
About a Month at Yahoo - ovechtrick
http://bensign.com/about-a-month-at-yahoo
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staunch
Ahh, the honeymoon period. Look for a post in 11 months (+/\- monetary
incentives) called "Moving on..."

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LowKarmaAccount
BenSchaechter, you've been hellbanned for at least 506 days, probably because
of your submissions. Normally I don't tell people that they've been
hellbanned, but since this is your post that has been linked to I thought you
should know that not everyone can see your response to their comments.

Edit: @coolsunglasses, thanks for the follow up. I can see why a YC moderator
would think that his posts are linkbait.

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coolsunglasses
He's been told this several times before, that he hasn't noticed is amusingly
symptomatic of _why_ he got hellbanned to begin with. (Spamming/saying his
piece, then never returning)

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jaredgeorge
> I wake up, shower, and drive to work early to have breakfast. I spend all
> day at work, go to the gym and have dinner, do a little bit more work and
> don't get home until 9 or 10 every night. My apartment's sole purpose has
> become a place for me to sleep.

I'm glad he's happy (right now), but this is exactly why I will never work for
a company like Yahoo. I absolutely love what I do. And I protect it by
ensuring I have healthy boundaries. No, Yahoo isn't "taking care" of you Ben.
They're taking _advantage_.

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jimmyjazz14
Living like this is likely by his own choice. Yahoo! is actually very good
when it comes to work/life balance.

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drgath
Yup, exactly. I've been at Y! for almost 4 years and when I started I was
absolutely a workaholic, but over the last 3 years I've transitioned into
having a much healthier (and happier) balance. You can certainly work as much
as want at Yahoo, but I don't think too many feel forced to.

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jedanbik
What's comfortable about working until 9 or 10 pm every night? Would you be
saying that if you had kids?

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jedanbik
Just an FYI -- I don’t have kids either.

I was pointing that out because it seemed like a massive contradiction to say
that working at Yahoo is comfortable, but then to say in the following
sentence that home life is non-existent. I often ponder the long term stuff in
the tech realm as a current full time grad student, and this particular
section was striking to me.

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drgath
I get the sense that the OP's work hours are actually what he likes and is
comfortable with.

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mnglkhn2
I hope we are not going to get once again so ecstatic about free food and gym.
I know that this looked truly revolutionary during Google's hiring binge.

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koggit
They're nice amenities and not all employers offer them.

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_delirium
They can be, but it depends on the company's culture. I personally prefer to
go home and cook for myself, and when places offer free dinner, I worry that
it comes with social pressure to stay and eat there, which I'd prefer not to
do. If you have a family it's a bit less of a worry (you have an "excuse" for
leaving to go eat with your family), but if you're single, there seems to be
this expectation that _of course_ you'd love to eat dinner at work, and you
must be somehow weird if you prefer to cook for yourself at home.

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patejam
Just to chime in, there is zero pressure at Yahoo to stay and eat dinner on
campus. In fact, not too many people stay unless there was an event going on
before hand or something. Most people just leave. But as you said, it depends
on the company's culture.

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CodeFoo
What about the opposite, are you outcasted like a freak if you abuse the free
services and eat all your meals there?

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patejam
Nope. I'm an intern there and usually work ~10-6, call my girlfriend back
home/hang out for a bit with people, eat, and go home. There's really no
judging, everyone seems super chill.

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codex
The starry-eyed tone leads me to believe the author is a bit naive--ergo, in
his early twenties. Other than that there's nothing interesting here.

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reid
I'm 24 and I've been at Yahoo for 5 years as a full-time Software Engineer.
This place is a different company with Marissa leading the way. I share the
OP's tone. I may also be naive, but the place is a lot flatter and there's a
lot less in my way to make new ideas happen. I no longer stay at work late
into the night, however. :)

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jroseattle
"I spend all day at work".

Looks like the plan is working.

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7Figures2Commas
> My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep.

Not for long, hopefully! There is clearly a need for on-campus dormitories so
that employees don't have to worry about maintaining their own spaces and
finding things to do on their own time.

I can see it now...

Google employee: "I live in the Adwords Apartments. Pretty ritzy. Where do you
live?" Yahoo employee: "I'm in Flickr House. It was recently renovated."
Facebook employee: "You should apply for a job at Facebook. If you're really
lucky, you might be able to get a room at Poke Place. We have the best co-ed
hackathons on Saturday nights."

~~~
vxNsr
lol "Poke Place".

But seriously, I feel like technically you could be homeless if you're single
and work at Google or (now) Yahoo, they've got gyms, couches, private rooms to
chill, you just put a tie on the doorknob (or whatever) and sleep there for
the night. and Boom! you've just saved yourself like $1000+ /month, not to
mention paying for internet/cable or furniture and other household items, in
fact, I wonder if people aren't doing that right now...

/s

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qwerta
Buy RV and park it in front of company... :-)

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thejbf
Directly reports to a VP and comments about the flatness of the company...
Hmm... I see hundreds and hundreds of VPs...

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michaelochurch
Acq-hired people are not going to be having the normal employee experience.

I would honestly rather have a $100k take-home but my employer pay $500k (i.e.
400k goes to charity) and think that's my salary, than a regular $150k. You
get treated better if you cost more. Your salary is what it costs your
employer to waste your time, so if you're at a high level, management actually
fucking listens to you. Taking a long-term career perspective, it's worth a
$50k/year drop to be in a situation where management feels like it can't
afford not to take your ideas seriously.

In fact, I think that's so many talented engineers quit the employee game and
become consultants in their 30s. Even if you're only able to get a few hours
of work per week, you at least know that your boss is going to take your
suggestions seriously.

Acq-hires are people bought in at a panic price ($1 million+ per engineer) so
management actually listens to them because of what they cost. Until the
"golden child" aura wears off and they're just regular employees.

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reid
I've been at Yahoo for 5 years as a Software Engineer.

This really is a new company under Marissa. I wasn't special, aqui-hired, or
anything. I now can easily access management when I need them, my suggestions
are taken seriously and acted on, and I get everything I need from upper
management to excel at what I do. My manager has always been great, but now
she is more empowered to get stuff done more than ever before.

I'm also 24, so I have a bit of a way to go before I get jaded and go into
consulting. Maybe. But I've also been working for 5 years instead of school,
which gives me a less than rosy perspective of life at a big company.

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chuhnk
Hey congratulations on doing that and thanks for shedding some light on things
inside. Sometimes I actually consider applying but the SRE jobs are a but
scarce in London.

Can you speak a bit more on your unique situation of before a software
engineer there since you were 19? Im quite curious what led to that.

