Yahoo! HR boss (and mother-of-three) who imposed Marissa Mayer's ban on working from home commutes

[OhioChick]

Yahoo! HR boss (and mother-of-three) who imposed Marissa Mayer's ban on working from home commutes from New York to California

6 March 2013

The mother-of-three HR boss at Yahoo! who co-wrote the controversial memo with Marissa Mayer banning staff from working from home commutes from New York to the office in California, it emerged today.

Leading by example, Jacqueline Reses makes the 6,000 miles gruelling round trip so she can follow the hugely unpopular dictat she wrote with the Yahoo! CEO.

The 43-year-old could go to Yahoo!’s small satellite office in New York but instead she has chosen to put herself through dozens of flights each year criss-crossing the country.

Her commute, revealed by the New York Times, is all the more surprising as she has three young children with her husband Matthew Apfel, 47, a digital marketer and former head writer for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289141/Yahoo-HR-boss-mother-imposed-Marissa-Mayers-ban-working-home-commutes-New-York-California.html

[CBGLuthier]

1. Hmmm, Yahoo seems more and more to be a stupid company employeeing

well... not the best and the brightest, that's for damned sure.

[bluestate10]

20. Depends.

Yahoo is an existing company that has to be in a startup mode to survive. Anyone that work in a startup understands that people that do what some see as foolish things, like work 18 hours per day, or live away from home are the very type of people that are required to make the startup work.

[niyad]

2. are we supposed to admire her for being so damned stupid?

[Drale]

3. Thats not leading by example

thats flouting your wealth that you can fly from New York to California on a regular basis something I can guarantee the regular Yahoo employee can not do

[HipChick]

7. Wealth has nothing to do with it...Yahoo pays for all her travel..

[bluestate10]

16. How do you know that? Information like that isn't public, IF Yahoo is in fact paying

for the woman's commute to and back from California. I have doubts that Yahoo pays the woman's expenses for travel to and from California and living expenses while she is in California unless a loophole concerning the definition of a company directed work assignment was found.

[HipChick]

21. I used to work for Yahoo..

they paid all my expenses,hotel,car rental, air fare tickets...common policy in corporate America..companies have covered my apartment costs if I was renting a place while away from home for extended period..

[djean111]

4. So, basically, Yahoo and the other companies following its example are just demanding

that every employee has as huge of a carbon footprint as possible. The HR woman must have a HUGE carbon footprint.
Gosh, have gasoline sales been down since the prices are going up, and these people are doing their best to keep oil profits up?

[bluestate10]

14. Mayer lives in the San Francisco Bay area and gets to work within an hour of leaving home.

Mayer appears to have made a choice to live near her job since she came to Google out of grad school, if accounts are correct. Mayer wasn't rich coming out of grad school and working in a startup provided absolutely no certainty of anything, not even that Mayer would have a job a year after starting at Google.

Mayer appears to make a limited carbon footprint and chose to do that for most of the early decade and a half that she has worked.

Yahoo is in a startup mode. The company has been failing for more than a decade. One more major failure and all of the people that work at Yahoo, except for a few high skilled, known players will be out of jobs. Mayer has chosen to put Yahoo into a startup mode, where everyone that has a function is determined and highly motivated, and work long hours. Mayer has to make that choice for Yahoo to survive, the company has to remake what it offers after being crowded out of search by Google and Bing. Startup environments aren't what many workers want, the hours are brutal and outcomes are often uncertain. Mayer is in a tough spot, she has to find people that fit in a startup fast. Did Mayer make a mistake with her work from home directive? I don't think she did, startup decision cycles are fast and unforgiving, there is no time for long email discussions, decisions must be made quick and face to face.

[antigone382]

15. Driving for an hour is not a small carbon footprint.

Walking three miles to get water is a small carbon footprint.

[bluestate10]

18. Where did I say Mayer drove to work? She could take a train or walk.

You are making assumptions about what I wrote that that I didn't write.

[antigone382]

19. Even taking the train involves considerable resource use.

If she walks, that is great. I did not mean to assume anything from your writing. If you could tell me a little bit about where you got the information that she gets to work in an hour, I would like to look into it myself to see if the form of transportation is identified.

[appleannie1]

5. She must have more money than brains.

[bluestate10]

11. Or she can be deeply committed to the effort that she is now a part of.

Some people are that way. I am not defending her choice, but I do understand it. Will her choice lead to kids that go wrong, even with their privileges? No one knows.

[benld74]

6. Thus costing YAHOO BIG BUCKS in travel expenses and

endearing her forever with her children who constantly ask their fahter, "When is mommy coming home?"

She might be Educated in economics at the Wharton School but she don't know crappola about saving corporations $$$$$$$!!!!

[Lars39]

8. She must think she's indispensable.

[CreekDog]

9. well not to her children

[bluestate10]

10. I am of mixed emotions on Mayer's move.

I travel in the Bay area. Commuting by car is a slow process, it can take up to 120 minutes at rush hour. Mayer gets to work within one hour after leaving home, which means that she made choices that made her commute to work short, like staying near her job. People that commute longer distances do so for bot good and not so good reasons, some drive large distances to find less expensive homes, others don't want to live in or around less affluent neighborhoods that that do have inexpensive housing and are nearer to their jobs.

Mayer can push to provide on-site childcare for Prue-school children, but that leave school aged children to go to school and come home with a guardian watching over them, not a parent.

All of us make choices in life. Mayer was not always wealthy, middle-class, but not wealthy. She chose to work for a startup and apparently live near to work as she absorbed herself in her job. She delayed having children until 36 years old. Mayer profited from the decisions that she made, those decisions could have not produced what she has now and left her in bad shape (most startups fail). Mayer is trying to turnaround a troubled company, she will still be rich regardless of whether she succeeds or fail. As a longtime executive at Google and one of the first 30 employees in Google, Mayer was likely worth many millions before she signed on at Yahoo. Yahoo is in a position where a startup mindset is required to have the company survive. Some workers work well in a startup environment, but most find the pressure, time dedication and uncertainty to be too severe. Mayer has to quickly find out what type of staff she has and re-shape that staff. Startup leaders have the advantage of hand picking staff, Mayer walked into an existing company that has thousands of staff and is struggling, her job of finding the right staff is tougher than the same function for a startup leader and the decisions that Mayer must make will appear to be cutthroat to those not familiar with how startups work and the demands that working in a startup places upon employees.

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. I hope she uses skype and a webcam

Or her kids may not recognize her when she shows up for their HS graduation.

[DollarBillHines]

13. I know, from personal experience, just how grueling those 1st Class flights can be.

Then there is the horror of the Town Car driver meeting you at Baggage and trundling your shit out to the car.

I won't even go on about the living conditions at St. Regis.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. wow.