Should companies now start paying for home internet services?

[sdifox]

Oh yeah if you live that far that's different. That would be like me having a job in Cochrane and living here or vise versa. Would not want to be that far from work.

The nice thing about big cities though is other than work, typically everything is just a walk away.

Markham is right above east side of Toronto... I used to live in Scarborough which is the east side of Toronto. I would take a bus, then trasfer to light rail, then subway, to get to downtown.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Jeebus dude, $18/day for standard commuter train? Are we talking a piece of shit tram that is packed to the brims, or a nice train with big seats and such?

Even still, $18/day to just have a seat on a train is nuts too.

I would drive if the only expense was $20/parking, but when you factor in things like gas and car wear/tear, then I guess I would begrudgingly accept the train.

That is more or less what it runs for the commuter rail to Boston around $18 per day with parking at the station. Trains were packed during travel hours, mid range comfort. I generally drove when I had something important going on after work because missing a train sucked.

 

[sdifox]

i didn't drive last time i was there, i stayed like 30km out of downtown and took the ttc bus and subway to downtown

i got to spend loonies and toonies on the bus. man i love those words

you need a rfid pass now, they have gone cashless.

 

[brianmanahan]

you need a rfid pass now, they have gone cashless.

ah that makes sense, when i was in london (england) it was the same with the oyster cards

i think they take contactless credit cards too. i finally got one! because the US is always 10 years behind when it comes to accepting payment methods.

 

[sdifox]

ah that makes sense, when i was in london (england) it was the same with the oyster cards

i think they take contactless credit cards too. i finally got one! because the US is always 10 years behind when it comes to accepting payment methods.

here you load the card either online or at kiosks, manned or automated. I set mine to autoload after it falls below 40.

 

[Midwayman]

Woah that's still a lot of money, that's crazy. And people there are actually ok with that?

Not really but options sucked when I worked downtown. It took about 45min longer RT by train and the station was several miles from where I worked so it was a serious PITA involving 2 busses in inclement weather. Then of course if anything disrupted my schedule I could be sitting for another hour. The car at least I parked like a block from the office and if someone had a question at the end of the day it wasn't the end of the world.

 

[Fritzo]

Every IT company I've worked for has always paid 50% of my home Internet and given me credit toward my cell phone bill.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Markham is right above east side of Toronto... I used to live in Scarborough which is the east side of Toronto. I would take a bus, then trasfer to light rail, then subway, to get to downtown.

Man that sounds like a pain. I'm like 5 minutes from work and free parking, 2 minutes if I get green lights the whole way. Guess it's easy to take some things for granted until you realize how much worse it could be.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Man that sounds like a pain. I'm like 5 minutes from work and free parking, 2 minutes if I get green lights the whole way. Guess it's easy to take some things for granted until you realize how much worse it could be.

I understand it when people work downtown making $150k+ in places like Chicago, LA, etc.. and it demands that you be there in person.

But if you're comfortable with maybe slightly less but well above the 6-figure mark, you can make plenty of bank in smaller cities and even remote jobs.



I mean, if you're making an average middle-class pay of < $50k and are paying massively in parking/train costs, and have 2 hour or more in commute time.... People need to understand that shit like that is worthy of moving somewhere else. Fuck that.

$50k jobs are a dime a dozen.

$150k+ jobs are not as plentiful, and plenty of those are demanded in high density cities.

 

[sdifox]

Man that sounds like a pain. I'm like 5 minutes from work and free parking, 2 minutes if I get green lights the whole way. Guess it's easy to take some things for granted until you realize how much worse it could be.

Go Transit is much easier, I am like 5 min from the station, drive over and hop on train, 50 min get off at Union Station, walk 10 min to office.

 

[Zeze]

That'd be nice but I love saving $$ on gas and commute time.

I was also tremendously lucky to work for a huge company that likes WFH prior to covid. I WFH every Fridays and also Mondays if I didn't feel like coming in. Also left work at 3pm near daily and signed-on from home.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Let's say the average person spends 2 hours a day spend on overhead (shower, grooming, etc) and commuting to and from work. With ~250 working days per year, that's 500 hours many will get back being WFH. But not just any hours: high quality waking hours. To change the perspective a little: that's ~21 days. Over the course of one year that's enough time to learn a new instrument, how to surf, start a side hustle, or whatever you've never had the time to do in your life to do prior to COVID but now do.

Continuing to pay for your own internet is well worth the gain here.

And that doesn't even include the other huge perk of now being able to choose where you want to live instead of being geographically tied down to your worksite.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Let's say the average person spends 2 hours a day spend on overhead (shower, grooming, etc) and commuting to and from work. With ~250 working days per year, that's 500 hours many will get back being WFH. But not just any hours: high quality waking hours. To change the perspective a little: that's ~21 days. Over the course of one year that's enough time to learn a new instrument, how to surf, start a side hustle, or whatever you've never had the time to do in your life to do prior to COVID but now do.

Continuing to pay for your own internet is well worth the gain here.

And that doesn't even include the other huge perk of now being able to choose where you want to live instead of being geographically tied down to your worksite.

2 hours a day is if anything a very low estimate if you're including grooming, dressing, packing bags, etc....

Then adding on top commute time, parking time, walking to the building time, taking the elevator up to your floor, unpacking, grabbing a coffee first, etc...

 

[ch33zw1z]

For those who say they should pay a portion - if I had to guess the actual bandwidth used for work (VPN, HVD), it would be a small fraction of my overall bandwidth use per month. Not really a good reason. If you compare it with vehicle use reimbursement, there's no wear & tear associated with bandwidth/electricity either. If they will just business expense it regardless, then consider yourself lucky.

I would have to say that really depends on the employee. Work provides me a hotspot, so I dont get any help on home internet. For years I would only use my work laptop thru the work hotspot. Any given month was at least 50GB according to the internal managed services "meter". Some months I hit almost 200GB.

With all the emails (and attachments), network file sharing, training videos, windows updates, chat programs, log collections (downloads / uploads), patches, etc....

For now I've stopped using it and put the laptop on my home network, but if Comcast ever starts enforcing their cap, I'm going right back to the hot spot because employer doesn't cover home internet. 15 years ago, they used to give us $30 per month to help, but once they rolled the hotspot, that was over

 

[Red Squirrel]

Time is the most valuable thing, more valuable than money. Time is something you never get back and is a limited resource. You can't make more. I rather work my current 80k job and be 5 minutes from work than even a 150k job in a big city where I have a super long commute. The stress and time wasted from that would just not be worth it mentally.

I would love if WFH became standard. I still have to go in the office even now as they want at least one person in so we take turns, but being able to work from home 100% of the time would be awesome. But even now it is nice to get to work from home at times. I still shower and brush my teeth and all that, but being able to just get on the PC vs getting in the car and driving is great. Also better for the environment. In winter it's more than just 5 minutes if I account for the time it takes to snow off the car etc and letting it run.

 

[Midwayman]

Let's say the average person spends 2 hours a day spend on overhead (shower, grooming, etc) and commuting to and from work.

So how many hours are YOU saving on grooming? 😀

 

[MtnMan]

I was a virtual employee, working from home, from 1995 until I retired in 2001. The company paid a portion of my ISP charges and cell phone plan. In the beginning the ISP was dial-up, but I was able to become a beta tester for cable internet. 500Kbps download, 50Kbps upload, but at the time that was awesome, and since most everything was text based, it worked well.

 

[trungma]

Nope. I pay the same internet I paid before pandemic and I am glad I don't have to commute. That's three hours saved. Hell one week of commute will cost me more than one month of internet on train fare alone.

I agree. No commute saves me an hour a day. And as you said, it's not like I am paying more for internet.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I’ve worked from home for years and my company gives me a partial cell phone and home internet reimbursement every month. I also get an expense account with Staples to order office supplies on the company dime.

But to be honest, even if I didn’t get those reimbursements, I’d still work choose to work from home. Working in an office is a complete waste of time for me - I hate the commute, the political BS, the lame office events, and distractions. I hope to never work in an office again. Oh, and those paying to park for work during “normal” times? L O L. I’ve turned down offers from top tech companies simply because they wouldn’t pay that expense.