[daenz]

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 powerful, in fact, that it's a hiring advantage for your competitors if you attempt to bar WFH.

The second point is just lazy. Billing for fractional usage is not impossible nor difficult, and you can bet if a company was billing a customer for fractional usage, they would have it down to an exact science. In fact, the resistance on this point shows the weakness of their position from the first point.

I do have some sympathy for the people who like to go to an office and interact with people face to face. But we've been operating with their preference as the default for a long time, so they can learn to adapt now.

[idatum]

> 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.

[amykhar]

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.

[Turing_Machine]

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.

[908B64B197]

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

[bombcar]

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.

[Tempest1981]

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?

[sokoloff]

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

[shawabawa3]

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

[quickthrowman]

> 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...

[D13Fd]

Next on HN: Company x required me to re-wire my house if I wanted to work from home…

[inkeddeveloper]

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.

[yellowapple]

And then they'll wonder why they can't retain talent. "Must be this generation's work ethic and morals," they'll say, without a shred of self-awareness.

[daenz]

What is stopping them right now?

[threefourteen]

Atm the job market is still hot. But the tide is turning (or so the economists say). When/if this happens it's going to be an employers' market and if the employers' require a butt in the chair there's not much you can do.

IMO though full remote is not without serious downsides for the workers as well. Globalized market with localized salaries and alienation being just two of them. Being in my third year of fully remote I can testify to the second one.

[reaperducer]

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.

[inkeddeveloper]

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.

[Jcampuzano2]

I used to be one of those people who liked to interact with people face to face. I still do enjoy going to a dedicated space that isn't home and has people to interact with, but I traded going to the office every day with getting a WeWork.

I've seen a bunch of well-known companies now that have office space in WeWork's or similar co-working spaces in lieu of having their own office and wonder if this is a decent alternative to forcing a return to office. It also opened up traveling a bit more since I can go to any location and have reliable internet/space for taking calls.

My own company actually did this and got rid of their San Francisco office and instead renting an office in a WeWork in the area and giving San Francisco area employees a membership.

[indymike]

I really like being able to work from home, or for that matter anywhere I can plug in the laptop. That said, this article is a lot more significant than it looks, not because of labor/management power dynamics, but because California law has created an incredibly risky situation for employers that allow remote workers. And after looking at the statute, it looks like you couldn't even do a home office stipend and be safe from a lawsuit.

> 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 you view this from the position of power dynamics, reality is the issuer of paychecks will eventually win, especially because they will be driven by fear of lawsuits like this. This isn't the first time people got ran out of the office: back when 9/11 happened, everyone went remote, loved it, and then had to go back. Yes, tech wasn't as good, but we had WebEx (slow internet, though), instant messaging (better than slack & friends) and email.

> So powerful, in fact, that it's a hiring advantage for your competitors if you attempt to bar WFH.

I'm not so sure this is the case. For a lot of people, there was not a salary adjustment when COVID set them free of the office. A lot of people moved to lower cost areas... and kept their salary. Eventually, salaries will normalize to local prevailing wage, plus or minus for the job title and positioning of the job (i.e. we are a better employer and have better pay and benefits) and companies will use a round of layoffs to adjust this. It makes no sense to pay a developer SV salary if they are in Modoc, Indiana or moved to Estonia now.

> Billing for fractional usage is not impossible nor difficult, and you can bet if a company was billing a customer for fractional usage, they would have it down to an exact science.

The point the article is making is that employees suing over de minimus costs is really bad for workers. The energy star tag on my monitor and laptop say I can power both for $28 per year. The guy in the article is suing over $50-$100/month. Seems like there's a lot to argue about... so there is substantial risk. It will cost the employer $18k-$50k to deal with the lawsuit.

[paxys]

The difference is that this lawsuit's judgement will affect not just Amazon but every tech company in California. The thousands of companies that popped up remote-friendly positions overnight will all have to reassess their stance now that they could be on the hook for employees' electricity, internet and even rent.

Right now Amazon and Google have to compete with a startup that is offering a competitive salary and fully remote positions. Can the startup survive if employees start billing them for the cost of their home office?

[SoftTalker]

If you look at the IRS rules for deductibility on a home office, they are pretty strict. It needs to be a physically defined area that is used only for work. If you use the same area as living space, or use the same desk and computer for personal stuff, it's not deductible. If you work off of a laptop, sometimes sitting on the couch, sometimes at the kitchen table, it's not deductible. I don't know if California law is more relaxed, but if it is, then I would think that any expense reimbursements would be taxable income at the federal level.

[cudgy]

None of this is easily verifiable. Are the tax agencies going to install cameras in your office and monitor your internet traffic to verify compliance?

Not recommending tax fraud, but as a practical matter, these are non-issues.

[curiousgal]

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.

[paxys]

My company has onboarded thousands of people since COVID started, and new employees are as productive as ever. There are enough successful companies that have been remote-only since day one and have no trouble with it. Sure onboarding is hard, whether in person or remote, but that doesn't mean it's an unsolvable problem.

[csdreamer7]

I worked in person for a local govt and remotely for a large tech company with a completely remote team.

The onboarding was terrible for the local govt. Mostly focused on legal aspects-they expected me to have office communication skills off the bat and they offered little for training with mobile techs that I was hired to do (I just did one or two projects and they assumed I already had full experience). The office politics were dreadful. Lots of meetings where things were not decided and often missing people that could answer questions. When you reach out by email, they just visit you by your desk, ask clarifying questions and explain things verbally, often referring to a site that I have to manually type in.

The large tech company had a terrific 3 month onboarding process and I was slowly eased by senior members into taking on the more repetitive work. I learned more about the company in two weeks then I did for my 6 months for that govt. If there is a question, I can reach out by email and setup an inpromptu google meet-links and commands to use are shared in the chat and easily used and tested. Decisions were made and I am building connections in the industry with people in and outside of work that do not work in my area.

[faheywf]

By having a comprehensive onboarding plan that is designed to give remote engineers everything that they need to get up to speed and start contributing.

As a counterpoint to your anecdote, I also just started a new job remotely at a company where they invested time and effort into their onboarding experience and it was miles better at preparing me for my role than when I onboarded at my previous two companies in person.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

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.

[jimmaswell]

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.

[inkeddeveloper]

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.

[MattGaiser]

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

[formerly_proven]

I started a new job remotely (pre-COVID, the company had ~zero WFH) and onboarding was very smooth with two in-person interactions to pick up hardware; was contributing in less than two weeks.

[908B64B197]

Onboarding remote employees is different from in-person. If the company refuses to adapt then yeah, onboarding should be a pain.

[toma_caliente]

Honestly sounds like an issue with the company. I onboarded remotely and the experience was buttery smooth.