Well, looks like our companies move to WFH during the Pandemic, will now be permanent if we wish.

Same for us.  We are closing doors on 1/2 of our offices, with no reduction in headcount - actually we are still hiring.  

I was already working from home 3-5 days a week for the last couple years, but I do miss the opportunity to see some of the folks and go to lunch or grab drinks.  Theoretically, I could expense my mobile phone, but it's not worth the hassle.  I do get a $40 bill credit on my phone/tv/internet bill each month since I'm an employee.  I also have a handful of monitors and docking stations that came from the office.

What really galls me about the current situation is that while I used to set my location for each day so that I'd pay my taxes properly, the Ohio gov has made that illegal since we're in an "emergency".  So there's a city in ohio that I haven't been in for the last 10 months which gets a percentage of my pay while the city that I live in and work in gets stiffed.

Technically, we are WFH until June, but after that, I expect that most of my time will still be home.  In the middle of the pandemic, they changed from assigned offices and cubes to hot seating- so we had to empty out offices.  Since most of my work is data analysis, the best place to do it is from home, where I have the best set up for my computer.

It's been pretty cool that we've been able to run cars in a lab miles away from my living room.   So if I ever want to contract work out for people, I can remote log into computers, take data, and stay in my PJ's all day long.

Wfh is a blessing. I wish I was in that position. 

Pretty difficult to work from home when you rent equipment, sell parts, fix things. I don't see that changing anytime soon

Island in Hawaii??

Any chance you can WFH from the founder's home??

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

QuasiMofo (John Brown) Forum Supporter said:

So many government employees are now being told that this will be the new norm. A lot of county and state offices are being told to not renew leases. At some point an adjustment for bandwidth, printing and supplies will be necessary for our household. Between the kids and the wife our good digital service is taxed from 8a-3p!

I worked from home before the pandemic, and my I.T. employer doesn't provide any $ for cellphone, internet service or other home office needs. They eliminated a big rent payment, but wouldn't help everyone who went home with the increased costs they suddenly had.

Just out of curiosity, what are the sudden increased costs? 

One of the guys I work with has been incessantly complaining that we haven't received any kind of money. We already worked from home 2-3 days per week, so if you (meaning our people) didn't already have some kind of office setup, that's on you. So you already had internet at home and likely had it anyway for personal use. We don't even have office phones so I see no need for them to pay for a cell phone. 

Since they don't pay for our cell phones or service, I have exactly ZERO work-related items on my phone. No email, Slack, etc. 

So I don't really see it as a big deal. I told him to quit his whining, we are already very well paid compared to our COL here in Oklahoma. 

m4ff3w said:

Same for us.  We are closing doors on 1/2 of our offices, with no reduction in headcount - actually we are still hiring.  

 

 

From what I understand, it's a choice to WFH permanently. So I would probably go in a few times per month if others would be there, just to get some facetime that isn't Zoom. 

So I don't know if they are going to close the offices or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they did with the one here as we are a very small office compared to most others around the world. Most have at least a few hundred people, we have maybe ~40 people in ours. 

ProDarwin said:

Really the internet compensation doesn't concern me much.  Lets say 30% of my traffic is work traffic, it would be worth like $20/month?

The square footage concern is higher for me.  My work stuff takes up ~1/2 of my office, so thats ~60 sq ft.  that I have to own, insure, clean, heat/cool, etc.

Not a big deal for me right now, but it is a bigger deal for those who want to live in an apt, condo, etc.  Sometimes that can be the difference between an extra bedroom or not, which equates to big numbers after a while.

I spoke to my accountant about this. Essentially, it's a huge red flag and you can only use the space for work-related stuff. 

IE, if you have your guitars and work clothes in the closet, it's not "work only" and technically doesn't qualify. I don't think the 10% would matter with the higher standard deduction now anyway.

z31maniac said:

ProDarwin said:

Really the internet compensation doesn't concern me much.  Lets say 30% of my traffic is work traffic, it would be worth like $20/month?

The square footage concern is higher for me.  My work stuff takes up ~1/2 of my office, so thats ~60 sq ft.  that I have to own, insure, clean, heat/cool, etc.

Not a big deal for me right now, but it is a bigger deal for those who want to live in an apt, condo, etc.  Sometimes that can be the difference between an extra bedroom or not, which equates to big numbers after a while.

I spoke to my accountant about this. Essentially, it's a huge red flag and you can only use the space for work-related stuff. 

IE, if you have your guitars and work clothes in the closet, it's not "work only" and technically doesn't qualify. I don't think the 10% would matter with the higher standard deduction now anyway.

Agreed.  I was referring to the more direct compensation others were suggesting above.  For the typical home office setup, it amounts to a super low number and its hard to make a convincing argument that it is a burden.  Especially if you are dropping a commute (which most people are).

I don't understand WFH expense complaints either. I will have internet regardless of WFH or not.  Nobody in the company gets a work cell phone although I know a couple of coworkers who have two phones so they can completely "disconnect" when they want to.  Personally, it doesn't bother me to have work email and Teams on my phone. Having them has allowed me some added flexibility I wouldn't have otherwise. A couple of months ago I logged into a Teams meeting from a Dr's office since the times overlapped.  It helped not having to choose or reschedule.

In the end, any WFH expenses are more than offset by the reduction in commuting costs.  I was spending over $100/month in tolls alone and at least a tank of gas per week.  Now I can go over a month on a tank of gas. I last filled the MINI in Oct and the minivan a couple of weeks ago. I bought gas for neither of them in Nov.  Granted, being injured means I haven't been driving as much to go bike riding, which is another reason for my lack of driving.

I've made similar arguments to employers in my industry...

Construction.  For some reason, companies always seem to make a big deal during hiring negotiations saying "We will give you a company truck!"  I always counter the same way... "Really?  You are gonna GIVE me a truck??".

"Well, no... we will let you USE one of the company trucks"

"So, I still need to pay for MY truck sitting in the driveway, and I have to drive YOUR piece of turd?  How is that a benefit to me??"

My company pays for ALL my fuel (including personal), and a monthly stipend for the use of my truck.  I get ALL the tax deductions and mileage deductions.  $.55 per mile adds up when you drive 50,000 miles per year.

I can't figure out why people in my industry can't seem to figure out what a E36 M3ty deal they are being offered.

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

I didn't have many commuting costs anyway. 12 miles round trip, 3x per week. I already only filled up every 3-4 weeks. 

And since my car is the NC, we can't really use it for Costco runs and such. So it's really only when we want to take a drive or like here in a bit, if I want lunch from somewhere that doesn't deliver. So at the moment, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to keep it if I'm not going to track it. 

I'm in the engineering consulting business. Our clients are major oil producers.   We have been working from home since March.   Company released a building and converted the other building to a "hot desk" layout.   We can go in if we want or if the client requires it, for now.   Not many people are doing this right now.

Some clients like working from home.   Others are starting to announce that they won't start their next project until the staff is present at the building as a team.    I'm thinking once we all get comfortable again the best I can hope for is working at  home 2 days a week.    I miss being with the people. 

I also strongly think that the young engineers that want mentoring will miss out on numerous opportunities to learn on the fly from hallway conversations between the old guys or one on one office conversations about how things are done and lessons learned.   

jharry3 said:

I also strongly think that the young engineers that want mentoring will miss out on numerous opportunities to learn on the fly from hallway conversations between the old guys or one on one office conversations about how things are done and lessons learned.   

There is definitely something to be said for that.  So much of my job (consulting engineering for the Pharma industry) isn't taught in any school and is learned on the job. 

z31maniac said:

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

I didn't have many commuting costs anyway. 12 miles round trip, 3x per week. I already only filled up every 3-4 weeks. 

Thats still $79/month at 0.55/mile.  And a few hours of your life.  I think too many people underestimate their commuting cost.

jharry3 said:

Company released a building and converted the other building to a "hot desk" layout.   

I hope this happens where I work, but its a big IT hurdle.  Right now every desk has between 2 and 6 monitors.  The docking stations are different depending what machine you operate.  Some have 3d mice, some don't, etc.  Unfortunately as it is, basically the only desk I could go plop my laptop on and use effectively is my own.  Standardize it so there are technical level desks and non-technical desks and mix them at the appropriate ratio and it would be great.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

jharry3 said:

I also strongly think that the young engineers that want mentoring will miss out on numerous opportunities to learn on the fly from hallway conversations between the old guys or one on one office conversations about how things are done and lessons learned.   

There is definitely something to be said for that.  So much of my job (consulting engineering for the Pharma industry) isn't taught in any school and is learned on the job. 

Agreed.  I think its still possible for this mentoring to take place, but it either needs to be more formalized, or the informal methods of communication need to be pushed pretty hard.  We have MSTeams at work, but its very difficult to get people to embrace it.  A lot of people who work from home now just want to sit alone and not be bothered and not communicate with anyone unless its critical for the task they are working on.  That's not the way it is supposed to work, and its not conducive to creating new talent within the company.

One upside for WFH is the flexibility to do it from anywhere.  We live in Michigan and it is winter.  We have been in Florida for 3 weeks and plan on staying another month. No one knows the difference.  I am starting to enjoy it.  I have a couple of coworkers coming down to do the same thing.

I will never be able to WFH, but with everyone else doing it, my commute is 15 minutes faster now!

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

I've made similar arguments to employers in my industry...

Construction.  For some reason, companies always seem to make a big deal during hiring negotiations saying "We will give you a company truck!"  I always counter the same way... "Really?  You are gonna GIVE me a truck??".

"Well, no... we will let you USE one of the company trucks"

"So, I still need to pay for MY truck sitting in the driveway, and I have to drive YOUR piece of turd?  How is that a benefit to me??"

My company pays for ALL my fuel (including personal), and a monthly stipend for the use of my truck.  I get ALL the tax deductions and mileage deductions.  $.55 per mile adds up when you drive 50,000 miles per year.

I can't figure out why people in my industry can't seem to figure out what a E36 M3ty deal they are being offered.

A buddy of mine is in equipment sales for Toyota and the company requires that he drive a company provided Camry when visiting his clients.They pay for everything on the car, gas, maintenance, etc. All he does it drive it, and he can use it for personal stuff, too. 

They rotate out the cars every few years, so they're always using the latest model. For them, it's an image and marketing thing.

That kind of deal makes sense. 

I was wondering about the training aspects as well. I know our company is thinking of doing all classroom training as remote sessions and then meeting in small groups for hands-on stuff. We've also got a lot of document review that happens and everyone is pretty upset about what it might mean for actually having to FINALLY adopt company wide document management and scanning. 

But I can only imagine how many jobs are out there where they aren't field based jobs, they are office jobs, but nobody will be going to into the office together, so what do you do to train people? Screen share and remote control desktops? There are going to be a lot older folks left out of those jobs.

My BIL was a director of regional hub of a global commercial real estate management company. He could do his work remotely, but he didn't like to. Then they closed up his office and let everybody go. Now he's got 10 years in Commercial Real Estate Management which is useless, and nobody wants to hire him in a different industry because he's not got much experience outside of that industry. 

DW has been working here full time since mid March. All summer they kept pushing back the general return date every month or so until finally in October they said almost no one will return to normal before the end of July 2021 at the earliest. 

Most of her work is easily doable from home but she does need to go in about 6 hours a week to handle paper. 

I can work remotely and did until June, then again when I had the 'Rona. But I am really not as efficient and we do need some direct interaction. 
 

In reply to Duke :

Same here (except the 'Rona), been WFH since March. They kept pushing the date back. They finally laid off our office admin at the beginning of October, since she wasn't needed. Though she did get nearly 5 months of paid "leave" while they figured out what to do. 

We actually had a Senior VP tell us in a meeting in October that we were being TOO PRODUCTIVE. And wanted to make sure everyone was taking enough time for themselves and our families and not just nonstop working.

I sold the NC in question because I didn't drive it enough to justify the amount of capital I had tied up in it.

Bought a turbo NA for 35% of what I got for the NC and have been pouring money into it ever since.   By the time it's on the road I'll have reached 100%.  Not my cleverest automotive decision .

Someone should buy the NC, it's an amazing car.

And all you WFH guys can bite me.   I have to go in to work.  Every.  Single.  Day.