3 ms·

Who's going to pay for this? My employer? I doubt it. Me? Hell no. On a less grumpy note: I'd love to have an actual home office, worthy of the name, but real

by elric 4y ago

Who's going to pay for this? My employer? I doubt it. Me? Hell no. On a less grumpy note: I'd love to have an actual home office, worthy of the name, but real estate is very expensive, I can barely afford a home, but I definitely can't afford a big enough home for a home office.

dijit 4y ago
That's a shame, home space is much cheaper than office space. (based on Malmo, Sweden office real-estate prices). Co-working desks are as much as 50% of rent in a normal area of the city. For example an apartment of 82sqm (269sqf) in Malmo might be 9000 SEK ($900~) per month, a co-working desk might be 4,200 SEK ($420~)[0]. But an apartment for 13,200 SEK ($1.3k) would likely be 100-120sqm (328-392sqf) in size. Meaning a dedicated room in your home of 18-38sqm (59-124sqf) can be the same price as a single desk in a co-working space. Paying 1.5x the rent for an apartment would give a lot more space than just a desk. [0]: https://www.gamehabitat.se/devhub/ https://www.gamehabitat.se/devhub/ *EDIT*: just realised a fixed desk is actually more than 4,200SEK
- elric 4y ago
  I'm not sure I'm understanding your point. You're saying you're willing to pay an additional ~400EUR/month so you can work for home? Or are you saying $employer should fork out the cash? That's 10% of my net pay, and I'm very well compensated by Belgian standards. No employer is going to give anyone a 10% net raise just so they can work from home. It's much cheaper for $employer to invest in more office space. 100eur in office space gets you 100eur of office space, whereas every 100eur in net wages costs an employer roughly 250eur (wages+taxes+etc).
db48x 4y ago
They don’t generally pay people extra to commute either, but certainly do whichever is cheaper for you. The one time I had a long commute I was paying upwards of $200 a month for the train. Gas, maintenance, repairs, depreciation and so on for a car would have been even more. Add in the drudgery of the daily commute and the cost to me was not small.
- elric 4y ago
  My experience certainly isn't universal, but pretty much every knowledge worker in Belgium either has a company car or train pass.
  - db48x 4y ago
    The cost of which comes out of their salary either way.
    - elric 4y ago
      Not really. For whatever reason, company cars (and trains, but at least those make sense) are taxed way less than salaries. There's no way in hell I'd fork up 3000EUR/year to get a train pass if $work wasn't paying for it.
      - db48x 4y ago
        It seems like your government has chosen one specific way for you to live, and not given you much financial flexibility to live any other way. Know that it is not the same everywhere. Where I live there are no government–imposed financial incentives to encourage people to commute. (A lot of _employers_ encourage commuting, but not all of them do).

by elric 4y ago

dijit 4y ago

That's a shame, home space is much cheaper than office space. (based on Malmo, Sweden office real-estate prices). Co-working desks are as much as 50% of rent in a normal area of the city. For example an apartment of 82sqm (269sqf) in Malmo might be 9000 SEK ($900~) per month, a co-working desk might be 4,200 SEK ($420~)[0]. But an apartment for 13,200 SEK ($1.3k) would likely be 100-120sqm (328-392sqf) in size. Meaning a dedicated room in your home of 18-38sqm (59-124sqf) can be the same price as a single desk in a co-working space. Paying 1.5x the rent for an apartment would give a lot more space than just a desk. [0]: https://www.gamehabitat.se/devhub/ https://www.gamehabitat.se/devhub/ *EDIT*: just realised a fixed desk is actually more than 4,200SEK

elric 4y ago
I'm not sure I'm understanding your point. You're saying you're willing to pay an additional ~400EUR/month so you can work for home? Or are you saying $employer should fork out the cash? That's 10% of my net pay, and I'm very well compensated by Belgian standards. No employer is going to give anyone a 10% net raise just so they can work from home. It's much cheaper for $employer to invest in more office space. 100eur in office space gets you 100eur of office space, whereas every 100eur in net wages costs an employer roughly 250eur (wages+taxes+etc).

db48x 4y ago

They don’t generally pay people extra to commute either, but certainly do whichever is cheaper for you. The one time I had a long commute I was paying upwards of $200 a month for the train. Gas, maintenance, repairs, depreciation and so on for a car would have been even more. Add in the drudgery of the daily commute and the cost to me was not small.

elric 4y ago
My experience certainly isn't universal, but pretty much every knowledge worker in Belgium either has a company car or train pass.
- db48x 4y ago
  The cost of which comes out of their salary either way.
  - elric 4y ago
    Not really. For whatever reason, company cars (and trains, but at least those make sense) are taxed way less than salaries. There's no way in hell I'd fork up 3000EUR/year to get a train pass if $work wasn't paying for it.
    - db48x 4y ago
      It seems like your government has chosen one specific way for you to live, and not given you much financial flexibility to live any other way. Know that it is not the same everywhere. Where I live there are no government–imposed financial incentives to encourage people to commute. (A lot of _employers_ encourage commuting, but not all of them do).