Yahoo CEO: No more working remote -- get to the office or quit

Yahoo would let (hell, encourage) Marissa Meyer to use a taser on its employees if it would translate into a similar stock price as Apple.

 

I saw David Burke, who owns several restaurants in New York, as well as one in Chicago, speak at an event once.

He was asked what he looks for in hiring a chef. He joked that he looked for someone with no family, who practiced no religion -- in other words, someone who could work 80 hour weeks.

In reality, he said that while it was standard when he was starting out to work 80 hour weeks, you just can't find people willing to do it anymore. But he still needed people who would work 60 hour weeks.

He could train you to cook he said.

So, it's not just the tech industry, and it helps to explain why so many recent immigrants find work in restaurants.

 

She could probably borrow Steve Jobs' old taser.

He of the "90 hours a week and loving it" apparel back in the early days.




In that movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley," the Wozniak character says something revealing: "I don't get it, Steve. We're working harder than our parents, who we laughed at because they worked so hard."

 

We have also been in a buyer's market for quite a few years. (Although our profession has been "young, cheap and work endlessly" for 15+ years.

Yahoo is still able to leverage fear in this. Especially for workers with high stakes lives (family, a Bay Area or NY-area mortgage). Unless they find another situation where they can telecommute.

I also can't think of this hitting on June, when school lets out. Cluster.

 

Baron, Baron, Baron ... they're gonna find the low-hanging fruit. Anybody out there who thinks this is a real blanket policy for this overstaffed company is a dunce. If majorly-productive employee X wants to work at home, X is gonna work at home. If marginal employee Y wants to work at home, Y is going to be given the opportunity to find somebody else to work for under those conditions.

 

dq, I think you're forgetting that the primary function of any business is to ensure that the employees have everything they need and want. And what you're proposing won't work because IT ISN'T FAIR!!! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

 

Wait until they take the whole fucking thing to China. Which they will. Where they live boarding schools and do code all day.

It'll either be that or these companies will start fronting charter schools that parents pay through the nose for and funnel grade schoolers toward jobs in the company. They'll suckle from the corporate teat from the age of 7.

I'm frankly surprised there's not an Apple University already. 100 students enter. 5 get a job at Apple!

 

I work for a large tech company, and I'm in the office most of the time because that's what I prefer. But the people in my group are spread all over the world, so I spend a huge chunk of my life on conference calls. I imagine the situation at Yahoo is similar, so how much face-to-face office time is actually happening?

 

Well, in "Hambuger: The Motion Picture", the owner built Buster Burger University and most or the people seemed to really enjoy the sexy and zany hijinks.

 

So, who exactly overstaffed Yahoo? Who manages the hiring process? Who manages the employees? Who develops the strategic plan and vision? Because, really, they're the people of whom they should rid themselves.

And what if the "crappy" employees are the ones who don't mind returning to the office to keep their paychecks coming? Then what?

Because you know damn well they're just going to log on to SportsJournalists.com when they're not eating at the company cafeteria.

 

This week's #ProdChat on Twitter is discussing the issue right now.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PRODCHAT&src=hash

 

Let's assume there are some "crappy" employees. Wouldn't you think it'd be easier to figure out which ones are crappy if they're close at hand?

But I am right there with you when it comes to who's actually responsible. Whether that "who" is still around is another matter. Be that as it may, I strongly suspect this has little to do with anything other than effectuating a headcount reduction by finding a way to make some of the heads look elsewhere.