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Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

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Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#31

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

curiousgal wrote: post #20
daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

Such a myopic view. How would you onboard new employees? I started a new job remotely and it was hell. I learned more in the first two weeks in the office than I did in the first 2 months working remotely.

I joined a team that's already all over the place geographically and would spend lots of time on conference calls with other sites. Now we are all just permanently remote and it's fantastic.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#32

Post by paxys »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #13

It is possible - my home office is on a separate circuit (own DB board) and I have a electricity consumption monitor on it. I remember when we went WFH and I was so cheesed over the disruptions in Teams meeting when colleagues used those shitty $10 Chinese made earbuds - asked management to at least supply everybody with a Plantronics headset so we don't waste time. I was told - we are professionals (we need to buy o…

> I was told - we are professionals (we need to buy our own shit) - end of story

Which is funny because "professionals" in every other field will absolutely bill you for cost of materials/equipment for a job.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#33

Post by MattGaiser »

curiousgal wrote: post #20
daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

Such a myopic view. How would you onboard new employees? I started a new job remotely and it was hell. I learned more in the first two weeks in the office than I did in the first 2 months working remotely.

This is mostly the case if onboarding is not a planned progress and just hoping for osmosis.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#35

Post by Turing_Machine »

amykhar wrote: post #17
daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

My company solved it by giving everybody a flat rate every month. We can use it for internet or getting a better office chair, or whatever we see fit. Seems fair.

Sure. It's the same basic "per diem" idea that's been in use in business for aeons to give employees reasonable compensation for expenses without bogging down accounting with thousands of receipts for $2.99.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#36

Post by paxys »

motive wrote: post #2

My understanding is that California’s language is pretty unambiguous that businesses are responsible for all work expenses. I think on the legal merits the engineer may ultimately prevail, but I just don’t see how this is a battle worth fighting considering the massive savings that work from home already provides. It’s likely a lawsuit like this could also damage one’s long-term career prospects. It will be interesti…

Yeah whether the employee is right or not I really don't see the logic in a senior engineer suing their employer for $50/mo in costs.

In the absolute best case, this will become a class action lawsuit. All ~4000 employees will get a couple thousand dollars as reimbursement. Lawyers will make a few million. Amazon will find the money from under some couch cushion. And then they will allocate a portion of everyone's salary to "WFH expenses" to be in the clear legally. Meanwhile the plaintiff's name will be all over the news and their future job prospects will take a huge hit.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#37

Post by Tempest1981 »

amykhar wrote: post #17
daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

My company solved it by giving everybody a flat rate every month. We can use it for internet or getting a better office chair, or whatever we see fit. Seems fair.

Did that flat-rate payment come out of the pool of money for annual raises? (Probably no way to know.)

I'm guessing the desire is for it to come out of the company's profits, so investors pay.

Is there a free lunch to be had?

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#38

Post by jimmaswell »

curiousgal wrote: post #20
daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

Such a myopic view. How would you onboard new employees? I started a new job remotely and it was hell. I learned more in the first two weeks in the office than I did in the first 2 months working remotely.

You download the repo, learn the stack, look over the codebase, set up the environment (someone might have to help you on this at first with a screen share call if there's no documentation), work on some small tickets, ask questions, and get feedback. Easy. I've always gotten up to speed and productive within a week or two this way, without there being any real onboarding documentation or plan in place to boot. Never had a serious job in an office but I feel like it would have only slowed me down.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#39

Post by Symbiote »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #13

It is possible - my home office is on a separate circuit (own DB board) and I have a electricity consumption monitor on it. I remember when we went WFH and I was so cheesed over the disruptions in Teams meeting when colleagues used those shitty $10 Chinese made earbuds - asked management to at least supply everybody with a Plantronics headset so we don't waste time. I was told - we are professionals (we need to buy o…

My employer purchased whatever was needed from desks, office chairs, monitors, keyboards, mice to headsets.

We also completely ran out of "old" stuff, in the junk room, where people didn't want a new screen/keyboard but one exactly (exactly) like the one they had in the office.

We didn't try anything for heating and electricity though. How much do you actually use, if your use is normal office type stuff?

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#40

Post by reaperducer »

daenz wrote: post #7

The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage. The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don't have the power to take WFH away and I think they know that. If they did, they would. But the collectivization for WFH, brought by lockdowns, is far too powerful. So powerf…

It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage.

I'm really surprised that a company like Amazon can't figure this out.

I work for a stupendously technologically backward company, and even it covers WFH internet costs up to $80/month.

This just seems like laziness of the management, and not any actual problem.

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