Ask HN: Who pays the extra cost of WFH?

1 points by earpwald 6 years ago | 7 comments

So in the current wave of the virus, many of us are being told to WFH on a permanent basis.

For my part I would normally have WFH once a week, but now that I have to do it full time, I'm wondering should the company cover the cost of that?

After all there is going to be a lot more electricity usage etc. Just curious what our full time WFHers do?

uberman 6 years ago |

I have worked "from home" extensively. The short answer is I "pay" if you want to call it that. Suggesting that somehow the burden of extra electrical use should be compensated for seems petty to me though.

You can try to deduct it as an "uncompensated business expense" but when you find out what the actual threshold is for that being a real thing you will be disappointed. Either that or you use astronomically more electricity that I do.

I have 2 large desktops, 2 laptops and 4 monitors in my home office. They run all the time as I never turn them off (though some of them do sleep). I can assure you that my hot tub uses far more electricity than they do.

You walk to work now which is great. For me, there was tank of gas a week savings as I drove and 10k miles less wear on my car.

Just as significant I think is that making my own coffee and lunch every day saves me in two weeks what the electricity costs me to run my office for a year. Before working from home, coffee and lunch would easily cost me $20 a day. Two weeks of that is more than my entire electrical bill a month.

Finally, for me anyways, the ability to see my kids when they get off the bus everyday and help them with homework and get them motivated to practice the activities and hobbies they enjoy is priceless.

earpwald 6 years ago | |

Our electricity is expensive and on a meter so charged at a higher rate. With being at home as well we're using our own coffee etc instead of company provided.

You're right, it is a small amount of expenditure, but I was curious as that's now escalated across entire companies!

JudS 6 years ago |

Isn’t that offset by the cost of your travel being reduced?

earpwald 6 years ago | |

I walk lol!

joezydeco 6 years ago |

What does your cost estimate show? Have you measured how much electricity your home rig takes? What else changes between office life and WFH life?

earpwald 6 years ago | |

I haven't done an estimate yet as we start this week. We pay on a meter so the electric is pretty expensive and as we rent not much I can do about it.

Thats mostly it...I bring lunch in and thats the greatest expense.

joezydeco 6 years ago | | |

So it sounds like, in your own words, there is literally no difference in cost between the two other than perhaps a 1% delta in your electricity bill.

If you really want to pursue compensation from your employer, of course you have every right to do that. Is that something you feel is worth chasing down?

If the company feels you're giving them extra headaches over WFH, which is a situation a lot of people would love to have, what does that do to your reputation with your managers and leaders? Does it help or hurt your long-term prospects with the company?