Dear Princess Marissa,

I'd be the first to say that Yahoo! needs to be refactored from the ground up, and I'd be the first to acknowledge that physical presence helps when it comes to cross-fertilization of ideas, but are you really that interested in facetime, or are you interested in cutting headcount without having to actually use the word "layoff"?

By the way, princess, your predecessors should have sold to MSFT years ago when he had the chance. Seriously, YHOO. MSFT bid $31/share for you dumb farks in 2008, except that your board had its head up its ass like a multibillion-dollar Ouroborous and let it fall through.

Whatever the fark was wrong with you then is what the fark is still wrong with you now. You're not in business for the sake of remaining independent, you're in business to make money for the shareholders. The employees got farked either way, the least you could have done is admitted defeat and become one with the borg when you had the chance. At least someone would have made money over the past five years.

Wow. That escalated quickly. I'm just glad that I neither work for now own shares in YHOO, or it probably would have been worse. I'm OK with a little bit of facetime every now and then even in the context of a distributed team, but I don't know what's the more frightening implication: either Princess Marissa is trying to disguise layoffs/constructive dismissals as something other than what they are, or she drank a little too much of Google's cultural kool-aid and has gone full-retard against remote work.

Your grateful bystander,
Twilight Farkle.

I'm WAY more productive at home because people aren't stopping by to bother me all day. I save up my drudge work for my telework day each week because I know I can really get some shiat done.

If people are obviously abusing the privilege, you have 3 options: warn them, rescind telework for them, or fire them. The same as if they were unproductive while in the office. This is not a difficult proposition.

I get a lot more done when WFH. The TV might be on but it's muted and I'm not actually watching it. If I make dinner it's 2 minutes to throw in a crockpot. I work longer hours when WFH too. I'm always available via the phone after hours & weekends if work needs me. I agree with the others...take away all my WFH and then don't bother me on MY time!

/Good luck with that collaboration Yahoo. All the good people are gonna collaborate on getting a new job.
// Yes, I let my employees WFH. It was only an issue one time and as a manager I dealt with it....do your job managers.

davidphogan: Having worked from home, it was one of the greatest perks ever.

THIS.

I've been working at home for the last year, and my time on Fark has fallen off a cliff... I wouldn't dare fark this up and wind up back in some godforsaken cubicle hell.

I for one applaud the idea.

And I've worked from home since '98.

The real issue is that Yahoo has a ton of deadweight.  People scattered anywhere, mismanaged, and not working together

How do you fix that?

You can fire everyone.    Or, you can shake their cage, make them come in.   People that are biatchy about it ?  fark them, it's a job dammit get to work.   You're lucky the place isn't folded and you all are unemployed.

Give them six months, see what changes.   Then call her crazy if it didn't change the downward spiral.

Bunch of pansy ass whiners 'what about my children boo hoo'.   Hire someone to care for your kid if you can't.

Can we put an end to the myth that telecommuters are "pajama-clad employees working from the comfort of their own living rooms"? When I work from home, I am dressed, sometimes casually, sometimes in a dress shirt just because I feel like it, in a spare bedroom that is my office. I have more space and privacy than in my cube, am more productive because I am not BSing with co-workers about nothing important, and am saving $$$ by not commuting.

Of course, my work is basically solitary and my company has many offices, so even when I am physically in my office I can be in a meeting with people in several different offices and time zones (working from home also lets me take early meetings with London or late meetings with Asia). All that said, when I need to lock myself in a conference room at the office with co-workers, I do go in to do that too (there are home based employees who love those type of days as it gives them an excuse to come in and socialize). I don't need to be physically in every day.

Also, telecommuting is awesome on a day like today when I am home with a sick child. My work still gets done and everything stays on track (speaking of tracks, it is also great to go to the Y during my "lunch" hour). I don't know if I'd want to be a full time home based employee, but is awesome part-time (or, in my case,  most of the time).

Working from home is definitely a wonderful experience, especially when one is self-employed. Though at times it can be very difficult (for me) not to get distracted and goof-off for the day, that's why I don't mind going to the 'office' daily. Of course having a small company makes spending the day in the office very bearable. I had previously had a cubicle job for 8 years...I'll live in the woods in a refrigerator box before going back to cubicle world.

mrlewish: Working from home means they will eventually realize that someone else can do it cheaper overseas.

They've tried that up here with IT jobs.  It had disastrous results for them.  Half the employees let go went to work for consulting firms, billing $200 an hour to do their old jobs, and the other half worked as contractors, making 50% more than they used to.

After losing untold millions, the bigger companies are moving all the IT operations back in house.

Jon iz teh kewl: robohobo: sendtodave: Productivity:  Is it the end-all measurement of worth, or will future companies value more important things?  Depends on who you work for, I guess.

Lots of companies value bs facetime/asskissing more than being productive. Those companies are bad.

why do you say that?

It's bad if the facetime and asskissing come at the expense of productivity and money making. Money making being the only reason to be a business. Now if the asskissing and facetime somehow turn into moneymaking, good for them, but I personally want no part of it, because fark asskissing and feelings in business.TwistedFark: s.

Maybe the rest of you are farking angels, but it if was me I would be collecting the sweet Yahoo! paycheck and then either playing FTL all day or working on my web strip poker start up. I'm pretty certain that I'm in the majority with this self assessment.

In my experience, it's 50/50. I put in a lot of hours at home, explicitly because I loathe a standard job where I have to deal with people face to face and deal with office politics. I work harder at home so I'm WAY covered in people knowing I'm more productive than if I were on-site. That said, I know guys who do shiat-all working from home but still collect the paycheck.

sendtodave: Productivity:  Is it the end-all measurement of worth, or will future companies value more important things?  Depends on who you work for, I guess.

Lots of companies value bs facetime/asskissing more than being productive. Those companies are bad.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: When at home I find it difficult to get that same furtive thrill of masturbating at my work station, and it's a lot harder to hear the "fries are done" alarm.

Ok, that was funny as all hell.

/has you farked as 'Montreal Otter Squat'.  Can't remember why

ThatGuyGreg: I've been working at home for the last year, and my time on Fark has fallen off a cliff... I wouldn't dare fark this up and wind up back in some godforsaken cubicle hell.

That line really tempted me to sponsor you for TF, but even I'm not that big of a dick.

I've been self-employed and officeless for 6 years now.  It's fantastic.  I get more done laying on my back and before I put pants on than I do the rest of the day.  Just about every day I wind up on my laptop taking care of the last few issues from the 'south boardroom'- the pub that I frequent and take meetings in.  Really, there's very little work that can't be done with a beer in hand.

In the 80's I worked from home and got quite a bit done.  Even better, my code was portable as I had a Z-80 (TRS-80), and we had an 8088 at work.  But I quickly learned that time not spent in the office was time spent not working, no matter you turned in better code ahead of schedule.  Sigh.

In the 90's I was a consultant.  Quickly learned that if my body wasn't inside the building I couldn't bill the hours.  sigh

In the 00's I worked for a great company.  I wanted to go to work every day; I liked the people, I liked my office, I loved my work.  I still worked from home, but it was on top of 9+ hours a day spent in the office.  Got divorced.  sigh.

Now I'm semi retired, don't work at all.  sigh.

I find I do much better when working from home.  I often find myself working longer hours as well.

I worked from home for a few years, it was the best thing ever.  I was more productive, and putting in another 2 hours for what used to be my commute didn't bother me.
Eating with metal utensils and drinking from a real glass while working was a huge perk.  It's the little touches of dignity that we so often overlook when someone's not wearing pants.

I get more done when i work from home, and it's nice not having people drop by my cube to BS constantly. Although my cats hang out with me and try to "help."

It's the greatest thing ever.