Women & Business

Marissa Mayer Has Built A Nursery In Her Office

This is not the best week for Marissa Mayer. After banning working from home at Yahoo, Marissa has now installed a nursery in her office. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal — I actually think it’s great that she’s bringing her son to work. However, she’s also making an exception for herself. I don’t think any of the other employees at Yahoo are allowed to have cribs next to their desks.

From Marcus Wohlsen of Wired.com:

“Under such a goal-oriented approach, an all-or-nothing policy on working from home doesn’t really make sense. The issue isn’t so much the effect working from home versus the office has on performance and productivity. It’s the irrationality of trying to enforce uniformity when different goals might require different ways of working.”

The nursery thing adds to Marissa’s already controversial two-week maternity leave which many working women complained about. “I like to stay in the rhythm of things,” she said at the time.“My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it.” Many critics scolded her, saying many women don’t have the luxury of taking a short maternity leave (obviously Marissa can afford full time help). “To pretend you can reach the top and take long career breaks is disingenuous,” wrote Julia Llewellyn in a recent Guardian piece. “It fools young women into thinking their ride can be just as smooth.” Her $117 million salary only puts salt in the wound.

Tt hasn’t helped that Marissa has been very vocal about how easy it was for her to have a baby. In a recent interview she said the baby has been “way more easy than everyone made it out to be.” Well, maybe it is because you have a nursery in your office!

On the heels of her announcement that telecommuting employees will no longer be able to work from home, this might be a bitter pill for her colleagues to swallow. After all, until everyone has a nursery in their office, leaving kids behind to head into Yahoo! every day might be hard for many less high profile employees.

TAGS: marissa mayer | working moms

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