issue, in addition to the above, is the zero sum approach of the article. Companies can either be populated with 100 hour a week minimum lifeless robots with no family obligations - or not.
The premise that you cannot "mommy track" and still have a pretty damn great career at a Fortune 500 company is absurd. (ie, I am not going to be a Managing Director. That has NOTHING to do with anything other than that is not the life I want, regardless of whether I have a family or not - I made that particular choice before children). The notion that everyone has to work as if they want to run the place some day is simply absurd.
You can have it all, you just can't usually have it all at once.
The problem isn't with Fortune 500 companies, or with struggling companies. The problem is that we've set expectations that anyone can be a senior executive, have an amazing family life, and drive new cars, live in big houses, and come home to their kids every night at 6. And that's a big fat lie.
If you're going to pursue a career with a big paycheck, like investment banking, management consulting, or executive leadership, you will face intense demands on your time. There will be times when you will need to put the immediate needs of your family behind those of your job. It may not happen every day, and it may manifest itself in small ways (like checking your email when you should be listening to your 6-year-old), but it will happen.
And for that reason, not everyone wants to pursue those career choices, and I think that's awesome. We need to redefine the notion of success, and the only way to do that is to recognize that everyone chooses their own priorities and makes the decisions that work for them and their families. And those priorities will change over the course of their life, and that's OK too.
We should be embracing a more flexible career structure that allows someone to work like crazy in their 20s, scale back, ramp up again....or do whatever works for them. And the most successful companies are starting to recognize this and incorporate programs like Google's amazing 5-month full pay/full benefit maternity leave and flexible hours.
Marissa Mayer put a band-aid on a bullet hole. She'll weed out workers who aren't engaged, but she still needs to articulate a clear strategy and create a culture that thrives on performance. Until she does those things, she'll continue to lose the talent war and Yahoo won't recover. And people will get distracted by temporary, draconian measures when the real problem persists.
(Written by someone who has been a VP at a Fortune 50 company, a C-level exec at a small company, and turned down a CEO offer to take a position with a lower title and salary and greater flexibility.)
This completely! Those people making 60-100k a year at Yahoo didn't choose the CEO track. And maybe she is trying to force them out, but I'm not sure that's the best plan.
This completely! Those people making 60-100k a year at Yahoo didn't choose the CEO track. And maybe she is trying to force them out, but I'm not sure that's the best plan.
This!!