Sandberg's message should resonate with women, men, and the companies - what message? That workers should stop working at 5:30 pm only when they become a billionaire and have children? Why didn't Sandberg have her current work ethic of stopping at 5:30 pm before she had children and a billion dollars? How did she view employees who did not want to work 24/7 before she had her own kids? article implies workers without children would be ineligible to stop at 5:30 pm?

Flexible scheduling is certainly acceptable, but it depends upon the nature of your work. Working from home can be justified for salary purposes and qualifies as 'work' if answering emails, consumes hours of your work day and can be done at home. On the other hand, Massachusetts' employees most often can not provide any explanation of their 'work' at home to justify the days they are not in the office. The same people neither claim 'sick time' or 'personal days' and accumulate hours of 'overtime' for the hours they claim they are working at home. The people who pull off this stunt are often the supervisors, managers, political appointees or the politically connected employees.

"It's the quality of your work that should define your success, not the precise amount of time you spend in the office." I wouldn't be surprised if, at this very moment, some Globe editor has a team of reporters stalking state or city workers so that tomorrow's edition can run a huge front page story about how government workers come to work a few minutes late or leave a few minutes early. "Surveys have shown that, while flexible scheduling is increasingly available, most employees don't take advantage because they fear career repercussions." Yes, and those repercussions frequently come from local news papers and television stations doing stories like the one I describe above.

Most of the other comments are very narrowly focused. I guess we all have our grudges to nurse. I personally use flex time and have for years. I am a mid-level manager at a large tech company. I will never be a VP and that is OK with me. Same thing for many of my colleagues who regularly use flex time and have family friendly schedules. Maybe the story about Ms. Sandberg demonstrates growth in her thinking - she has come to realize that work is not the only thing important in her life, and maybe that will help her realize the same is true for others. Some will say "sure, she changed her mind after making it to the top, what about the rest of us?" Be honest, people, most of us are never going to be in the upper echelons of companies like Google or Facebook. Doesn't mean we are failures because we spent more time with our families.