TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Amazon Engineer Sues for Work from Home Costs

32 pointsby aaronchallalmost 3 years ago

11 comments

daenzalmost 3 years ago
The article makes 2 main points: 1) that this lawsuit will cause companies to take WFH away. and 2) It&#x27;s extremely difficult to bill things like fractional electricity and internet usage.<p>The first is a flimsy premise because companies simply don&#x27;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&#x27;s a hiring advantage for your competitors if you attempt to bar WFH.<p>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.<p>I do have some sympathy for the people who like to go to an office and interact with people face to face. But we&#x27;ve been operating with their preference as the default for a long time, so they can learn to adapt now.
评论 #31715788 未加载
评论 #31715533 未加载
评论 #31715847 未加载
评论 #31715799 未加载
评论 #31715780 未加载
评论 #31715494 未加载
评论 #31716013 未加载
评论 #31715872 未加载
评论 #31715565 未加载
motivealmost 3 years ago
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.<p>It will be interesting to see whether the courts see a difference between incremental expenses vs things the employee was already purchasing (e.g. internet vs electricity)
评论 #31715758 未加载
评论 #31715387 未加载
评论 #31715442 未加载
评论 #31715833 未加载
mmastracalmost 3 years ago
It does raise the question of why large companies _aren&#x27;t_ responsible for paying for commuting costs. We&#x27;ve obviously never done it that way, but is there a reason that we couldn&#x27;t?
评论 #31715653 未加载
评论 #31715547 未加载
评论 #31715437 未加载
评论 #31715884 未加载
评论 #31715626 未加载
评论 #31715450 未加载
kkfxalmost 3 years ago
Honestly we surely need to discuss WFH in laws terms, in the sense of &quot;I worker provide a room, empty, accessible for inspection, the company provide furniture etc, I&#x27;m responsible to keep it safe and closed etc&quot; or &quot;I, worker, provide a room, well equipped, and the company pay me a fee for my work and room usage&quot;.<p>But that&#x27;s not a thing to be discussed in court. It&#x27;s a thing to be publicly discussed in political terms to arrive at a CLEAR and defined norm for WFH. In some country such norms already exists but are a bit old, meant for another tech era, in some others do not exists at all.<p>For instance in Italy there are two norms, the ancient clear but hard, a new one opaque and obscene. The first is for &quot;teleworking&quot;, it MANDATE an empty room, inspectable by a public body responsible for safety at work, locked, furnished by the company, with dedicated services provided by the company etc. The second is &quot;smart working&quot; witch essentially state that workers and companies agree a kind of place-less, by-target works no one surveil, the company just provide a craptop and a crapphone and all are f** and happy. Clearly both norms are not good at all.<p>For instance we need to separate time-defined jobs (like call centers, banking, ...) to <i>potentially</i> async ones (like development) and so regulate them accordingly. We need to define &quot;a home workspace&quot; but without exaggerations like the Italian &quot;telelavoro&quot; laws etc. To do so <i>discussing</i> is mandatory, and courts are not a good place to discuss and negotiate...
philliphaydonalmost 3 years ago
In australia you can claim things like internet or computer and such at home if it’s used for work. Used to claim back half my internet costs every year.
评论 #31715686 未加载
评论 #31716312 未加载
评论 #31715643 未加载
kodahalmost 3 years ago
I&#x27;m not sure I agree with the article. I&#x27;m not even sure that I get corporate logic at this point.<p>Offices cost money, much more money than configuring an enterprise for remote work. There&#x27;s always that minor percentage of employees who <i>cannot</i> develop successful patterns to work from home. As the pandemic showed, these folks <i>are</i> the minority today.<p>Under this paradigm, as long as remote work costs less than a building then remote work should be attractive to a company. Yet, many companies are chasing hybrid models even though that direction causes a good bit of attrition as well (people want the whole thing).<p>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&#x27;d impact each other&#x27;s commercial property values. This confusing state we&#x27;re in is purposeful.
评论 #31715432 未加载
评论 #31715979 未加载
tibbydudezaalmost 3 years ago
It is possible - my home office is on a separate circuit (own DB board) and I have a electricity consumption monitor on it.<p>I remember when we went WFH and I was so cheesed over the disruptions in Teams meeting when colleagues used those shitty $10 Chinese made earbuds - asked management to at least supply everybody with a Plantronics headset so we don&#x27;t waste time.<p>I was told - we are professionals (we need to buy our own shit) - end of story
评论 #31715703 未加载
评论 #31715774 未加载
评论 #31715919 未加载
hiyeralmost 3 years ago
This is absurd and greedy of the employee. Surely the cost of internet and electricity would be a drop in the ocean compared to an Amazon engineer&#x27;s salary.<p>As an aside, here in India, most companies do reimburse internet charges. But then broadband internet is quite cheap here - my 300Mbps connection only costs me around $25&#x2F;month.
spfzeroalmost 3 years ago
With the time commitment required to pursue this legal challenge, you could get a second WFH job.
dixie_landalmost 3 years ago
What’s also ridiculous is that IRS still doesn’t allow employees to deduct WFH expenses after the pandemic making it mainstream.
stevenalowealmost 3 years ago
Deduct home office expenses or get reimbursed, perhaps it should be a choice