However, some people take SET/SDET roles as a way into a company, and hope to move to being a plain ol’ software developer shortly thereafter. In many cases, these people find themselves stuck and unable to make that transition.

How do you make that jump? Read more on Dice.com.

But, does Google prefer, on the margin, C++ over Java? Not really. Java is actually easier in some ways in that you won’t have to worry about memory management and pointers in an interview. On the other hand, you’re also unlikely to understand computer architecture as well if you don’t know C++.

»» Read more on Forbes.com

Here are some ideas of what sorts of questions you can ask — and what questions can actually make you look better.

»» Read more on Evisors.com

Sometimes though, the company calls you back with some slightly frustrating news: they want you to do another interview, usually on the phone.

What does it mean when a company wants you to come in for more interviews? There are a number of possibilities.

Because you bombed one interview.

Many candidates will immediately jump to this conclusion, analyzing that one question they think they struggled with and concluding that that is why.

It could be — you can’t rule out the possibility.

However, remember that it’s extremely difficult to understand after an interview how well you did on that interview. While you might have bombed one interview, it might not be the one you’re thinking of. It could just as well be the one you think you aced.

That said, it’s not particularly common for companies to bring you back because you bombed one interview but aced the other four. That would be enough reason for them to just overlook the one that you bombed. It’s more likely that you struggled on two interviews.

Because they didn’t probe one area well enough.

The company might feel that they didn’t ask sufficient questions on some topic: system design, object-oriented design, coding, etc.

This is unfortunate because it’s not at all your fault. However, that’s still not enough reason for a company to take a gamble and just assume you’re good enough. A company will often have you do another interview to get this information.

Because group dynamics suck.

Yep, this is a fairly common situation.

Imagine this scenario: the hiring committee is reviewing your interview and there’s a debate over whether or not to hire you. Each side can find data to support their conclusion. Fight, fight fight!

Then, someone says, “Why not have her do another interview?” Just like that, everyone is satisfied — or at least not too unsatisfied. Those who think you’re good think you’ll do well on this interview (and if not, then maybe it’s good that you aren’t hired). Those who think you’re bad think you’ll struggle on this interview.

And so, the decision is made: more interviews!

This isn’t a problem with interview decisions; it’s a problem with decisions by groups in general. Sometimes the path of least resistance is just to punt on the decision.

As a candidate, you want to believe that there’s a single uniform reason that explains why stuff happens: why your recruiter didn’t get back to you as early as she did your friend, why your lunch interviewer asked you a bunch of technical questions when your buddy wasn’t asked any, why your interviewer refused to tell you how you did, why you had three phone screens but your classmates had only two.

The truth is that interviews are just a bunch of people making decisions the best they can. There is some uniformity across a company, but there’s also a lot of randomness. Two people might act differently in equivalent situations; in fact, the same person might act differently in two equivalent situations. You can analyze why stuff happened a particular way, but don’t overlook the degree of random variation.

If you really want to know what’s going on, the best thing to do is to ask your recruiter.

On Dice.com, I discuss why technical interviews work, and why they don’t. Click to read more.

Many resumes that I see do precisely the opposite. They offer bullets like:

• Contributed to design documents on ________ feature and helped coordinate international expansion.
• Implemented various features for new Office layout tool.

Yawn.

I want to know what you accomplished. I don’t really care much about your team’s accomplishments. And, in many cases, I already know what your responsibilities were because I know your job title. If you were a developer, you probably wrote some code, did a little testing and maybe helped out with a few design docs.

How does a good resume read? Here are the first words of each bullet from a strong programmer resume I saw recently: …

» » Read the Rest on Dice.com: Here’s How to Make Your Resume Bullets Jump.

In the real, time-limited world, I can only respond to about 25% of the questions I get from people. If your goal is to get a response from me, then you’re shooting to “outperform” 75% of people. Here’s how you can maximize your odds of getting a response from me and other experts.

#1: Use the Appropriate Method (Usually Email)

Most professionals have some system for managing their messages, and it usually revolves around email. Using a social network like Quora, LinkedIn, or Facebook disrupts this system.

• The expert may never get notified about the message. They may have email notifications turned off or the email might be stuck in junk mail or filtered to another inbox.
• The email might get grouped with other messages on this social network and accidentally archived / deleted.
• The email subject isn’t indicative of the question. It’s usually just <New Message from _____>. Grr!
• Most professionals separate their personal and work email. When you send a message to an expert through a social network, you’re sending a message about professional stuff to someone’s personal email account. Grr! This means that the expert isn’t reading your message when they’re doing work (and it just frustrates people who try to keep these accounts separate).
• LinkedIn: I get a lot of LinkedIn requests from people I don’t know. The vast majority of them are just the default “____ wants to connect with you on LinkedIn.” You think I open up each request just to see if this random person I don’t know happened to include a message with their LinkedIn request? Nope. Never.
• Facebook: Facebook filters a lot of messages from strangers into your “Other Messages” folder where you don’t get a notification of any kind. Most people don’t even know that this folder exists. Even if they do, they still probably rarely check it.
• Quora: most of the messages I get on Quora should be Quora questions themselves. After all, you use Quora. You know that I use Quora. You’re asking me a question directly. Why isn’t this an actual Quora question which you can then invite me to answer?
• Twitter: Twitter is actually fine – even great – if it’s a short enough question to be asked and responded to on Twitter. If It’s a long question though, use email.

Ultimately, if you’re hoping they receive your social network message because of an email notification, why aren’t you just using email in the first place?

“But I don’t have their email address!”

Did you try Googling it? My email address is widely available online (on my blog among other places), and yet I still get a ton of messages from people saying that they used a Facebook / Quora / LinkedIn message because they “couldn’t find my email address.” Oh really?

#2: Say Something Nice / Do Something Nice

While I don’t try to take a quid pro quo approach to helping people, the reality is that it works. I’m more likely to help someone who appears sincere, friendly, and helpful. I rarely if ever ignore a message from someone who has posted an Amazon / Flipkart review (assuming I know that they have). I just feel bad doing that. This person took a few minutes to post a kind review, and I can’t spend a few minutes helping them out?

Even saying something nice is a good start. It shows that you took the time to do a little research and aren’t just spamming a bunch of people with the same question. And, hey, it makes people like you more. People are more likely to help you if they like you.

#3: Don’t Ask If You Can Ask Me A Question

If you send me a message that only says “Can I ask you a question?” (and doesn’t include the question itself), I’m not going to respond. Just ask the question you want to ask. Otherwise, you’re wasting both of our times and distracting from other work I have to do. You’ll be in the 75% of people who don’t get a response.

#4: Ask Specific Questions

Emails like, “How do I prepare for a Google interview?” are unlikely to get much of a response from me. I could literally write a book on this; in fact, I did! If I respond, I’m just going to point you to my book. I’m not trying to be unhelpful, but it’s a very broad question and this is the most useful resource I can point you to.

#5: Ask Non-Obvious Questions

If you ask me a question like, “What does Google ask in Software Engineering interviews?”, I’m just going to point you to CareerCup (if I respond at all). Again, I’m not trying to be unhelpful here. This is the most useful thing I can give you.

#6: Keep it Short (200 – 300 words max)

Long emails not only take longer to read, but they are usually rambling and provide too much detail. When I read these emails (often those are just archived immediately), I often have trouble understanding what exactly the question is.

If you really struggle with understanding what is necessary information and what isn’t, then write a concise note and put the additional details in the bottom of the email (after your signature).

#7: Keep It Professional

• Use good grammar and spelling. I’m not an unreasonable person. I don’t expect that non-native English speakers will suddenly be able to flawlessly speak perfect English. However, you can make an effort: write words fully (instead of using SMS abbreviations like “u”), punctuate a paragraph (mostly) correctly, etc. Here are some English tips that can very quickly and easily improve your grammar.
• Don’t use obnoxious fonts (Comic Sans, etc).
• Use paragraph breaks as appropriate. Long blocks of text are more difficult to read and understand. Sometimes, it’s even hard to understand what the question is.
• Don’t say anything inappropriate. Comments on a woman’s physical appearance is not okay in professional situations in the US. Ick. This is a surefire way to get me to not respond.

Again, I want to help you, but I can’t help everyone who needs it. Following these tips will save me time and effort, thus increasing the chances that I respond to your message.

And, hey, if I do respond to you and it helps you out (gets you the interview you want, helps you negotiate, etc), let me know! Building positive relationships is always a good thing.

When you dig beneath the surface, you find that Amanda’s stories aren’t nearly so bad as they seem. In fact, Adria comes off as, on the whole, quite reasonable — despite the initial bully depiction.

Backstory: At PyCon, a python developers conference which purports to have a relatively large percentage of women (only 20% still), two guys made some jokes to each other laced with sexual innuendos (something about the word “dongle”). Adria Richards, a Developer Evangelist, was bothered by these comments and took some a picture of them. She then reported it via Twitter (with their picture) and asked PyCon staff to speak to the men, which they did. Then, she followed up with a blog post. As a result, one of the two men was fired. The internet got mad and then Adria was fired.

Before I go on, let me be clear here: Amanda Blum also made a number of points in her post which I agree with, and which I think everyone should take heed of. Whether or not what Adria did at PyCon was wrong (and the vast majority of us believe it was), the reaction towards her was ugly, disgusting, and morally wrong. So Amanda, if you’re reading this, I do support the main point of your article: this treatment was not okay. I also understand why you don’t like Adria. It’s frustrating when you’re trying to do something that you think is perfectly okay, and someone is accusing you of endorsing sexism.

With all that said, I disagree with the depiction of Adria as “a bully who uses these instances to her personal gain, driving traffic to her blog.” The only stories that people have cited in building a pattern of behavior from Adria is PyCon and Amanda’s stories. If this is such a pattern, where is everyone else with their “Adria Is Crazy” stories?

The Alleged “Pattern of Behavior”

Amanda cites two interactions with Adria:

#1: Adria was offended by a talk titled “Getting the Money Shot” that did, in the abstract itself, state “how thinking like a porn director will help you achieve the ‘money shot.’” 

Here’s Amanda’s take:

She’d never told us she was offended, she’d never told Danielle- she told her podcasting audience and blog readers that we were promoting porn.  In the end, after great drama, she attended and deep sixed her talk, instead lecturing the attendees about how porn wasn’t acceptable at conferences [emphasis mine]. The beginners in her class were less than amused and ultimately, deprived of the opportunity to learn from her.

I personally wouldn’t really much care myself, but Adria’s right. This is a direct porn reference and doesn’t belong at a technical conference. Porn is deeply offensive to many groups of people on religious as well as gender grounds (and just I-think-it’s-morally-wrong-and-vile grounds). This is just not a “don’t talk about sex at a tech conference” issue. Many people feel that porn is inherently evil — exploitative, damaging, etc. I may not agree with that, you may not agree with that, but a lot of people do. It’s just too offensive to be a “fun / joke” addition to a tech conference.

So here’s what happened:

1. Adria mentioned on her podcast that she wouldn’t be attending the conference if that talk made it in. It was still being voted on, so she hadn’t reached out to the conference organizers. Because, you know, why raise a fuss about it if the talk isn’t necessarily happening anyway? (The reason that she mentioned it on her podcast was that she was explaining to her listeners that she was planning on attending but was having second thoughts.)
2. Amanda found out what happened on the show and reached out to Adria.
3. Adria explained in an email why she was offended to Amanda: What’s Wrong With Using Sex In Tech Conference Presentations?
4. Amanda responded, frankly, pretty rudely and aggressively to Adria. Read the emails between them. Adria comes out looking much more level-headed. Amanda did not treat Adria with respect. Amanda tells Adria (who, by the way, is a speaker at this conference and usually we treat our speakers a bit more nicely) that she’s “overreacting”, “exaggerating”, and that the talk is “obviously not about porn” (apparently, despite the title and abstract referencing porn, it’s “obviously not about porn”). Amanda then basically lectures Adria to “reach out in a far less volatile way” next time.
5. Later, after these emails had been exchanged, Adria blogged about the situation. In the blog post, Adria even admitted that she made a mistake in mentioning it on her podcast prior to talking with the organizers, and apologized for doing so.
6. Adria added in one slide at the very end (slide 27, after her contact info) of the her talk about porn + tech conferences. Personally, I wouldn’t describe inserting one slide at the very end (particularly after contact info) as “deep sixing” a talk and depriving people of an opportunity to learn from her.

Amanda colors the situation as Adria overreacting and handling it poorly. When you read about what actually happened, you come out with a somewhat different impression.

Porn is too offensive to many people to be in a technical talk. While Adria perhaps shouldn’t have mentioned the issue in her podcast prior to discussing the issue with the organizers, this was not entirely unreasonable either. The topics were still being voted on publicly, and she was no longer sure that she would be attending.

Amanda’s reaction, on the other hand, was quite rude and aggressive. This is not the way that I would handle an interaction with a conference speaker if I were organizing a conference.

#2. Adria was offended by a spoof of an XKCD shirt that she felt painted women poorly.

The way Amanda tells the story (and I’m not saying she had ill-intent here; just that the story was a bit vague in key points), it appears at first that the conference just took an existing XKCD comic and then Adria got offended. According to Amanda, Adria “made the situation immediately public and rallied her troops.”

Is this what happened? Not exactly.

First of all, the comic used was a spoof of an XKCD comic — it was not the exact comic. I don’t think Amanda was trying to mislead people here. However, someone could easily read her blog post and think that they just borrowed an existing XKCD comic, when in fact they changed it in important ways.

Second, whereas the original XKCD comic painted one woman to be smart and the other one to be neutral intelligence-wise, this t-shirt comic paints both women to be stupid. Again, not something I would be especially bothered by, but I can see Adria’s point here. You have a technical(ish) conference where the t-shirt graphic portrays dumb women. This is probably not a good idea.

The original XKCD comic: two women, one of whom is smart (the other’s intelligence is not referenced).

The t-shirt graphic. Both women (or at least one) are portrayed as stupid.

Third, Amanda says that Adria “made the situation immediately public.” Based on the links Amanda provided as reference, this is a pretty significant exaggeration. Adria commented on a blog entry announcing the shirts by the person in charge of the shirts calmly and clearly expressing her objection to the shirts. Is this not a perfectly appropriate place to raise an objection to the shirt? I would have thought so.

Fourth, Amanda says that Adria “rallied the troops.” I’m not sure what Amanda means by that, but I see absolutely no indication of that having happened. No one on the blog commented agreeing with Adria. So, if Adria “rallied the troops,” she apparently didn’t point them to the blog post about the t-shirt (wouldn’t that be the first place you’ve point the troops? Surely at least some of the troops would comment?). And Amanda didn’t provide any links or description about how Adria “rallied the troops.”

Fifth, Adria was not aggressive at all in raising the objection to the shirts. She calmly and clearly articulated why she objected to the shirts. She was, in fact, perfectly respectful in raising this issue. However, the response to Adria (by the t-shirt creator, not Amanda) was pretty aggressive towards her.

So, what was this pattern of behavior of Adria’s?

On the whole, in the two instances that Amanda points to, Adria comes off looking pretty bad… but only if you don’t look too hard.

When you drill into the details of the situation, however, you find that Adria was, on the whole, fairly reasonable in both situations. You could still say she was “overly alert” to sexism in these cases, I suppose, but this is not such a terrible thing. In both cases, she had valid points. Porn is too offensive to many people to be in a technical conference, and the XKCD-shirts do paint women to be stupid. Both objections are perfectly valid to raise.

Moreover, Adria responded to both situations in a fairly reasonable way. She was not overly aggressive or hostile. Rather, she explained her objections clearly and fairly. (I cannot say the same thing of the conference organizers.)

Amanda alleged a pattern behavior which, frankly, isn’t backed up in the post (at least not once you get past the high-level summary). And, interestingly, I also have yet to see someone else write up a similar set of issues. In fact, everything I see about people who have worked with her is fairly positive. Maybe there are a bunch of other stories lurking in the background, but I haven’t seen them: not from Amanda and not from other people.

Regardless, whether Adria has a pattern of behavior like at PyCon, it does not justify how the angry mobs of the internet handled it. We should speak up and have rational discussions about these issues; that is valuable. It is perfectly okay to object to how Adria handled the situation.

What is never okay, even for far worse “crimes” than this, are: rape threats, death threats, racial slurs, sexist slurs, DDOSing and basically blackmailing her company, calling her fat and ugly, and such behavior. Even if you somehow (bizarrely) think that once someone is “guilty” of wrongdoing how they are treated doesn’t matter, other groups – black people, women, etc — are affected by this treatment too.

It was not okay here and it is never okay.

Backstory: At PyCon, a python developers conference which purports to have a relatively large percentage of women (only 20% still), two guys made some jokes to each other laced with sexual innuendos (something about the word “dongle”). Adria Richards, a Developer Evangelist, was bothered by these comments and took some a picture of them. She then reported it via Twitter (with their picture) and asked PyCon staff to speak to the men, which they did. Then, she followed up with a blog post. As a result, one of the two men was fired. The internet got mad and then Adria was fired.

Okay, look, some guys made some immature jokes. They were not harassing her or other women directly, but the comments did bother Adria for whatever reason.

• Conclusion: Everyone, including these guys, should probably be more mindful of their words in public. This is especially true when using sexual language in a context where women have been traditionally discriminated against. It’s likely to make some people feel uncomfortable.

Adria, then, took a picture of the guys and posted it to Twitter, asking PyCon staff to look into it. She followed up with a blog post, re-posting the picture and explaining what happened.

• Conclusion: She shouldn’t have done that. The embarrassment / impact to these guys is disproportionate with their actions. However, we do need to look at her actions in context.
• An analogy: Imagine the nerd who gets picked on by his classmates everyday. One day, someone makes a comment. It’s not even that bad of a comment, particularly in comparison with the other comments he hears. But he’s had enough and he lashes out and he punches the “bully.”Is he right to punch him? No, of course not. But, at the same time, I think we can all have a little bit of sympathy for the nerd here. (In fact, I’ve seen a number of YouTube videos “celebrating” the nerd who did just that.)
• The Context: She’s a woman in tech who puts up with a lot of sexist / sexual comments. And I do mean “puts up with.” Like the rest of us, she virtually never says anything. Finally, one day, she got sick of it and took a stand. This “stand” was, admittedly, disproportionate with the actions the guys took, and that’s unfortunate. It doesn’t make what she did totally okay. However, it’s worth taking into account that this was her reaction to a pattern of behavior she witnesses; it was certainly not a pattern of her behavior to do this.

Of the two guys, one was fired.

• Conclusion: This was stupid, and I don’t understand why he was fired. He was not facing a negative backlash, nor was his company. Maybe his company felt that making some silly sexual jokes was enough to justify firing him, but again, that’s stupid…. unless there’s more to the story — i.e., he was really being fired for something, and this was just a convenient excuse.

People got all riled up about what Adria did. Then, Adria was fired.

• Conclusion: Okay, I get it. Adria is a Developer Evangelist, and developers are not exactly loving her right now. I understand her company deciding to do some damage control and fire her, particularly given her role.At the same time, no, I don’t think it was appropriate for the company to fire her. In doing so, they’re sending a message: We don’t care how many times you’ve put up with sexism. Speak up in the wrong way once, and that’s it.It’s like the school expelling the nerd who lashed out and punched the bully, and failing to understand that the nerd has sat their quietly taking this abuse, every prior time.

  How comfortable do you think other women and minorities will feel speaking up about sexism? Remember: if you publicly name the person who you feel mistreated you, you’ll get fired. If you speak up in a way people think is overreacting, you’ll get fired. I’d sure think twice (not that I don’t already!).

Seriously, everyone just needs to calm down here.

• To the guys: think twice next time about what you say, but I think you already know that.
• To Adria Richards: I sympathize with your position, but you made an example out of two guys who didn’t deserve all that. Please do talk to staff about inappropriate comments, and have them talk to the offenders. Please do tweet and blog about sexism you see. More of us need to do that. But before naming someone publicly, really think about if they deserve the backlash that they may face. Remember that if all people know about someone is one action, they’ll assume that one action is representative. It’s not fair to those guys. (Nor is it fair how people are treating you.)
• To the guy’s company: If the whole reason you fired this guy was his actions here, you screwed up. I just don’t get why you fired him. You really didn’t need to protect yourself from bad PR here, because there really was none. And, frankly, it doesn’t reflect well on you that you were so desperate to cover your own butts that you were willing to penalize someone who’s relatively innocent. Next time, at least wait a few days and see how the story develops.
• To Adria’s company: Like I said, I get why you fired her. She’s a Developer Evangelist who just pissed off a whole lot of developers. You wanted to distance yourself from her. I get it.Unfortunately, your actions here have repercussions for women and other minorities in tech and at your company.Next time, distance yourself in a way that doesn’t penalize her so harshly. Why not post a notice like this?
  

  We are sympathetic to Adria’s concerns, and understand that the comments she overheard made her uncomfortable. Her feelings are valid and she is fully entitled to them. We also understand that, as a woman in tech, this is only one of many sexist / sexual comments she hears on a regular basis. Her actions must be taken under that context.

  We have spoken with Adria at length about this incident. We do not support her posting a picture of the two men publicly, and we are very sorry that this resulted in one of those two men being fired. (If you’re open to considering our company, the entire SendGrid team — including Adria — would welcome your application.)

  However, her actions were hers and hers alone. She stands behind them, although we do not. We understand that there can be many, equally valid views on this matter, and we also understand that employees should be allowed to have different opinions from their employees. We do not feel that one misstep should necessarily terminate someone’s career — and that goes for all parties in this matter.

  Thus, although we do not support Adria’s exposing the men in this way, we do respect that employees must be given some latitude to act as they feel is appropriate. This is a tough issue on both sides, and there are no easy answers for how to deal with sexism and related issues. A single action does not speak for a person’s entire life and one person does not speak for an entire company.

  Regardless of the merits of this situation, Adria has been a strong advocate of developers. We look forward to her continuing to do great work for our company, and we hope the tech community can move on and learn from this incident.

  See that? You can distance yourself from her actions without sending a terrible message to women and minorities.

Frankly, I’m sick of seeing people — developers, politicians, etc — fired for one mistake. How many of us are so perfect that nothing we say or do could ever, if blasted all over the media, reflect quite poorly on us?

Interestingly, when I hear reports from people who work at Yahoo!, they’re almost invariably positive about this change. Some excerpts from a Quora question about this:

#1: I have been at Yahoo for four years and let’s just say the house needed and still needs a lot of cleaning up and Marissa is doing just that. So I am glad that the change in policy was made.

#2: Another current and longterm Yahoo developer here, who is extremely happy that the WFH shenanigans are being put to an end.  I too have seen this abused far too often, although IMO it’s usually not by full time WFH, but more often the San Francisco city dweller who just happens to spend two, sometimes three, days of the week working from his house because “the commute to Sunnyvale is too tiring”.  Hey, clue people.. nobody made you live in San Francisco.

#3: from the perspective of my time there this is a much needed policy. I saw many people abuse the work at home policy. In fact it was a running joke that a large percentage of employees basically did no work on Fridays.

#4: I think its a great thing for the company. I have been at Yahoo! for 5 years and Marissa is doing a much needed house cleaning. There is still some good talent here but we need all hands on deck and thoses who are not team players can just bow out.

#5: I personally am very happy with not being allowed to work from home. And to be honest, my family loves me more since I started leaving my work at work. Most of my other colleagues too are very happy.

These aren’t just choice excerpts. There are five responses from Yahoo! employees about this change; all five are positive. When I read comments in news articles about this policy from Yahoo! employees, they are also almost universally positive. As far as I can see, the people who hate this change are the people who don’t even work there.

Regardless of how you might personally feel about working from home for you or your company, it didn’t seem to be working for Yahoo!.

But haven’t studies shown that telecommuting is a good thing?

Quite simply: no.

The “studies” people cite on this is really just one study that showed a 13% productivity gain. Before you get all excited, realize the following:

1. This study was done in China, not the US. China and the US have very different work cultures with very different approaches to collaboration, management, and company culture. The results from one country do not necessarily apply to the other.
2. This study was conducted on call-center employees. The results of this cannot be applied to many or most other jobs.
   (a) Call-center employees have little need for collaboration. Most of the work is solitary, and thus team work won’t be impacted.
   (b) Call-center employee productivity is easily measured. If someone is slacking off, it’s obvious.
   (c) Call-center work is pushed out to employees; they aren’t volunteering to take on projects, which they then work through at their own pace.
   In other words, it’s a lot easier to be productive at home as a call-center employee than it is as, for example, a software developer.
3. The productive gain was 13% — significant, but not enormous. And, the vast majority of that productivity again is due to a reduction in sick days. In other words, the vast majority of the gain could have been achieved by just allowing employees to work from home when they’re sick.

This is no big surprise from me. When I talked to friends and colleagues at tech companies, almost everyone admits that they aren’t very productive when they work from home.

This doesn’t mean that telecommuting doesn’t work for anyone or for any companies. Some people have found ways that it works well for them. Some companies have been able to set up very effective distributed work environment (of course, I’ve only heard of this being done effectively for certain roles or for very small companies). I’m sure it can work for some people, but it’s not the norm.

Ultimately, regardless of what studies reveal, every company is different and it’s Marissa Mayer’s responsibility as CEO to make the decisions that are best for her company. She isn’t making the decision willy-nilly. She’s been with Yahoo for long enough to understand whether or not it’s working for the company. If she’s decided that it’s not working for Yahoo!, she’s probably right. And, she’s given the telecommuting employees four months to comply with the new policy; this is hardly extreme or unfair.