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Comment by qeorge | Hacker News Reader

Is it a foregone conclusion that others can't bring a baby to work?

My biz partner brought his newborn in for about 10 months - it was awesome. Given, we are a tiny company and they are Yahoo, but its not obvious to me that its impossible to work it out.

So I'm glad M. Meyer is doing so, I think that's kind of awesome. The kid will probably have a great time. Maybe there's a way to let others do it too.

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Where I work, it's perfectly acceptable for people to bring their children in. But it would be impossible for me to get anything done if I brought my two kids in, other than taking care of my kids while they're here. It's also disruptive to the other people here, so out of deference and sheer common sense I don't bring them in.

Other companies provide a day care service, which I hope becomes a bigger trend. Goldman Sachs has one that employees have a certain number of days that they're entitled to.

I too am glad that Marissa is doing this. She, like every parent I know, is trying to find a work-life balance, and she is in the privileged position of being able to do it her own way.

> ... But it would be impossible for me to get anything done if I brought my two kids in

The University of Houston has a day care that is operated by the Psychology Dept. It is very well regarded, and quite a nice perk for employees (except for its limited capacity). The center is housed in a separate building, so there are no uninvited disruptions, except the ones that are universal to every day care (injury / accident, etc.). It wouldn't be the sort of thing that a small shop could do, but a company the size of Yahoo! could put such a day care in (maybe they already have?), and potentially save the company and employees considerable time and money.

I can see that working at a very small company where all of the employees are good friends and spend a lot of time together.

But I'm hard pressed to think of anything that would make me leave a company faster than having all of my coworkers brats running around all day.

A lot of people feel uncomfortable having stranger's children around them.

A baby less than 10 months old does not "run around". Unless they're colicky or sick, very young babies are not hard to keep quiet: if they're crying they're either hungry, tired, under-stimulated, over-stimulated, hot or cold or otherwise uncomfortable. You identify the problem, fix it, and they stop crying. It may prevent you from working, but it shouldn't bother your coworkers. They should certainly be a lot less annoying than the guy next to you chatting on the telephone.

Between 10-18 months they start walking, start getting "opinionated", get a lot louder, stop napping continuously, and so on and would totally disrupt an office.

I'll take your word for it on babies less than 10 months old. But the CEO paid for a nursery to be built in her office, so there's a good chance she'll have him around the office for longer than just the first 10 months.

Now that I think about it more, the only situation where I would be okay with people bringing their kids to work whenever they wanted would be if everybody had private offices. If people's kids were locked in their offices with them 95% of the time, and I could close my door and keep them away the other 5% of the time, I wouldn't have any reason to be against it.

If people started bringing babies to work I wouldn't care too much about them making the worst sound known to man constantly when they are upset because I have spent hundreds of dollars on noise isolating earbuds to block out my already-annoying environment.

However if there were babies here I would kind of hate it. A lot. I would probably complain daily until either I get fired or they quit or they are forced to put their baby in a dumpster or wherever they put babies they dont' want to have around these days.

> "Is it a foregone conclusion that others can't bring a baby to work?"

That was also my thought but I looked at the original article too [1]. It seems that this is (currently) a perk that she made for herself (with her own money) and that the situation is unchanged for Yahoo employees.

"Yahoo ... offers the typical Dependent Day Care Flexible Spending Account, where staff can pay 'dependent care expenses, such as day care or after-school care, with pre-tax dollars.'"

Doesn't mean that it couldn't change for all employees, but I can imagine the costs would be significant.

[1] http://allthingsd.com/20130225/survey-says-despite-yahoo-ban...

Edit: I should state that I made an implicit assumption that this is a private/personal daycare facility near the Yahoo buildings.

Sounds like a typical daycare and the costs associated with that no?

The more I look into this story (albeit half-heartedly) the more confused I am.

I'm not clear on exactly where this nursery is. In the Yahoo office? A building next door? Private just for her kid or can anyone sign up?

However it's set up, this PR fallout seem obvious in hindsight (should be obvious in foresight too).

I'm a founder at a startup with four people in the office. I tried to bring my baby to work when he was three months, and got absolutely nothing done. I think he's happier in daycare anyway, he gets to have more fun there instead of me constantly trying to get him to be quiet so I can work.

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