# Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is a Gold Plated Bitch **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614 "2013-02-28T06:41:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/101 "2013-03-02T12:51:27Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Sure, if you _give_ it. If you exchange it for money, not so much. Are you \*giving \*your capital? Or are you expecting something in return eventually? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/102 "2013-03-02T13:02:04Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Are you \*giving \*your capital? Or are you expecting something in return eventually? And do you draw compensation in the meantime? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/103 "2013-03-02T13:52:20Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Giving one hour of one’s life to a company is as much an investment as cash. My employees are compensated. Nobody is giving. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/104 "2013-03-02T14:22:34Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Are you \*giving \*your capital? Or are you expecting something in return eventually? With an investment, you might desire a return on it, but it’s not guaranteed - but, if it’s successful, you’ll get way more than as an employee. Both the risk and reward are greater. What **Acsenray** seems to want is the reward without the risk, and that’s not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/105 "2013-03-02T15:04:09Z")
I don’t know how anyone can accuse her of being an elitist snob. She has an engineering degree and is credited with being significantly involved with the development and success of G-mail among other projects while working at Google. I doubt she has much time for worrying or caring about touchy-feely human resource issues right now. I get the impression that she is very data driven and is probably trying to weed out under performing employees. If the data doesn’t show an improvement in performance with this decision I imagine she’ll modify her position. She was hired to turn around Yahoo, not for everyone to love her. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/106 "2013-03-02T15:05:41Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > My employees are compensated. Nobody is giving. Working conditions are part of compensation. If you change them they have a right to object. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/107 "2013-03-02T15:15:10Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Working conditions are part of compensation. If you change them they have a right to object. And they can. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/108 "2013-03-02T15:26:24Z")
And they can also demand a greater share in decision making. This is to answer those eho take the position that "boss makes the rules. Period. " That stopped being the rule sometime in the life time of the coal steel and rail barons. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/109 "2013-03-02T15:31:48Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And they can also demand a greater share in decision making. Demand? No, I don’t believe so. At least in my situation, employees demanding something would likely be replaced by employees who were less demanding. I own a business. There are pros and cons to my situation, but it is a sole proprietorship, and I am kinda the sole. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/110 "2013-03-02T15:56:48Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > It does? Oh, shit…don’t tell my boss! :eek: > > Seriously, I think you’ll find it varies widely by company. I have no idea what Yahoo’s specific child-related telecommuting policies have been until this point. My company is more than happy to let me do my paperwork at home, at my kid’s piano recital or whereever the heck I care to, and as long as the work is turned in (by FAX or in person) on time and is accurate. In a few months, it will \*all \*be done by computer, so I’ll turn in my paperwork by hitting Send, from whatever beach I’m lounging on at the time. I could be watching the whole neighborhood’s kids at the same time, and my boss honestly doesn’t care. I don’t think it varies as much by company as it does by the nature of the work being done out of the office. If I remember correctly, you’re a home health nurse and you refer to doing your paperwork at home, at piano- recitals, etc. But I suspect that most of your work time is spent at your patient’s homes ,that the deadlines involved give you enough room so that picking your kid up for the piano recital doesn’t make you miss the deadline, and that you are never subject to an a emergency assignment. That’s very different from a telecommuter who has a call center type-job at home, or one that involves frequent conference calls or even one of my former field jobs, where I was free to write reports whereever I wanted to after finishing my field work for the day, but I might be called and sent out on an emergency visit at anytime until my actual work hours were over. ``` And just as aside, one of the reasons the conditions in that job changed and required us to be in the office whenever we were not actually making field visits was precisely because people were either not answering the phone or pleading child care issues or other appointments when they were called during the hours they were *being paid to work.* I can't imagine that there were that many natural slackers , so I can only assume that it seemed too expensive to arrange child care for every day and too inconvenient to arrange appointments outside of working hours when we might not even be called back once a month. ``` ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/111 "2013-03-02T17:57:30Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Yeah, CEOs do that kind of shit. Like it? Bust your ass and become a CEO. Or hang around middle-management and pay for child-care. Sure it sucks. Call me when the Fairness Fairy shows up to fix all our lives. Alternatively, agitate for change. Encourage people to switch to other search engines (such as blekko), to use alternative fantasy football leagues (there’s one on espn, for instance) and to skip using Yahoo! Answers (ChaCha is an alternative). ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/112 "2013-03-02T18:44:46Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > They get away with what society lets them get away with. Well, luckily for me, you seem pissed off about this enough for the both of us. Personally, I feel that going to the office five days a week is hardly similar to working without OSHA or the 40 hour week. ChaCha sucks balls, they’re even worse than YahooAnswers. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/113 "2013-03-02T18:45:12Z")
There’s two issues being discussed: 1. Does telecommuting hinder productivity? 2. Was the decision to end telecommuting handled with respect for the employees? Whether or not #1 is true, #2 was not handled properly. That’s what has people upset. Mayer made a heavy-handed edict without regards to how it would affect the employees. Yahoo is not going down because of telecommuting. Yahoo won’t be saved by eliminating it. Yet this change will greatly affect those employees working at home. It will only have a marginal effect on productivity to bring those employees into the office. Essentially, she’s saying she does not value the telecommuting employees. She would rather have them quit than work at home. That’s not a good message to be sending out. It signals that the execs consider all employees to be just replaceable cogs. That may be fine if all they want is cogs (e.g. burger flippers), but if they want vibrant, creative, passionate, dedicated employees, they need to treat them like valued assets. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/114 "2013-03-02T23:32:00Z")
[VPN logs show that people weren’t even logging in.](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-marissa-mayer-figured-out-work-at-home-yahoos-were-slacking-off-2013-3) ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/115 "2013-03-02T23:52:44Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > [VPN logs show that people weren’t even logging in.](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-marissa-mayer-figured-out-work-at-home-yahoos-were-slacking-off-2013-3) That sounds like my experience with telecommuting coworkers. They love it, but you can’t reach them when you need them. My worst experience was with one particular person who not only saw working from home as working around her personal life but also treated me and others who worked in the office as her support staff. The stuff we were doing was pretty routine work, too. Should have been ideal for telecommuting but people still managed to screw it up. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/116 "2013-03-03T02:21:19Z")
I know this is the pit, but . . . > [@filmore](#): > > Mayer made a heavy-handed edict without regards to how it would affect the employees. Cite? > [@filmore](#): > > Yahoo is not going down because of telecommuting. Cite? How do you know what the impact is that telecommuting has had on Yahoo’s successes or failures? > [@filmore](#): > > Yahoo won’t be saved by eliminating it. Cite? See above. > [@filmore](#): > > It will only have a marginal effect on productivity to bring those employees into the office. Cite? > [@filmore](#): > > Essentially, she’s saying she does not value the telecommuting employees. Cite? > [@filmore](#): > > She would rather have them quit than work at home. That’s not a good message to be sending out. What does this even mean? She’d probably rather have them quit than give them all $50,000 raises, too. In fact, any boss anywhere would ‘rather have their employees quit,’ than give them compensation she felt it wasn’t in the business’ best interest to give. > [@filmore](#): > > It signals that the execs consider all employees to be just replaceable cogs. Cite? Any reduction in compensation is a downer for employees. Does that mean that it’s never a smart move to reduce compensation? Look, you and everyone else who is treating this as though Mayer arbitrarily made this decision with no business case to back it up are sounding like whiny children who have no idea about how an organization is run. I don’t know what the business case is, but you can bet that there is one. Whether it’s a good case, and whether Mayer’s policies in aggregate will benefit the company remain to be seen, but you can bet that she and her board have a better idea about the potential benefits to the business than you or I. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/117 "2013-03-03T04:40:26Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > …you can bet that she and her board have a better idea about the potential benefits to the business than you or I. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/118 "2013-03-03T09:51:01Z")
> [@](#): > > …you can bet that she and her board have a better idea about the potential benefits to the business than you or I. > [@digs](#): > > Cite? Two posts above you. Employees were abusing the telecommuting privilege, so now it’s being taken away. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/119 "2013-03-03T10:11:39Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > That sounds like my experience with telecommuting coworkers. They love it, but you can’t reach them when you need them. My worst experience was with one particular person who not only saw working from home as working around her personal life but also treated me and others who worked in the office as her support staff. The stuff we were doing was pretty routine work, too. Should have been ideal for telecommuting but people still managed to screw it up. Yeah, we had someone who regularly “worked from home” and I noticed her laptop was on her desk with dust on it. She would also complain about not being part of important decisions. Sorry, we don’t just sit around and wait for you to call in. Oddly enough, she didn’t survive the last round of layoffs. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614/120 "2013-03-03T13:29:38Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Cite? She’s a job creator. Doubting her is heresy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-a-gold-plated-bitch/651614.md?page=7)