Homing in on Yahoo edict – from home

Iwas working at home, blue jeans and barefoot, revising a story at my desk in what we refer to as “the library” (it’s the room with three bookcases in it) when an editor sent me an e-mail with a link to the story about the goings-on at Yahoo.

New CEO Marissa Mayer had decided to do away with all telecommuting. The editor asked me what I thought. I it sounded like a trick question. Clearly, I’m a big fan of telecommuting. Which is why he asked.

I had written a column about Yahoo’s Mayer in July when she announced that she would work through her maternity leave. She planned to take just a few weeks off.

Instead of celebrating Mayer’s ascension to only the 20th female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, bloggers and Facebook posters alike had leaped to criticize her for shorting her maternity leave and underestimating the challenges of being a new mom.

Here’s the truth about being a new mom: No matter what you do, somebody will tell you that you are doing it wrong. I suggested that everyone get off her back. It was choice. Now, however, according to the link to the

my editor sent, Mayer has informed her more than 13,000 employees, some of whom telecommute, that they must be in the office every day. Fair enough, she’s

the boss. She contends that companies work best when employees see each other in the hallways, when they sit side by side.

Obviously, none of her employees has ever sat next to

Years ago, an editor recognized that she should send me home to write when I was on a tight deadline because I do my best work here.

My office is a busy, noisy and interesting place. Everywhere you look there are TVs, dozens of them, tuned to different stations.

Writers and editors are lined up in 7½- by 7½-foot cubicles, so I am literally surrounded with smart people who constantly hold forth on interesting topics — politics, breaking news and whether eating chocolate bourbon balls at work constitutes drinking on the job.

And I am easily distracted.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming anyone else. When they need to, my cubicle-mates can pop in their earbuds (shutting

chatter out, I suspect) and keep on with their work, but I have a harder time staying focused.

After Mayer’s announcement, workplace and parenting bloggers rolled out multiple criticisms, most suggesting that because Mayer is herself a working parent, she should be more sensitive to the needs of those for whom telecommuting works best.

I’m giving Mayer the benefit of the doubt; we don’t know the whole story. Maybe the number of people working from home on any given day had gotten out of hand at Yahoo, or perhaps there’s a concern that people are claiming to be working when they really aren’t.

My co-workers and I joke that I’m “working from home,” making quote marks in the air with our fingers as if I

am just taking the day off. And sure, I like not having to fight traffic or put on heels.

But, as embarrassed as I am to admit it, I typically get more done before lunch at home than I sometimes do all day in the newsroom.

I instant-message back and forth on the computer with my coworkers (you can even keep up with office gossip that way), and my editor and I talk on the phone.

I do end up working more hours because it is so easy to check my email, answer questions from the copy desk or outline a column when the idea strikes me, even if that happens when I’m on my way to bed. On Sundays, I sign in to see what the coming week holds.

OK, I’m not saying that it’s a good thing, but I don’t mind because the trade-off is flexibility.

When it is my turn to run the carpool after school, I can leave the newsroom to pick up the kids and then sign back onto the computer when I get home. I can throw in a load of laundry between phone interviews, or think through how to end a story while unloading the dishwasher.

And I can slip out to my 13-year-old son’s school for a piano recital and get back in less time than it would have taken to go to lunch at Lolo’s Chicken & Waffles with co-workers.

I’m sure that if I wasn’t productive or doing my job well, I’d lose the privilege of telecommuting. But at this stage in my career, I know when it makes sense to be in the office and when I will get more done at home.