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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

#41

Post by idatum »

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.

What I fear is the company wants to collect data on said usage as a solution to reimburse you accurately. Which means you send your employer usage data. Another world I don't want to live in.

> I do have some sympathy for the people who like to go to an office and interact with people face to face.

I think we're arriving at a compromise with hybrid work. Also, regarding gas commute costs, my employer still gives me a public transit card making bus and train usage free. I'm willing to make the trade for more home utility costs to avoid commute costs, even if I'm lucky enough to be able to use public transportation.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#42

Post by sokoloff »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #37
amykhar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Over a long enough time period, all employee costs come out of the employee costs bucket.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#43

Post by inkeddeveloper »

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…

They can take away WFH. It’s pretty simple. “You are required in the office.” They will eventually back fill those roles or make those that are left to fill the gap. Either way, they can and will soon.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#44

Post by shawabawa3 »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #37
amykhar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My company does the same, they said it came from reduced office costs (no more catered lunch, less cleaning, now smaller offices)

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#45

Post by inkeddeveloper »

reaperducer wrote: post #40
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.

It’s extremely easy. It’s possible to meter internet usage by a machine and also meter electricity consumption through an outlet. I imagine no one wants to go through the trouble of paying it.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#46

Post by dehrmann »

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…

At what point is California liable because it effectively prohibited companies from using their existing office space?

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#47

Post by inkeddeveloper »

jimmaswell wrote: post #38
curiousgal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Same. When you get a certain level of experience built up, you figure out how to poke around the codebase / pipelines to learn what you need to know. Is it frustrating at times? Sure. But it’s easier for me to retain than reading 3 year old word docs.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#48

Post by quickthrowman »

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…

> 2) It's extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity

Electricity metering is a solved problem, simply put all the office receptacles and lights on a single circuit and use a CT (current transformer) and a 120v submeter [0] to record energy usage. Landlords use these for tenant energy monitoring and billing in commercial real estate.

[0] https://www.leviton.com/en/products/1n120-1d

Honeywell even makes a 25A model under the name Emon Dmon: https://prod-edam.honeywell.com/content/dam/honeywell-edam/h...

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#49

Post by al_borland »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #9
kodah wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I agree with the article. I'm not even sure that I get corporate logic at this point. Offices cost money, much more money than configuring an enterprise for remote work. There's always that minor percentage of employees who cannot develop successful patterns to work from home. As the pandemic showed, these folks are the minority today. Under this paradigm, as long as remote work costs less than a buildin…

> My personal hypothesis is that companies are doing an organized, long term pull out of offices, but are resisting doing it all at once because they'd impact each other's commercial property values. This confusing state we're in is purposeful. I doubt it, because most companies rent their space and they wouldn't care about the impact to the building. I think your premise is flawed: > There's always that minor percen…

Most of the stories we here about pushing people back to work are really large companies with pretty significant investments in their campus. They aren't the smaller places that rent a bit of office space. Of course, I assume those leases are long, so they may still be locked in, even if they don't own them.

An empty building, or even a partially filled building, still costs a lot of money to keep. Having that expense when they aren't using it and can't see the value must drive the finance guys nuts. So if the company is paying for a space for an employee in the office, and they are playing for their expenses at home, the cost of that employee's workspace just doubled.

Re: Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

#50

Post by bombcar »

908B64B197 wrote: post #23
amykhar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's the simplest, most effective option. And probably the cheapest too.

Very common in WFH companies, too.

And I think if they do it right they can have it avoid some tax, also. But I’m not an expert in that area.

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