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Shopify is giving its employees $1k to furnish their work-from-home setups
- mesozoic 7y agoSO $1 will buy you a chair...
- smnrchrds 7y agoI imagine they assume you already own a chair and a computer, but may want to buy a second monitor for example to make it easier to work.
- kondro 7y agoAssuming you should already own a chair that shouldn’t be worth less than about $1k (or a bit less than that second-hand) is a bit extreme.
- mgerdts 7y agoPSA: Used office chairs are a much better deal than new, at least if you are paying close to list price. About 10 years ago I bought a steelcase leap for less than $300. I've used it at least 250 days a year since then with no problems. List price on that chair is $1k.
- maccard 7y agoYep. My small company bought us all second hand aerons for less than £300 each. Perfect condition (except for one which needed a wheel, which we replaced for < £10). When we were acquired and moved offices, a full new set of brand new Aerons were bought, even if you specifically asked to keep your old one. Oh well, at least someone got a cheap desk chair out of mine.
- skunkworker 7y agoThis. I bought a used Herman Miller Miira for $250 and when I priced it out it was 1200 new. Great chair and significantly better than the new $200 office chairs.
- wyclif 7y agoAny ideas on what the best clearinghouses online for used Steelcase or Herman Miller chairs would be?
- cnasc 7y agoThese chairs are big and heavy, shipping will probably be annoying. I got mine from an office liquidator ~30 minutes from my home, which I found just by searching for office liquidators near me that had inventory listings online. As a bonus, you can probably see it in person before you actually buy it.
- cpr 7y agohttp://madisonseating.com http://madisonseating.com has been a reliable supplier for years.
- wyclif 7y agoThanks, this is exactly what I was looking for but for some reason was unable to find.
- fyp 7y agoI highly don't recommend buying from them. I bought a steelcase leap v2 in platinum color and it's clear that the base of the chair is a cheap knockoff. Crappy silver spraypaint that flakes, the wheels barely work, the piston was broken on delivery (which they did replace for free). I've had problems with the chair being too low at max height and I am a short guy. I still don't know if it's their cheap base that's the culprit or that's just the design.
- wyclif 7y agoThanks for saying this. Before I read your comment, I thought they were selling opened box or used Steelcase chairs, but 100% authentic. There's nothing on the site that I could find that discloses that parts of the chairs are not authentic. If that's the case, it's super shady of them.
- omegabravo 7y agoI bought a brand new one and it's fantastic. The used market for premium chairs in my remote part of the country is non-existent. I certainly would have bought a second hand one since they are so well built.
- abhijat 7y agoSame, I bought a herman miller chair new about 6 years ago, there is no used chair that I could find in India. But even when bought new, something that gets used so much everyday is worth the price.
- kamalhm 7y agowhich herman miller did you bought? and what's the price there?
- rkangel 7y agoAlso not OP and I also have a Mirra 2. There is a school of thought that as the Aeron is a design classic they can't really iterate on it. The Mirra has been great for me.
- roel_v 7y agoNot OP but I have a Mirra 2, I liked it better than the Aeron or Embody. I do really suggest you go someplace where you can try it out, also the various sizes. I bought refurb, don't remember price.
- abhijat 7y agoI got the sayl chair. It was around INR 45,000 I believe at that time. The aeron was around INR 85,000.
- SyneRyder 7y ago+1 for this. I bought my Herman Miller Aeron new almost 20 years ago now and I still love it & use it every day. Immediately fixed some (very mild) back trouble I was having. It probably won't fit the Shopify budget, it's super expensive. But having the same chair used in recording studios and is officially a work of art in the Museum of Modern Art [1] still makes me smile every day I go to sit down to work. [1] https://www.moma.org/collection/works/3734 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/3734
- Polylactic_acid 7y agoUsed chairs seem to be plentiful. It seems that whenever a business moves office they just throw away or sell for very cheap all of their chairs and tables.
- imtringued 7y agoSelling for cheap basically means they want to get rid of it but not pay for disposal.
- Polylactic_acid 7y agoWhich is good for me because they are almost always still in really good condition.
- dazc 7y agoFrom a previous life in financial services refit (remodelling) you are correct. I have disposed of lots of top quality desks, chairs and drawers - sometimes with random amounts of cash left in them! Always returned, btw.
- mgkimsal 7y agoLast fall two regional banks merged, and they consolidated office space. A removals company was in charge of the move, and had a big sale. I missed the first weekend, but snagged 18 steelcase aria chairs - delivered to our coworking space - for $600 (and they took and disposed of 12 older chairs) These chairs' MSRP is $720 each. Possibly one of the best bargains ever for me.
- WalterBright 7y agoMy office chair was $14 from Goodwill. Thrift stores are great places for office furniture. And when you're done with it, just donate it back so someone else can use it!
- QuinnWilton 7y agoI bought a refurbished Herman Miller Aeron today on Craig's List for $350, with same day delivery. It might just be a Bay Area thing, but Craig's List was crawling with them. I'm guessing it's all the failing businesses liquidating their stock. I used it all day and I'm amazed I spent years in an $80 Amazon chair.
- aerioux 7y agooo if i may ask -- where?
- QuinnWilton 7y agoI just typed "Aeron" into Craig's List and chose a seller. I think they delivered out of San Mateo. The going rate seemed to be $300 - $400 depending on whether you needed delivery or not.
- antpol 7y agoYou could still buy original Aeron from dot com era. Got myself 2002 model last year in close to pristine condition, only armrest needed to be replaced due wear
- rkangel 7y agoFor those in the UK, I recommend Studio Modern (https://studiomodern.co.uk/ https://studiomodern.co.uk/) for refurbished chairs. I have only bought one chair from them (Mirra 2), but was originally recommended it by someone who has bought dozens for offices.
- weego 7y agoI've had 2 mirra chairs at home for years, I think they were ~£120 off ebay each and are ridiculous value for money.
- geocrasher 7y agoYou can buy a Herman Miller refurb on Amazon for $500. It's a great deal. You also need a second monitor, mechanical keyboard, webcam, headset. $1k is plenty for all of that
- xeromal 7y agoPeople with mechanical keyboards in conference calls can jump in a lake. haha
- wyclif 7y agoI do this and honestly, it's not that bad if you don't have the mic near the keyboard. The headset mic I have seems to drop audio dramatically just a few inches away from my mouth, which is a feature, not a bug, if you're using a mechanical keyboard.
- dasKrokodil 7y agoUsing the internal keyboard AND internal microphone of a laptop is usually worse.
- nottorp 7y agoJust do the conference in a text group chat. I can type fast on that mechanical keyboard, you know :)
- C1sc0cat 7y agoAt home I have a cheap keyboard to swap to -) The real problem is cheap headsets with poor mics and people not knowing how to turn the fracking gain down. Though at home id just swap out my laptop and stick my works one in and plugin my Claret Pre 2 for the mic and the Shitt Audio stack I use for heaphones.
- Rebelgecko 7y agoIf it's for work, see if you can get your company to order if through whoever they get their office furniture from. I know my previous company paid around $650 each for the Herman Miller Embody
- bonestamp2 7y agoOur office just closed too. We're using it as an experiment for wider work from home in the future. This could have widespread impact on work culture. If it works out, that $1k/person could pay dividends in savings if they can reduce office space.
- jackschultz 7y agoI'm a remote worker and I've found it hard to say something positive about the virus, but having companies be more ok with remote workers and (hopefully) finding work still gets done can mean more remote possibilities overall. For me, that's a good thing.
- minhaz23 7y agoI saw someone mention that whats to stop them from getting comfortable with remote workerse and then hiring cheaper labor from the next state over, inevitably taking advantage of skilled international yet cheap labor, remotely?
- aprdm 7y agoYou producing a better value for the company than the "cheap labor" from the next state or country.
- lonelappde 7y agoThe point if that if remote works than most onsite employeea likely are *not".
- axaxs 7y agoIf the next country produces similar results, then who cares? If this brings a great awakening in companies overpaying engineers, so be it. I expect to be paid for my knowledge and experience, not because I need to afford an apartment in the valley.
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's great that people outside SV have an opportunity to earn money. It's not great that putting the prole employees in fiercer competition funnels more money to wealthiest monopolist capital owners.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
- 40acres 7y agoDamn this is awesome. I'm actually dreading working from home because I don't have a desk, keyboard, or anything of the sort.
- WalterBright 7y agoDining tables make the best desks. Lots of surface area, and plenty of room underneath for cables and boxen.
- dazc 7y agoFailing that, a door with one edge rested on a radiator and the other a stack of cardboard boxes. I work from a proper ergonomic office desk now but it beat many other alternatives including a dining table and various purpose-made 'home office' desks. (Accepting I got lucky with the height of the radiator).
- MivLives 7y agoIn the same vein I worked off a folding table for a long time. It was cheap, large, and surprisingly sturdy. If I needed the room it took up back I just folded it away.
- kamalhm 7y agoalso they're solid as fuck
- AmericanChopper 7y agoFinally getting around to getting a proper desk/chair/monitors really made me enjoy working from home a lot more. I don’t do it terribly often, but I really feel like it makes me more productive. Also working with a remote colleague who doesn’t have good webcam/microphone/headphones is an absolute nightmare. I’m sure most of us have had colleagues that were frustratingly hard to communicate with remotely, and I’m sure most of us have avoided communicating with them because of it.
- gberger 7y ago
- janesvilleseo 7y agoI have worked from home for nearly a decade. I guess I don’t know what I’m missing but I don’t need 1k chair. I sit at my dinning room table on a 50 dollar chair from Ashley Furniture. No problems at all. True I don’t have a desktop and use a laptop so I can take it with me to onsite meetings or move to another location like my patio, couch, or garage. I’m not sure what I’d spend 1k on besides the machine I use to get work done on.
- azhenley 7y agoFor me a nice monitor is a must. I cannot be productive on a laptop for more than an hour or two. It all feels so constricting.
- WalterBright 7y agoYou can get some real nice monitors for $30 from the thrift store. I'm looking at one on my desk right now :-)
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI paid AU$260 for 2560x1440 27” Kogan branded displays. And have a second hand 1920x1080 22” either side of those. Total 4 displays for under AU$1000 I highly recommend it.
- sitkack 7y agoIt isn't quite the thriftstore, but the last 3 batches of monitors I have gotten were all surplus or off lease. Something like https://www.newegg.com/dell-u2412m-24/p/N82E16824260047?&quicklink=true https://www.newegg.com/dell-u2412m-24/p/N82E16824260047?&qui...
- oefrha 7y agoChecks price of the Pro Display XDR.
- mseidl 7y agoI do have a work laptop but I never use it because I hate working on the small thing(I don't like laptops that much in general). But when I work from home I use my home computer as it's really powerful(much more so than my work desktop also) and i have dual 25" monitors.
- frenchie14 7y ago> Spotify did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. They should probably ask Shopify to comment instead =P
- yibg 7y agoI've noticed that BI's articles are full of typos. Not sure if they just rush things out or what, but some of them are so obvious if anyone did a round of proof reading they would've spotted it.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoProof reading doesn’t drive clicks.
- manigandham 7y agoMost journalism is a commodity business now with writers publishing dozens of stories per day. There's no big pipeline of drafting, copyediting, fact checking and editorial review anymore.
- sjtindell 7y agoDoes anyone actually go to BI, Forbes, TechCrunch, whatever, directly anymore? The most they get is a headline in someone’s social media feed that generates a click and maybe 10 seconds of eyeball on ad. Proof reading isn’t worth it.
- AhtiK 7y ago
- nojvek 7y agoI realized that Shopify has a bigger market cap than Uber and has grown like wildfire in the last few years. Looks like a great company with a good culture and a great product.
- cheeze 7y agoAgree. Only heard positive things and the CEO seems like a pretty straight dude.
- pixelbash 7y agoAs a developer on the blunt end of their theme development I have questions. That said, they solve some difficult problems and no one else comes close at the moment.
- simplyinfinity 7y agoCare to elaborate what those problems are?
- pixelbash 7y agoWell for one thing they seem to have have quite a comprehensive tax system which they keep updated. Something I realised could be valuable when dealing with a Californian client on a different Ecom platform. Another one is a reasonably powerful but client friendly interface, which sounds easy but almost all other platforms fail in some way. Lastly it isn't totally bad for headless ecommerce, at least if you dont look at the accounts system too hard.
- swalsh 7y agoShopify has become the default platform for eCommerce for people who have their own marketing channels (let's be honest, the main draw of selling on Amazon is they are a default shopping search engine). I've noticed a lot of "influencers" with strong brands have started shopify stores to sell clothing lines etc. If you can get eyeballs outside the Amazon search results, shopify is probably where you're directing them.
- mtnGoat 7y agoAs someone who has worked at home for many years, and has a nice home office setup. $1k is not nearly enough... you need monitors, a decent desk, a nice chair, office supplies, a printer/scanner, the list goes on and on.
- philliphaydon 7y agoI think you will find that most of the people this $1k is targeting is people who already have the means to work from home, but maybe need some additional things. No mic/webcam for meetings. Maybe own a laptop but don't have a desk/chair. The 1k isn't about funding a fancy setup to permanently work from home. It's about filling the gaps so that they can work from home as effectively as possible during this time.
- yani 7y agoThe article says that the $1k is for all 5000 of their employees. I doubt all of them have a laptop that they take home and most laptops already include a decent microphone and camera. The budget definitely does not target buying a laptop or desktop computer. It has to be for accessories like a chair, desk, scanner+printer.
- philliphaydon 7y agoAlot of people already have a laptop, or computer at home.
- byroot 7y agoEvery single Shopify employee has a laptop they can take home.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mtnGoat 7y agoComfortable employees are more productive employees. Here in Washington, this time will be at least 6 weeks(schools closed for 6 weeks). Thats a long time to sit hunched in an uncomfortable position. Id rather spend the extra cash on a nice chair/desk/monitor setup that will last a decade, then pinch pennies to save a few bucks now and then drop that dough at the chiropractor later. But i guess the opinion of having a comfortable setup is unpopular here, since i got downvoted. lol.
- enobrev 7y agoThis is excellent. I've been working remotely for a little over 18 years, at first in a tiny 450sqft apt with 2 roommates and now in a house with an office with many other situations in-between in a few different cities. The most important thing I've ever done for my sanity, productivity, and consistency is set up a permanent space to work. Same chair, same surface, work only. My whole life could be a complete shit-show but my "office" was tidy and available, even if that "office" was an edge of the kitchen table. There are other things like making sure roommates and significant others understand the boundaries when working and such, but dedicating a workspace has always been the most fundamentally essential.
- SoulMan 7y agoI heard salesforce is givng USD 250
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- richrichardsson 7y agoA bit off topic, but it would be great if they invested some cash to do something about the obvious scam sites on their platform. A domain like fdkwbn.shopify.com should be pretty obvious to even the dumbest AI that it's not a legit site.
- grumple 7y agoI work at a remote company and this is normal, but obviously Shopify has a much better PR team than us.
- jaybeeayyy 7y agojust curious, do remote companies give you a stipend when you first come on or is it only if you request it or something else? I've never worked for a remote company but the place I currently work will let you borrow everything if you need to work remotely for an extended period of time (family emergency etc). Obviously I wish they'd give us money to set up a nice work station at home though lol
- grumple 7y agoWe're given some money initially to do setup and some more after your first few months.
- znpy 7y agoShopify did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. It's unclear if whether the $1,000 amount is a bonus employees will see in their paychecks, or whether workers will need to expense the items they purchase. Does it make any actual difference? Yes, it could theoretically impact somebody's tax bracket, but do we need that level of detail? Also someone is blaming a lot of companies with the "why wait?" theme. The thing is, moving to all remote is not a company does overnight. Particularly with matters of security perimeters, there's a lot of planning that has to be done. Corporate firewalling on premise is a thing... Corporate firewalling a laptop at home is a completely different matter. Assumptions you can make about network in the office vanish once the employee is at home. Maybe the wait was to implement at least some basic VPN connectivity, proper firewalling and stuff like that?
- jka 7y agoIf it's an expense program, then there could be policies and constraints which limit the types of purchases employees can make. That could make a significant difference in terms of usage and spending of these funds. There doesn't seem to be any official announcement of the program on Shopify's blog or social media so far. It's probably best to assume that journalists are acting in good faith to uncover the full story and to discover details which might be relevant for their audience either now or retrospectively when people look back on these events in future.
- aka1234 7y agoNot to be glib, the difference between $1k on the check and $1k expensed doesn't make a difference if you're well paid. If you're considering how it'd impact your tax bracket, it doesn't matter to you. But for the customer support reps? It might make all the difference in the world. Most of those employees won't have an extra $1k laying around that they can forego until finance gets around to finally reimbursing them for their expenses. For the average customer service rep, the question will likely boil down to: 1.) Can I not pay a bill (or three) right now so I can take advantage of the program?; or 2.) Do I not participate in the program. A couple years ago I had similar dilemma with expensing around ~$400 for something. At the time I made about $50k/year and was supporting two households in two separate cities. It took a lot of juggling household budget(s) to wait for the 4 weeks it took to get that money back. That was a lot of added stress when I was already working paycheck-to-paycheck. Today? I make over double that. If I had to put out $1k, I could do so without blinking. But I live a VERY different life now than even 2 years ago.
- archi42 7y agoHm, everyone mentions chairs. Biggest improvement bang-for-buck was setting up better lighting in my home office: I now got three decent 5.5W 4000K MR16 LED spots over each of my tables and oriented to my liking. Also, props for letting them use their office equipment at home. Asked my boss for the same and he was happy to allow me to carry the better of my monitors to corona/home office with me :)