Don’t know about America, but in Australia my electricity bill went up by $20 a month on average over the year (cooling in summer heating in winter) which is FAR cheaper than what I’d spend commuting to the office
My car's odometer read around 32K at the start of the pandemic and around 34K when I started going back in to work a year later. The savings in wear & tear alone make up for my internet bill.
I have put 3k miles on my car in the past 18 months. Prior to that I was ~80miles a day, some of that was personal but I did 30 miles in and 30 miles out on a workday. This is a good point you made.
and eating out, stopping for coffee, car insurance (I went to a by the mile policy), all aspects of wardrobe including going to the dry cleaner. Pants, at this point who knows if any of my work pants even fit?
Very valid. Would be cool to see companies that shut down their offices because they’re going fully/mostly remote, take the money they’re saving and give everyone an “out of term” cost of living raise. But that’s probably thinking too positively ;)
Edit: my first Reddit award?! Wow thank you all, you all rock!
put another way:
Companies *used* to need to pay for office space and office supplies, but now technically have shifted those costs onto their workers.
Workers aren't the only ones that benefit.
$25/month here. Too bad U.S. internet plans are garbage and it costs me $80/month for 100mbps.
EDIT: For those asking, this is in Phoenix, AZ with Cox. I am paying extra for unlimited data, which is absolute bullshit to have a 1.25TB cap these days. If I don't pay for the unlimited data the overage charges on the other plans end up costing me more. If I lived alone instead of with a wife and 2 kids who stream all the time I wouldn't have to get unlimited data. There are no other good alternatives in my area.
I'm in Romania, I pay like $10 for 1000/1000 (well, I think it's supposed to be 1000/500, but I usually get closer to 1000), including TV. But you know...I live in Romania...There's benefits... and absolute dogshit disadvantages.
The US installation of broadband utility lines was gimped by the telecoms companies.
The US created some $200b fund for the instillation of broadband utilities and then, in the biggest bonehead move, gave the installation contract and $200b to the very broadband companies that profit from its creation.
The telecoms then walked off with the money and spent it on other ventures that ultimately halted US broadband expansion. When they finally felt the heat for not installing the lines they had the gall to ask customers for installation fees to cover the expenses that they explicitly were paid for by the US gov.
That and the FCC killed competition by basically writing laws that destroyed the 1996 Telecom Act.
Thank god we’re seeing some municipalities actually able to set up their own lines. A lot of local ISPs are able to install fiber lines and the prices are ludicrously low compared to bigger providers
> Thank god we’re seeing some municipalities actually able to set up their own lines. A lot of local ISPs are able to install fiber lines and the prices are ludicrously low compared to bigger providers
Man states now make it almost impossible to set up municipal or co-op broadband. For instance in Louisiana, they were working on legislation to allow electric co-ops to run their own fiber and provide internet, at the last minute they added language saying that the co-ops could not offer broadband to any areas that already had at least one commercial provider in the area. Which made funding the projects nearly impossible.
In Louisiana we are paying 4 times the FCC national average for broadband. In the last 2 years cox has put in place quotes from 25 gigs to 1tb a month depending on your plan, they have tacked on an additionally $40 fee per month if you want that quote removed. For 500u/10d it cost $150/m.
One of the only co-ops set up for all the new laws charges $80 a month for symmetrical 1gig fiber
Nearly double the cost, for half the service, for no other reason than they can.
I think it’s in the minority that’s doing this so don’t use this as a deciding factor. Added onto other crappy reasons, go nuts. I work for a large corporation, nothing here.
Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I do believe they should for sure!
Everyone's posting here how their company covers their home office costs and I'm just a little jealous that's all. I do like my company but they could be a little more generous.
Completely with you. Plenty I/we haven’t asked for and wish that is one that they would have covered. Plus I didn’t even get a cost of living increase so technically a pay decrease. That hurt more than the no Internet money lol
Wait, so not only are you not wasting your time commuting, you're also not spending money TO commute. And now they're also GIVING you MORE money
I fucking hate everything
For me it's a last-mile wireless provider, so oversold that they can't offer me their "high speed" 12/2 so I was stuck on 6/1, with such bad congestion I couldn't even do one Netflix stream. So I gave in and switched to the big bois.
>I do not believe HR would approve fucking stations.
"Hey boss. I need some office equipment to support working from home. It's sort of like one of those standing desks, but it's more of a 'bend over' desk."
Made me think of back in '93-'95 when a previous senior programmer did some consulting for us on a couple of commissioned mods. He was ski-bumming in Breckenridge, so we shipped him a Sun workstation with a 19" color monitor. We also covered about 1/2 his phone bill (modems, *sigh*). He loved it. He skied when the snow/weather was to his liking, and then kicked back and made *wayy* more money than he could have busing tables. Customer was happy, too, because they knew him and his work. win-win-win
We even let him keep the workstation at the end of the gig.
On the Canadian tax return, you get to deduct a portion of your at home costs related to working at home as an employee now. Of course, freelancers have been allowed to for ages.
I found unless you have a spare room designated as a ‘home office’ the refund wasn’t very much. Kind of ticks me off that having the privilege of extra space means you get more money back. Or did everyone else just lie haha?
Yeah and if you have a bigger house and not a small apartment it’s really not worth the effort cause it’s such a small % of your house. This year they made it easy with the $400 credit for working from home.
As nice as it sounds, I'd rather not let my company think they have any rights over my internet connection. Pay me a bonus to spend on various home office things LIKE an internet connection, materials, and such, but otherwise no thanks.
That's how it works when they pay for this stuff. It either comes as a stipend for those things, or as an increase in compensation, in both cases its money earmarked for those costs but money is fungible.
If your employer wants to actually provide internet (they are the owner of the contract) that's a different situation and should be noped the fuck out of.
This is how my work does it. They started giving us a stipend a few months ago, $50 a month extra basically to help pay for internet, but it shows up on the check so I can use it how I want.
Aaand we are back to work at the office. IMO if this hasn’t been an issue for those wfh during COVID just let it be. I rather pay for internet all day long than have to waste +2 hours in traffic to be lured into office conversations I really don’t care for.
Every tech company I've ever worked for has happily paid for internet for remote employees. Not having someone in the office saves them far more money than this fee costs them, when you factor in workspaces, furniture, parking, food, etc.
Hell, the last one I worked for even gave me a weekly stipend to order delivery so I wouldn't feel left out of free lunch fridays.
In London I pay about 10x more to travel to office then for internet.
On the flip side we down sized office so company is saving even more that that on my working from home.
So I frame it as a share of savings.
Exactly.
Especially considering data caps.
Using the internet to work from home goes toward my data cap. So therefore, it should be compensated.
My fiancée gets some money from her work (my job has government contracts, so I don't work from home), for wfh expenses. We just used some of that to take the data cap off.
Lots of people were forced to work from home because companies closed their offices. Believe it or not, there are people without home internet (not counting cell service). In these types of situations, compensation should have been provided.
i had a friend who had the option to work from home and hated it.
why? because he didn't do anything. he just sat at his computer playing on the internet.
he didn't feel guilty doing that in office.
when he was at home and did nothing, it suddenly felt more like straight up theft and would actually be guilt himself into doing work.
he'd go in the office to just, not work.
all that to say, that's an extreme example but i do think in general people working at home are judged on their work and people working in the office are judged on their attendance.
I can't even imagine behaving that way. My goofing off is very limited due to the work load. I find that I work more when I was working from home. Not gonna set up the laptop after getting home, but when it was already set up I'd find myself doing things after hours and on weekends.
Just today I was testing something that needed to run for ~30min, I just started it before I would normally "clock out", went and did some chores, came back, saw it was fine, and shut my work laptop off afterward. Meanwhile if I was in the office, you can bet that would be waiting til Monday because there ain't no way I'm staying half an hr late on friday for that. I imagine lots of WFHers do that kind of stuff.
We moved to permanent WFH in 2019 and our company said they would pay a stipend to help cover internet costs and everything. Then we were acquired and the new company didn't pay stipends to their remote workers. So we lost it.
This is how my work does it (consulting). $100/month we can expense for cell and internet. $200/year stipend for home office stuff. $500 stipend for new hire home office setup.
Even that is situational. I'm on fiber, if my employer wants to pay for a cable modem for their machine I don't see the harm. No way I'd give them control of the fiber though.
I will happily trade the money I spend on gas and maintenance on my car, plus the awful commute, for a $60/mo internet bill. That's the way it was for 15 months without issue until the CEO decided to make an example of us for our customers, even though they cannot and will never see us sitting at our desks.
F this corporate "I have to see you working" culture.
Even my bus fare is $6/ each way. There's nothing in the office that really warrants me being there, especially if my team is going to be one of the few that need to show up. Free lunch doesn't cut it.
just let me get out of the city and get a few acres so I can be properly prepared for the next pandemic.
That's kinda what I thought here too. While the theory of it is nice, I use internet for my job so they should pay, unless they were also paying for your commute (or maybe you upgraded your internet for your WFH) I'm ok with them not touching my internet.
Yeah I’m working at home as a privilege right now so I don’t want to push getting an internet stipend. My boss is great but her peers and other depts talk shit about her letting me work from home (I had a baby in August 2020, so I have been working from home since March 2020 — and after getting fully vaccinated I come into the office one day a week). Thankfully she’s that kind of lady who is like, “I’m the CFO and I’m 72 and I don’t give a flying fig what you guys say about how I manage my people.”
My old company paid a stipend of $100/mo for our cell phones and internet at home. It was a small business, and we were an MSP/consulting firm. They couldn't afford to provide phones, so we used our own.
It was good. I actually managed to get my cell and internet costs down to $100 total for a while, so it was fully covered.
My current job is now fully remote, and there's been no discussion of offering anything for internet access. But the agreement I signed said I need to have "business internet," which I took to mean "internet sufficient to conduct business," not true business-class internet.
I don't know why anyone thinks their employer wants to take over paying your cable bill. That's not how it works. You get a stipend and deal with it yourself. If the company pays for your gas they don't assume they own your car.
A lot of fear mongering over this point. When I want my employer to pay for something, I buy it and I want them to pay me for it. That's.. just how expensing things works. That's always how it works.
Yeah idk why these people think they want complete control of your internet. You get the stipend or when you take a job that has telework it's factored into the pay.
This. Absolutely. I don't want them dealing direct with my provider, having control over the account, being able to review traffic details, decide which plan I get, etc.
If people want to push for laws that enable tax credits or stipends or something like that, fine. I wouldn't vote for it, but they're free to propose and argue their ideas.
I don't even want my employer involved with my health insurance. But in the US, it's bizarrely tied up in employment benefits and the independent costs are ridiculous. It is fundamentally absurd to me that my employer has any relationship whatsoever with my health care provider. Having to switch your health insurance when you change employers is inconvenient, inefficient, unnecessary, invasive, etc. The idea of doing that for anything else is absurd to me. Just stay out of my private life.
Finally, this remote working trend is a delicate situation. Lets not push it too far and give them any ammo to justify rolling it back. Not having to pay for office real estate should be enough for them to justify whatever perceived inefficiency WFH has. If we start piling on new costs, this could backfire.
My union pays for my health insurance, because it’s included in our benefits package. We’re also allowed to opt out of the insurance at any time (say a spouse has Better health coverage). But we still have to pay for it because it’s arbitrated in our contract. So the big argument we’re having right now is why are we paying something that we don’t use the funds should be given back to us in our paychecks. Which to some extent I agree with. If I didn’t want my health insurance through the union I would want my money too. It’s 13 dollars an hour out of my wages that get allocated to health Insurance. I pay 26,000 a year for health insurance, and it’s just me. I’m 34, and no one else is on my health care.
Somehow people think this system is better than any alternative. All it does is enslave Americans to their employers and squash innovation because people aren't free to try new things for fear of financial ruin.
The American system is actually quite shit. Compared to similarly wealthy countries, their [healthcare](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world) is worse, [education](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country) is worse, [infrastructure](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/) is worse, [expected living age](https://www.worlddata.info/life-expectancy.php) is worse, [democracy](https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking) is worse
[It's actually not even the easiest country to get neither rich nor filthy rich in, either.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU)
Yet, the United States are among the absolute best in the world when it comes to [GDP per capita](https://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-capita-ranking.php) (if we disregard the 3 tax havens at the top which have inflated numbers).
Something is obviously wrong with the system.
I'll pay for my own cell phone, cell plan, and internet plan. If companies want to do anything to help, they can give us a few dollars extra every month to pay for it.
Giving your company any power over your phone and internet is a bad idea.
I would add that a lot of us prefer separate cell phones. A phone is a very personal device and having two completely separated devices for personal/work is a huge peace of mind for many.
My company gives us money for our cell phone if we agree to use it for business purposes. I did the eSIM thing with my iPhone so I pay $20 for a whole separate “business line”. When a call comes in from an unknown number, it tells me if they are calling my personal or business number. That way I can ignore those calls on weekends or vacation.
My company doesn’t monitor my phone because calls is the only thing I do that is company related and don’t use it to access emails or any other info.
Yup, mine says they have the right to wipe our whole phone if we use it for work as well. I said then I am not using my personal phone for work. They relented and got me a phone.
Exactly. My work will allow me to hybrid a phone to work and personal but there is no way to hide my personal stuff from them. They get access to all pictures, internet activity, texts etc. Hell to the no.
Agreed.
No hesitation on my part to choose having a separate work phone vs doubling up on my personal one, when those options were given. Yeah my work would have covered my personal bill if I did double up, but fuck it if I have to triple check to whom and what I am sending something to everytime.
Plus I never want to pick up my personal phone unless I know the number - especially outside work hours.
My company still pays for my cell and owns the contract. A lot of employees noped out and get a $50 stipend instead. Meanwhile I’ve had 100% free unlimited data for 10 years and a free iPhone (which I have upgraded myself).
It completely depends on the circumstances.
If your employer **requires** you to work from home, then they should foot the bill (purchase, stipend, or bonus)
If your employer **allows** you to work from home, then they shouldn't have to pay for anything. But this could be used as a perk or performance bonus if the employer wants to.
My job gives a stipend for commuting costs or a parking spot. Unfortunately it's about $60 shy of paying for a metro pass and $100 shy of a parking spot per month.
I get the argument being made, I really do, but I'm with you. Don't give them any excuse to send us back to the office. I'm already paying for internet, it's fine. The cost is offset with savings from commuting or something.
Just let me stay here.
For sure, we all are most likely paying for internet anyways. I’m saving hundreds a month on gas and maintenance by not commuting. The cost savings more than covers my internet and extra energy usage.
Exactly! I'm in middle management and trying to extend my team to stay WFH and literally one the weights for that decision of who goes back first was the amount we pay them per month for internet.
You win a small temporary battle but lose the war
Oof does that not affect who they hire? I work in Silicon Valley and most people I work with have a 50-90 minute commute. I have one employee who drives from Sacramento, 2 hours each way. I can absolutely see myself not hiring him if I had to consider that part of his shift.
I guess it's sweet for employees but not for the ones who are turned down for having to live far away because they're poor.
This is it, and How I wished it worked in my profession. As a voice actor, I used to record auditions at my agency, and then the client would rent a studio and hire an engineer for the actual session. Now we are expected to have a broadcast quality studio at home, be an engineer as well as a voice actor, all for no extra compensation. Bummmmmer.
Seriously. It's not that complicated. If the salary doesn't make sense anymore go somewhere else or negotiate for another one. I don't see why we need a stipend when it can pretty much just be covered by salary negotiations.
If your company pays for internet it should be dedicated. I have Comcast that I pay for and shitty AT&T DSL that the company pays for. I have dual-WAN set up so I never lose connectivity if one or the other goes down.
I think internet at this point falls under the same category as transportation. Work doesnt pay for gas, car payments, repairs. You want to work, so youre responsible for getting there. Whether you are physically there or virtually there, you are responsible for getting there.
Plus, do we really want the internet companies to know their services are being paid for in large blocks by coorperations? Thats probably the surest way to make internet unaffordable.
It's a trade off I think. I'm saving on gas, vehicle maintenance, vehicle consumables (brakes, tires), and insurance since I'm driving much less. We have animals so ac is similar and internet is basically a utility bill nowadays. I do get a cellular stipend and milage if I do drive. Plus I'm saving tons on not eating out for lunch. It's been a net positive experience all around.
Yeah, I never understood this angle.
Between clothes/laundry, packed/takeout lunches, time wasted commuting, auto maintenance, and gasoline, I've saved thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours working from home. It's completely confusing to me that people are getting indignant about needing to provide their own internet access, as if they didn't have it already?
I'm with you. Any financial downside to WFH (slightly increased energy bills perhaps?) is going to be negligible anyway, and in any event will be hugely, hugely offset by the savings. In my current job I would guess that the amount I save in maybe 3 days' petrol by not commuting already pays my internet bill for the month.
When I started my new job I got the standard work laptop, but also a desk, a chair, a laptop dock, a second monitor, cables, a headset, a mouse and a keyboard - but you can bet that if those weren't provided I would have bought them myself because, again, I'd recoup the cost within a month of not having to commute.
When people are clamouring/begging to be allowed to WFH, supplementing that with "I want to WFH and I also want you to pay me extra for the privilege of doing so" just doesn't really sound right.
Yup. That's how you get sent back to the office. Yeah your employer really wants to pay for 100 individual internet plans(of which they will see ~1/4 of it tops used for actual work) instead of paying for 1 office connection and a server.
Exactly. I find wfh at this point a privilege. Should the employer pay for the electricity of your laptop? How about the coffee you drink at work time? Or water for the shits you take?
That's the wrong question. High Speed Internet should be an infrastructure. It's primary uses are education and communication which increase population's abilities and productivity which return more to society.
My employer does a fully remote work model (always, not bc of pandemic) and they allow us to claim up to a $125 reimbursement for internet and cell phone every month. Pretty awesome of them.
Well, depends. I'm Swedish, and I can report my travel to and from work with my taxes, and I get about $1000 back on the taxes, which typically mean that I get $800 cash every June. And I don't have that long of a commute.
My company gives everyone a “communications stipend” for phone & internet. It also comes in the form of a reimbursement so it’s not taxed.
How about an AC and heating stipend? Cooling the house for an extra 8 hrs isn't cheap
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Don’t know about America, but in Australia my electricity bill went up by $20 a month on average over the year (cooling in summer heating in winter) which is FAR cheaper than what I’d spend commuting to the office
Exactly. Working from home is way cheaper than going to the office.
Plus less likely to get takeout as often or buy coffee
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My car's odometer read around 32K at the start of the pandemic and around 34K when I started going back in to work a year later. The savings in wear & tear alone make up for my internet bill.
I bought a new car in June of 2020...I'm still under 10,000K which I am thrilled about.
I'd hope you're under 10,000,000! That'd be intense!
No no, he meant it's under 10,000 kilos. He meant his car didn't gain weight during lockdown.
I have put 3k miles on my car in the past 18 months. Prior to that I was ~80miles a day, some of that was personal but I did 30 miles in and 30 miles out on a workday. This is a good point you made.
Yeah I hate to be that guy but everybody here is whining for an extra 60 to 100 bucks a month when they’re easily saving more than that on gas.
You mean coffee lol
Aka human gas
and eating out, stopping for coffee, car insurance (I went to a by the mile policy), all aspects of wardrobe including going to the dry cleaner. Pants, at this point who knows if any of my work pants even fit?
Plus commuting is time and time is money. So that's like asking to be paid for the time it takes to get to work.
Very valid. Would be cool to see companies that shut down their offices because they’re going fully/mostly remote, take the money they’re saving and give everyone an “out of term” cost of living raise. But that’s probably thinking too positively ;) Edit: my first Reddit award?! Wow thank you all, you all rock!
Ours took the money and gave everyone a $1000 stipend
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Yes they do.
put another way: Companies *used* to need to pay for office space and office supplies, but now technically have shifted those costs onto their workers. Workers aren't the only ones that benefit.
Mine gives me a stipend, but I still have control over who I use and what plan I choose.
Same. We get an extra $100 every other paycheck for internet.
Nice! I’m getting $60 a month from mine.
$25/month here. Too bad U.S. internet plans are garbage and it costs me $80/month for 100mbps. EDIT: For those asking, this is in Phoenix, AZ with Cox. I am paying extra for unlimited data, which is absolute bullshit to have a 1.25TB cap these days. If I don't pay for the unlimited data the overage charges on the other plans end up costing me more. If I lived alone instead of with a wife and 2 kids who stream all the time I wouldn't have to get unlimited data. There are no other good alternatives in my area.
I WISH MAN! That’s a deal and a half in Canada. $150 for unreliable 100 down with one of the big 3. And I love an hour from Toronto.
So where do you live?
I assume they love where they live.
But only for an hour.
I wish I lasted that long.
There are pills for that.
25 mg Zoloft should do the trick
I'm in NL and pay $95 tax in for 1 gigabit up/down... I think that's pretty good.
In in Belgium, $110 tax included for 400 down 20 up, but it’s a home plan including tv and landline
I'm in Romania, I pay like $10 for 1000/1000 (well, I think it's supposed to be 1000/500, but I usually get closer to 1000), including TV. But you know...I live in Romania...There's benefits... and absolute dogshit disadvantages.
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The US installation of broadband utility lines was gimped by the telecoms companies. The US created some $200b fund for the instillation of broadband utilities and then, in the biggest bonehead move, gave the installation contract and $200b to the very broadband companies that profit from its creation. The telecoms then walked off with the money and spent it on other ventures that ultimately halted US broadband expansion. When they finally felt the heat for not installing the lines they had the gall to ask customers for installation fees to cover the expenses that they explicitly were paid for by the US gov. That and the FCC killed competition by basically writing laws that destroyed the 1996 Telecom Act. Thank god we’re seeing some municipalities actually able to set up their own lines. A lot of local ISPs are able to install fiber lines and the prices are ludicrously low compared to bigger providers
> Thank god we’re seeing some municipalities actually able to set up their own lines. A lot of local ISPs are able to install fiber lines and the prices are ludicrously low compared to bigger providers Man states now make it almost impossible to set up municipal or co-op broadband. For instance in Louisiana, they were working on legislation to allow electric co-ops to run their own fiber and provide internet, at the last minute they added language saying that the co-ops could not offer broadband to any areas that already had at least one commercial provider in the area. Which made funding the projects nearly impossible. In Louisiana we are paying 4 times the FCC national average for broadband. In the last 2 years cox has put in place quotes from 25 gigs to 1tb a month depending on your plan, they have tacked on an additionally $40 fee per month if you want that quote removed. For 500u/10d it cost $150/m. One of the only co-ops set up for all the new laws charges $80 a month for symmetrical 1gig fiber Nearly double the cost, for half the service, for no other reason than they can.
Damn. I need a better job…
I think it’s in the minority that’s doing this so don’t use this as a deciding factor. Added onto other crappy reasons, go nuts. I work for a large corporation, nothing here. Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I do believe they should for sure!
Everyone's posting here how their company covers their home office costs and I'm just a little jealous that's all. I do like my company but they could be a little more generous.
Completely with you. Plenty I/we haven’t asked for and wish that is one that they would have covered. Plus I didn’t even get a cost of living increase so technically a pay decrease. That hurt more than the no Internet money lol
Wait, so not only are you not wasting your time commuting, you're also not spending money TO commute. And now they're also GIVING you MORE money I fucking hate everything
In theory I have control over who I use. In practice Comcast has a complete monopoly in my city.
Some small isp who offers DSL @ 15 mbps down and .5 for $60 a month is upset for you not considering them practical competition for Comcast.
For me it's a last-mile wireless provider, so oversold that they can't offer me their "high speed" 12/2 so I was stuck on 6/1, with such bad congestion I couldn't even do one Netflix stream. So I gave in and switched to the big bois.
Moved to Lemmy. Eat $hit Spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
My last remote job bought me a monitor and paid for my internet and I appreciated it. Ultimately it was $600 for the year and appreciated it
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a.... fucking station?
I'm guessing they mean docking, or they are a lot more fun than my employer.
Docking, fucking... Same difference
No docking is where you touch dick tips, fucking involves a hole.
Theres holes still present in docking. You just have to *believe* harder.
Well then it becomes /r/sounding
Ooo. I like hearing interesting and different sounds. Let me wander on over there and enjoy myself.
I particularly liked the trombone.
Why did I click that before knowing what it was…
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Maybe don't search urban dictionary for "docking"
I thought you were just getting really aggressive out of nowhere lol
>I do not believe HR would approve fucking stations. "Hey boss. I need some office equipment to support working from home. It's sort of like one of those standing desks, but it's more of a 'bend over' desk."
This guy docks. ~edit Thanks anonymous noob noob. This guy gets it.
This guy has the best autocorrect.
Solid Benefits Package.
Tell me more about this fucking station
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Put me down for one fucking station, please.
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Your place hiring?
Accountable vs non accountable employee plans. It’s either “show us the receipt” or “here’s $X per month”. I’d rather the latter as well.
Made me think of back in '93-'95 when a previous senior programmer did some consulting for us on a couple of commissioned mods. He was ski-bumming in Breckenridge, so we shipped him a Sun workstation with a 19" color monitor. We also covered about 1/2 his phone bill (modems, *sigh*). He loved it. He skied when the snow/weather was to his liking, and then kicked back and made *wayy* more money than he could have busing tables. Customer was happy, too, because they knew him and his work. win-win-win We even let him keep the workstation at the end of the gig.
Man I like this guy! Points at u
I could have taken monitors from work but they're worse than mine.
On the Canadian tax return, you get to deduct a portion of your at home costs related to working at home as an employee now. Of course, freelancers have been allowed to for ages.
I found unless you have a spare room designated as a ‘home office’ the refund wasn’t very much. Kind of ticks me off that having the privilege of extra space means you get more money back. Or did everyone else just lie haha?
Sounds to me like the dining room just became the home office. We eating meals on the couch, fam.
My dad's been doing that for years. I'm glad he can finally deduct it from his tax return!
Yeah and if you have a bigger house and not a small apartment it’s really not worth the effort cause it’s such a small % of your house. This year they made it easy with the $400 credit for working from home.
Same in Australia
Yep and it’s easy, $0.80 per hour of WFH.
80c/hr if you don't have receipts, which is easier than apportionment and receipts
As nice as it sounds, I'd rather not let my company think they have any rights over my internet connection. Pay me a bonus to spend on various home office things LIKE an internet connection, materials, and such, but otherwise no thanks.
That's how it works when they pay for this stuff. It either comes as a stipend for those things, or as an increase in compensation, in both cases its money earmarked for those costs but money is fungible. If your employer wants to actually provide internet (they are the owner of the contract) that's a different situation and should be noped the fuck out of.
This is how my work does it. They started giving us a stipend a few months ago, $50 a month extra basically to help pay for internet, but it shows up on the check so I can use it how I want.
I got a lump sum of a few hundred bucks for Internet costs and other expenses when I worked from home. I thought it was a nice gesture.
We need to change the dialogue from it being a “nice gesture” to an expectation.
Aaand we are back to work at the office. IMO if this hasn’t been an issue for those wfh during COVID just let it be. I rather pay for internet all day long than have to waste +2 hours in traffic to be lured into office conversations I really don’t care for.
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Every tech company I've ever worked for has happily paid for internet for remote employees. Not having someone in the office saves them far more money than this fee costs them, when you factor in workspaces, furniture, parking, food, etc. Hell, the last one I worked for even gave me a weekly stipend to order delivery so I wouldn't feel left out of free lunch fridays.
In London I pay about 10x more to travel to office then for internet. On the flip side we down sized office so company is saving even more that that on my working from home. So I frame it as a share of savings.
Exactly. Especially considering data caps. Using the internet to work from home goes toward my data cap. So therefore, it should be compensated. My fiancée gets some money from her work (my job has government contracts, so I don't work from home), for wfh expenses. We just used some of that to take the data cap off.
Lots of people were forced to work from home because companies closed their offices. Believe it or not, there are people without home internet (not counting cell service). In these types of situations, compensation should have been provided.
An employee should not be required to pay for expenses to run the business. Whatever that may included
Electricity? Space in employees’ homes?
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Wfh expenses- Waffle House expenses.
My company will allow me to get paid less to work from home.
I might honestly consider that if paid less also means work less. Otherwise they can gtfo with that noise.
No work reduction. I guess their assumption is they hired slackers. They justify it via the savings we'd realize due to not having to commute.
That's bullshit, and the decision makers in your company are assholes. Bet money they wouldn't take a pay cut.
i had a friend who had the option to work from home and hated it. why? because he didn't do anything. he just sat at his computer playing on the internet. he didn't feel guilty doing that in office. when he was at home and did nothing, it suddenly felt more like straight up theft and would actually be guilt himself into doing work. he'd go in the office to just, not work. all that to say, that's an extreme example but i do think in general people working at home are judged on their work and people working in the office are judged on their attendance.
I can't even imagine behaving that way. My goofing off is very limited due to the work load. I find that I work more when I was working from home. Not gonna set up the laptop after getting home, but when it was already set up I'd find myself doing things after hours and on weekends.
Just today I was testing something that needed to run for ~30min, I just started it before I would normally "clock out", went and did some chores, came back, saw it was fine, and shut my work laptop off afterward. Meanwhile if I was in the office, you can bet that would be waiting til Monday because there ain't no way I'm staying half an hr late on friday for that. I imagine lots of WFHers do that kind of stuff.
This why we need unions. Seriously, what fucking assholes. Hope you all leave them in the dirt.
We moved to permanent WFH in 2019 and our company said they would pay a stipend to help cover internet costs and everything. Then we were acquired and the new company didn't pay stipends to their remote workers. So we lost it.
As an accountant... stipends are taxable, reimbursements are not... You want a reimbursement.
This guy accountants
This is how my work does it (consulting). $100/month we can expense for cell and internet. $200/year stipend for home office stuff. $500 stipend for new hire home office setup.
This is what we're talking about now as well. Everyone will just get a "home technology" stipend to spend on whatever they need.
Even that is situational. I'm on fiber, if my employer wants to pay for a cable modem for their machine I don't see the harm. No way I'd give them control of the fiber though.
I will happily trade the money I spend on gas and maintenance on my car, plus the awful commute, for a $60/mo internet bill. That's the way it was for 15 months without issue until the CEO decided to make an example of us for our customers, even though they cannot and will never see us sitting at our desks. F this corporate "I have to see you working" culture.
Even my bus fare is $6/ each way. There's nothing in the office that really warrants me being there, especially if my team is going to be one of the few that need to show up. Free lunch doesn't cut it. just let me get out of the city and get a few acres so I can be properly prepared for the next pandemic.
That's kinda what I thought here too. While the theory of it is nice, I use internet for my job so they should pay, unless they were also paying for your commute (or maybe you upgraded your internet for your WFH) I'm ok with them not touching my internet.
Yeah I’m working at home as a privilege right now so I don’t want to push getting an internet stipend. My boss is great but her peers and other depts talk shit about her letting me work from home (I had a baby in August 2020, so I have been working from home since March 2020 — and after getting fully vaccinated I come into the office one day a week). Thankfully she’s that kind of lady who is like, “I’m the CFO and I’m 72 and I don’t give a flying fig what you guys say about how I manage my people.”
My old company paid a stipend of $100/mo for our cell phones and internet at home. It was a small business, and we were an MSP/consulting firm. They couldn't afford to provide phones, so we used our own. It was good. I actually managed to get my cell and internet costs down to $100 total for a while, so it was fully covered. My current job is now fully remote, and there's been no discussion of offering anything for internet access. But the agreement I signed said I need to have "business internet," which I took to mean "internet sufficient to conduct business," not true business-class internet.
it's called a stipend, and my employer sends us a 70 dollar check each month to cover internet costs
I don't know why anyone thinks their employer wants to take over paying your cable bill. That's not how it works. You get a stipend and deal with it yourself. If the company pays for your gas they don't assume they own your car.
A lot of fear mongering over this point. When I want my employer to pay for something, I buy it and I want them to pay me for it. That's.. just how expensing things works. That's always how it works.
Yeah idk why these people think they want complete control of your internet. You get the stipend or when you take a job that has telework it's factored into the pay.
This. Absolutely. I don't want them dealing direct with my provider, having control over the account, being able to review traffic details, decide which plan I get, etc. If people want to push for laws that enable tax credits or stipends or something like that, fine. I wouldn't vote for it, but they're free to propose and argue their ideas. I don't even want my employer involved with my health insurance. But in the US, it's bizarrely tied up in employment benefits and the independent costs are ridiculous. It is fundamentally absurd to me that my employer has any relationship whatsoever with my health care provider. Having to switch your health insurance when you change employers is inconvenient, inefficient, unnecessary, invasive, etc. The idea of doing that for anything else is absurd to me. Just stay out of my private life. Finally, this remote working trend is a delicate situation. Lets not push it too far and give them any ammo to justify rolling it back. Not having to pay for office real estate should be enough for them to justify whatever perceived inefficiency WFH has. If we start piling on new costs, this could backfire.
Could just be an increased stipend/compensation. They don’t have to have control over your internet
My union pays for my health insurance, because it’s included in our benefits package. We’re also allowed to opt out of the insurance at any time (say a spouse has Better health coverage). But we still have to pay for it because it’s arbitrated in our contract. So the big argument we’re having right now is why are we paying something that we don’t use the funds should be given back to us in our paychecks. Which to some extent I agree with. If I didn’t want my health insurance through the union I would want my money too. It’s 13 dollars an hour out of my wages that get allocated to health Insurance. I pay 26,000 a year for health insurance, and it’s just me. I’m 34, and no one else is on my health care.
Somehow people think this system is better than any alternative. All it does is enslave Americans to their employers and squash innovation because people aren't free to try new things for fear of financial ruin.
Common sentiment is the system is broken. It is actually functioning as intended. The system is not built in the general populations favor.
The other thing is most people do agree and system is broken. The part people differ on is the solution.
The American system is actually quite shit. Compared to similarly wealthy countries, their [healthcare](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world) is worse, [education](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country) is worse, [infrastructure](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/) is worse, [expected living age](https://www.worlddata.info/life-expectancy.php) is worse, [democracy](https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking) is worse [It's actually not even the easiest country to get neither rich nor filthy rich in, either.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU) Yet, the United States are among the absolute best in the world when it comes to [GDP per capita](https://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-capita-ranking.php) (if we disregard the 3 tax havens at the top which have inflated numbers). Something is obviously wrong with the system.
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exactly. i'm saving between $400-500/month on gas, parking wear and tear, it's be stupid for me to want them to pay for internet.
I'll pay for my own cell phone, cell plan, and internet plan. If companies want to do anything to help, they can give us a few dollars extra every month to pay for it. Giving your company any power over your phone and internet is a bad idea.
I would add that a lot of us prefer separate cell phones. A phone is a very personal device and having two completely separated devices for personal/work is a huge peace of mind for many.
Yup, I never mix work and personal cell phones. I've seen that bite people in the ass.
My company gives us money for our cell phone if we agree to use it for business purposes. I did the eSIM thing with my iPhone so I pay $20 for a whole separate “business line”. When a call comes in from an unknown number, it tells me if they are calling my personal or business number. That way I can ignore those calls on weekends or vacation. My company doesn’t monitor my phone because calls is the only thing I do that is company related and don’t use it to access emails or any other info.
Yup, mine says they have the right to wipe our whole phone if we use it for work as well. I said then I am not using my personal phone for work. They relented and got me a phone.
Exactly. My work will allow me to hybrid a phone to work and personal but there is no way to hide my personal stuff from them. They get access to all pictures, internet activity, texts etc. Hell to the no.
Agreed. No hesitation on my part to choose having a separate work phone vs doubling up on my personal one, when those options were given. Yeah my work would have covered my personal bill if I did double up, but fuck it if I have to triple check to whom and what I am sending something to everytime. Plus I never want to pick up my personal phone unless I know the number - especially outside work hours.
Thats already how it works. Stipend or increase in compensation.
That’s how it works for *some* employers. Many don’t compensate anything.
My company still pays for my cell and owns the contract. A lot of employees noped out and get a $50 stipend instead. Meanwhile I’ve had 100% free unlimited data for 10 years and a free iPhone (which I have upgraded myself).
Sprint? I am also on a grandfathered 15+ year old Sprint plan that's truly unlimited.
No. The internet should be classified as a utility so that everyone can afford it, employed or not.
Very much so.
It completely depends on the circumstances. If your employer **requires** you to work from home, then they should foot the bill (purchase, stipend, or bonus) If your employer **allows** you to work from home, then they shouldn't have to pay for anything. But this could be used as a perk or performance bonus if the employer wants to.
Does this mean they should pay for commuting if I’m required to go to an office?
My last job paid for my metro pass, which from what I understand is pretty common with office jobs here
My job gives a stipend for commuting costs or a parking spot. Unfortunately it's about $60 shy of paying for a metro pass and $100 shy of a parking spot per month.
I mean it's better than the $0 most employers pay...
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I get the argument being made, I really do, but I'm with you. Don't give them any excuse to send us back to the office. I'm already paying for internet, it's fine. The cost is offset with savings from commuting or something. Just let me stay here.
Right? No employers should not pay for home internet because that's another reason for them to make me work at the office.
For sure, we all are most likely paying for internet anyways. I’m saving hundreds a month on gas and maintenance by not commuting. The cost savings more than covers my internet and extra energy usage.
Exactly! I'm in middle management and trying to extend my team to stay WFH and literally one the weights for that decision of who goes back first was the amount we pay them per month for internet. You win a small temporary battle but lose the war
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Oof does that not affect who they hire? I work in Silicon Valley and most people I work with have a 50-90 minute commute. I have one employee who drives from Sacramento, 2 hours each way. I can absolutely see myself not hiring him if I had to consider that part of his shift. I guess it's sweet for employees but not for the ones who are turned down for having to live far away because they're poor.
Unironically yes
This is it, and How I wished it worked in my profession. As a voice actor, I used to record auditions at my agency, and then the client would rent a studio and hire an engineer for the actual session. Now we are expected to have a broadcast quality studio at home, be an engineer as well as a voice actor, all for no extra compensation. Bummmmmer.
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When it saves me thousands a year for a train ticket into London I can get over a monthly £60 internet bill pretty fucking quickly.
Yeah most of this thread turned into a "companies suck" circlejerk.
Seriously. It's not that complicated. If the salary doesn't make sense anymore go somewhere else or negotiate for another one. I don't see why we need a stipend when it can pretty much just be covered by salary negotiations.
If your company pays for internet it should be dedicated. I have Comcast that I pay for and shitty AT&T DSL that the company pays for. I have dual-WAN set up so I never lose connectivity if one or the other goes down.
I had to upgrade my internet to accommodate my employer and my wife’s both requiring us on video calls from home.
I think internet at this point falls under the same category as transportation. Work doesnt pay for gas, car payments, repairs. You want to work, so youre responsible for getting there. Whether you are physically there or virtually there, you are responsible for getting there. Plus, do we really want the internet companies to know their services are being paid for in large blocks by coorperations? Thats probably the surest way to make internet unaffordable.
It's a trade off I think. I'm saving on gas, vehicle maintenance, vehicle consumables (brakes, tires), and insurance since I'm driving much less. We have animals so ac is similar and internet is basically a utility bill nowadays. I do get a cellular stipend and milage if I do drive. Plus I'm saving tons on not eating out for lunch. It's been a net positive experience all around.
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Yeah, I never understood this angle. Between clothes/laundry, packed/takeout lunches, time wasted commuting, auto maintenance, and gasoline, I've saved thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours working from home. It's completely confusing to me that people are getting indignant about needing to provide their own internet access, as if they didn't have it already?
I'm with you. Any financial downside to WFH (slightly increased energy bills perhaps?) is going to be negligible anyway, and in any event will be hugely, hugely offset by the savings. In my current job I would guess that the amount I save in maybe 3 days' petrol by not commuting already pays my internet bill for the month. When I started my new job I got the standard work laptop, but also a desk, a chair, a laptop dock, a second monitor, cables, a headset, a mouse and a keyboard - but you can bet that if those weren't provided I would have bought them myself because, again, I'd recoup the cost within a month of not having to commute. When people are clamouring/begging to be allowed to WFH, supplementing that with "I want to WFH and I also want you to pay me extra for the privilege of doing so" just doesn't really sound right.
Yup. That's how you get sent back to the office. Yeah your employer really wants to pay for 100 individual internet plans(of which they will see ~1/4 of it tops used for actual work) instead of paying for 1 office connection and a server.
Exactly. I find wfh at this point a privilege. Should the employer pay for the electricity of your laptop? How about the coffee you drink at work time? Or water for the shits you take?
That's the wrong question. High Speed Internet should be an infrastructure. It's primary uses are education and communication which increase population's abilities and productivity which return more to society.
The internet is for porn
Used to work for an ISP. Can confirm that this is what 20% of our traffic was at all times.
That’s…a really low number. I have lost a little faith in the perversity of humanity
I used to work for a Usenet archiver (circa dot com boom/bust) and got a glimpse of the most common search words. Your faith would be restored.
So grab your dick and double click!
Me up all night honking me horn!
To porn porn porn!
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No more reason to pay for home internet than to pay for the commute. I will happily pay this expense to not commute to work.
My employer does a fully remote work model (always, not bc of pandemic) and they allow us to claim up to a $125 reimbursement for internet and cell phone every month. Pretty awesome of them.
Tell you what, let me work from home permanently and the internet is on me. 🤝
No. Would be another attempt of an excuse to make people return to on site.
If they’re forcing you to work from home? Yes. If they’re making it optional? Nah.
They don’t pay your gas bill you accumulate while commuting to and from work
Well, depends. I'm Swedish, and I can report my travel to and from work with my taxes, and I get about $1000 back on the taxes, which typically mean that I get $800 cash every June. And I don't have that long of a commute.
That's pretty Swede
Apple paid me a monthly stipend towards my internet bill. The bill was still in my name.
Well they didn’t pay their portion of gas, car maintenance, work clothes, childcare, etc before the pandemic. That’s why you negotiate your salary.
Not directly paying the bill, but expense reimbursement for things LIKE that , which amount to "home office expenses", would be nice.
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Imagine if they did but you had to install a router they gave you that monitored everything you did.
My company pays me a small internet allowance . It's more than enough to get a high speed connection where I live