Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo • Hacker News Board

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#31

Post by joshu » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 3:59 AM UTC

christianwright wrote: post #28

michaelhoffman wrote: post #12

Can someone explain the parking barrier and turnstile changes for me in more detail? I don't get it.

"turning off the turnstiles in building D". Building D traditionally has held the HR Department. I may be reading in too much but I think she's put a halt to the practice of firing a full-time employee and then hiring them back as a contractor or FTE again with a higher salary. As for the parking barriers, I'd just be guessing. It could be unlocking gates or it could be removing assigned spaces.

I seem to recall literal turnstiles.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#32

Post by rdl » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 4:01 AM UTC

sriramk wrote: post #13

ghshephard wrote: post #8

One element of the memo I was happy to see, was the dogfooding of Yahoo! Mail/Calendar, as in, people at Yahoo! will start using it rather than Microsoft Exchange. Sometimes I think powerful personalities at Yahoo! IT, with a bit too much money and people working for them, have caused a not insignificant amount of the downfall at Yahoo! by treating the company like it was a financial firm, or the Department of Defens…

When at Yahoo, I had multiple flame wars with the exec in charge of the Blackberries decision. I was told in no uncertain terms how it was the only option due to security/other concerns and this person just didn't care much about the loss in productivity. Happy to see Marissa sorted that out in her first month.

Blackberries were the only reasonable choice at some point in the past. It's not reasonable to compare blackberries vs. other phones in 2006 or 2008 vs. 2011 or 2012.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#33

Post by rll » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 4:14 AM UTC

michaelhoffman wrote: post #12

Can someone explain the parking barrier and turnstile changes for me in more detail? I don't get it.

The parking barriers were pretty silly in the first place because they were only on some of the lots. If you wanted to park by buildings A,B,C or D you would scan your badge on a card reader and they would open, but if you parked across the street by building E there was no such barrier. And it wasn't like they stopped people from walking across the street and right to the other buildings.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#34

Post by catfish » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 4:48 AM UTC

As a long long time user of Yahoo services like Mail, and Groups, I have a ton of ideas that I wish I could offer. But, alas I am not an employee, just an old fart coder dog and business owner. After 32+ years in the biz what could I possibly know?

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#35

Post by X-Istence » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 5:01 AM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #19

Did Yahoo never internally adopt Yahoo Mail and Calendar? if so, that would be analogous to Google using Lotus Notes internally.

As far as I have read so far they use Exchange internally.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#36

Post by sriramk » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 5:11 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #32

sriramk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When at Yahoo, I had multiple flame wars with the exec in charge of the Blackberries decision. I was told in no uncertain terms how it was the only option due to security/other concerns and this person just didn't care much about the loss in productivity. Happy to see Marissa sorted that out in her first month.

Blackberries were the only reasonable choice at some point in the past. It's not reasonable to compare blackberries vs. other phones in 2006 or 2008 vs. 2011 or 2012.

No excuse to not switch when 2010 rolled around, especially when mobile became one of Yahoo's top priorities.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#37

Post by Hominem » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 5:35 AM UTC

Some of this reminds that small things can have large repercussions on morale. There is a passage in The Illuminatus Trilogy that describes an act of culture jamming where a sign reading "no smoking" is replaced by a sign that says "no spitting" in an upscale department store. The customers and employees begin the resent the management, after all why would the management assume they would spit on the floor of an upscale department store.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#38

Post by pnathan » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 5:47 AM UTC

rocky1138 wrote: post #24

Asking people for their thoughts is a great way to get only as much real feedback as people think they're allowed to say without being at risk for losing their jobs. A real question would be "What do you have to do against company policy in order to get your job done?"

> A real question would be "What do you have to do against company policy in order to get your job done?"

Now that's a real good question.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#39

Post by ghshephard » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 6:27 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #32

sriramk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When at Yahoo, I had multiple flame wars with the exec in charge of the Blackberries decision. I was told in no uncertain terms how it was the only option due to security/other concerns and this person just didn't care much about the loss in productivity. Happy to see Marissa sorted that out in her first month.

Blackberries were the only reasonable choice at some point in the past. It's not reasonable to compare blackberries vs. other phones in 2006 or 2008 vs. 2011 or 2012.

Not only where they the only reasonable choice - they were the perfect choice - I can recall our entire executive team living on their blackberries non-stop. Before Push-Email, unlimited SMS (and IP based alternatives, like WhatsApp), and Enterprise IM became so predominant, blackberries were the best way of staying in 24x7 contact with everyone else.

I'll even make the argument that the Blackberry might have been the better choice in 2007/2008, and, just possibly, sneaking into 2009. The iPhone lacked reasonable exchange support for it's first iteration, push email wasn't there, and the Mobile Data Management (MDM) policies and security were slim to none.

But any company that was agile, and technologically savvy, and particularly those that were focussed on consumer digital strategies, started shifting over to the popular smartphones (IOS first, Android Second) by 2011 at the very latest. Yahoo! IT's love of the blackberry has held that company back. If every one of their engineers, and executives lived on an Android/iPhone, their mobile strategy would be seeing a lot more love.

The Department of Defense might make an argument for using blackberries. Yahoo! can't.

Re: Mayer Declares That It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time at Yahoo

#40

Post by rdl » Sun, Aug 26, 2012, 6:28 AM UTC

sriramk wrote: post #36

rdl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blackberries were the only reasonable choice at some point in the past. It's not reasonable to compare blackberries vs. other phones in 2006 or 2008 vs. 2011 or 2012.

No excuse to not switch when 2010 rolled around, especially when mobile became one of Yahoo's top priorities.

Yeah, I think the transition point was 2009-2010 with the 3GS and commercial MDMs. Deploying iPhone/Android today without an MDM is actually still worse in a corp environment than using blackberry+BES, and when the first iphones and androids came out, there was no MDM available.

I don't remember 2008-2009 all that well, but I think Airwatch was 2009, and there was some weak Zenprise support in late 2008.