In 2013, the newly hired CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, stopped employees from working at home–and set off a small firestorm, both at Yahoo and throughout the high tech industry, which championed–even used as their chief marketing strategy–the idea people can “work from anywhere.”
At the time of this controversy, I was running a small business, with, frankly, staffers who did very little work even when they were physically present. The idea they could work from home and actually get anything done was comical–if I left to take a deposit to the bank, they had themselves a sit-down and everyone started chatting. The business didn’t lend itself well to remote employees anyway, but I silently agreed with Ms. Mayer. She undoubtedly had a lot of highly paid Yahoo staff in slippers and a bathrobe, switching on CNN for “just a minute,” turning over laundry, taking the dog “for a really quick walk,” driving a carload of kids to soccer–then frantically throwing something together at the last minute to meet a deadline. She knew it, and I knew it.
And how did I know it? Those slacker employees of mine, of course, but also: I’d worked at home. In fact, I’m back to working at home. And freelance writers are probably the most distractible and inefficient at-home workers there are. Yet we also don’t do well “collaborating with colleagues” in “hallways” or “cafeterias,” the public reason Ms. Mayer gave for pulling those Yahoo people out of their bathrobes and making them come to work. Obviously, unless you’re a paid staff writer, you don’t have an actual “office” full of co-workers to go to in the first place, and even if you do, “collaborating” is usually just more goofing off to avoid sitting down and writing the story that’s due.
My home office
When I first moved back to my home office, it was blessedly quiet. I took a picture of it and sent it around to my friends–most of whom knew the contrast it posed to the “fishbowl” I’d worked in at my former business. Phone ringing off the hook, customers walking in, those staffers who wanted to chat. It was like trying to concentrate in the middle of a marketplace in Kathmandu. Suddenly, I was in an oasis of golden silence: kids at school, husband at work, nobody here but me–and the dog.
But wait–that dog! When had she become so high maintenance? Wapping her tail like a beaver the minute I go upstairs to my literary retreat, barking at the man who passes by EVERY SINGLE DAY with his small black completely innocuous pet. And the howling–like a wolf, like a prairie coyote–EVERY SINGLE TIME the firetrucks leave the station two blocks away.
Then there are the friends and relatives who believe me to be “bored” and “idle.” What do you do all day now? So there are extremely long–albeit enjoyable– coffee dates and lunches and visits and walks. Not to mention the “volunteer” projects I now succumb to–a Soccer Mom Survival basket to auction off at a club fundraiser, posters for the graduating varsity players at the high school, helping the media teacher launch a video program for local businesses. And my mother’s retiree insurance is inexplicably cancelled, her printer won’t work, and she can’t open her pill bottle. Then–oh, no!!–my son’s teammate forgot his cleats and shin guards for an away game–an hour away!
I can and should say no to at least some of this, but after being trapped at an actual workplace for five years, it’s a little like being let out of jail. I can and will drop off those P.E. clothes, that forgotten lunch; have that second cup of coffee; write a really long personal email full of suburban analysis. And with the Paris attacks, it’s only right I turn CNN on, just for a minute...
You suppose Ms. Mayer could shoot me a stern memo?
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