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>When organisations talk about remote working reducing their costs, it’s worth considering which of those costs are just being passed onto to the employee, and

>When organisations talk about remote working reducing their costs, it’s worth considering which of those costs are just being passed onto to the employee, and if that is fair. WTF. I'm saving hundreds a month not commuting,as well as about 1.5 hrs per day. Even assuming a lower rate , like 50$ an hour for my time, that's 75$ per day. I can pick a far cheaper city to live in. Why complain about a good thing. It's so nice I'm going to vastly prefer remote working going forward. Being remote is worth 50k or so a year to me. When it comes to WiFi, my main concern is someone else doing something illegal with it. If I knew it was just some homeless guy reading Wikipedia I wouldn't really care.

bmitc 5y ago
I think they’re more talking about energy usage, monitors, desks, etc. At all my in office jobs, I’ve always had workstations, dual 27” monitors, nice chairs, desks, etc. all provided by the company. Now I just have a laptop and am supposed to buy everything else myself. Also, the company never paid anything regarding my commute.
- 999900000999 5y ago
  Unless you're really weird with money you'll still come out ahead. I imagine if you lived across the street from your office, and didn't need to pay for a commute then you'd have a point. Commuting, even with public transportation is still at least 120$ a month. You then also have the stress of having to run to catch the train, of occasionally being late, etc. I guess you are correct in that you will have to bear some modest upfront cost, but what professional programmer doesn't at least have a desk and a chair for their own personal use. Let's just assume you get a job at Big box Corp. Big box is based in San Francisco, when working in the office you'd need to obviously pay San Francisco rent. Then they go remote I can't imagine any world where giving employees the option to move to Alabama or wherever and keep SF salaries wouldn't put more money in the employees pocket. Hell for my next remote job I'm looking to get a 3 monitor setup.
  - bmitc 5y ago
    It’s not being weird with money. Commuting costs have no bearing on the point that I am now paying for things that companies pay for if I’m going in to an office. The overhead for an employee is typically 100-250% of their salary, and this is because it includes costs like monitors, desks, equipment, and energy usage. With employees working from home, that overhead cost has reduced and eliminated in some cases but is not returned to the employee. Some places do subsidize work-related costs at home. Not commuting may reduce the cost for the employee but it isn’t relevant to the specific argument because those costs were never seen by the company.
    - 999900000999 5y ago
      >Those costs were seen by the employees. Most of that overhead is stuff like healthcare, payroll tax, etc. It's going nowhere. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/overhead-include-payroll-60741.html https://smallbusiness.chron.com/overhead-include-payroll-607... You serious don't have a chair and a desk at home already? You can buy a small desk for 100$ and a chair for another 100$. A monitor can be had for another 200$. In addition to this you can now live a drastically cheaper life. Moving to a city where rent is 1/3rd as much, you don't need a car, etc. Let's say you get a job for a company that's located in Los Angeles. In la a one-bedroom is about $2,500, and you need a car which on the low end is going to cost you between a $500 to $700. If they make you come into the office your core monthly living expenses, even before nice things like food and electricity are about $3200. However, if they allow you to work remote you can live in say Philadelphia, find a nice apartment for around $1,400 and live car free. A metro pass is like 100$ That's 1700$ a month back in your pocket. How can you ask for more, of course you might still prefer to live in LA for personal reasons, but then you're choosing to live like that. I know I'm going to enjoy saving an extra $1,700 a month, not to mention getting up and hopping on the train even if you're in some magical Utopian city where public transit is free, is much harder than just logging in.
Dylan16807 5y ago
WFH saves you money and it saves the company money. This would be true even if you had to pay your company to work from home, but that would pretty clearly be an unfair situation! I think it's reasonable to say that if a company gets to stop providing certain utilities at the office, it would be fair to contribute to those utilities for WFH employees. Why don't you think that's reasonable?

bmitc 5y ago

I think they’re more talking about energy usage, monitors, desks, etc. At all my in office jobs, I’ve always had workstations, dual 27” monitors, nice chairs, desks, etc. all provided by the company. Now I just have a laptop and am supposed to buy everything else myself. Also, the company never paid anything regarding my commute.

999900000999 5y ago
Unless you're really weird with money you'll still come out ahead. I imagine if you lived across the street from your office, and didn't need to pay for a commute then you'd have a point. Commuting, even with public transportation is still at least 120$ a month. You then also have the stress of having to run to catch the train, of occasionally being late, etc. I guess you are correct in that you will have to bear some modest upfront cost, but what professional programmer doesn't at least have a desk and a chair for their own personal use. Let's just assume you get a job at Big box Corp. Big box is based in San Francisco, when working in the office you'd need to obviously pay San Francisco rent. Then they go remote I can't imagine any world where giving employees the option to move to Alabama or wherever and keep SF salaries wouldn't put more money in the employees pocket. Hell for my next remote job I'm looking to get a 3 monitor setup.
- bmitc 5y ago
  It’s not being weird with money. Commuting costs have no bearing on the point that I am now paying for things that companies pay for if I’m going in to an office. The overhead for an employee is typically 100-250% of their salary, and this is because it includes costs like monitors, desks, equipment, and energy usage. With employees working from home, that overhead cost has reduced and eliminated in some cases but is not returned to the employee. Some places do subsidize work-related costs at home. Not commuting may reduce the cost for the employee but it isn’t relevant to the specific argument because those costs were never seen by the company.
  - 999900000999 5y ago
    >Those costs were seen by the employees. Most of that overhead is stuff like healthcare, payroll tax, etc. It's going nowhere. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/overhead-include-payroll-60741.html https://smallbusiness.chron.com/overhead-include-payroll-607... You serious don't have a chair and a desk at home already? You can buy a small desk for 100$ and a chair for another 100$. A monitor can be had for another 200$. In addition to this you can now live a drastically cheaper life. Moving to a city where rent is 1/3rd as much, you don't need a car, etc. Let's say you get a job for a company that's located in Los Angeles. In la a one-bedroom is about $2,500, and you need a car which on the low end is going to cost you between a $500 to $700. If they make you come into the office your core monthly living expenses, even before nice things like food and electricity are about $3200. However, if they allow you to work remote you can live in say Philadelphia, find a nice apartment for around $1,400 and live car free. A metro pass is like 100$ That's 1700$ a month back in your pocket. How can you ask for more, of course you might still prefer to live in LA for personal reasons, but then you're choosing to live like that. I know I'm going to enjoy saving an extra $1,700 a month, not to mention getting up and hopping on the train even if you're in some magical Utopian city where public transit is free, is much harder than just logging in.

Dylan16807 5y ago

WFH saves you money and it saves the company money. This would be true even if you had to pay your company to work from home, but that would pretty clearly be an unfair situation! I think it's reasonable to say that if a company gets to stop providing certain utilities at the office, it would be fair to contribute to those utilities for WFH employees. Why don't you think that's reasonable?