Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

There's two things I want to point out here. Firstly, maybe I'm the exception rather than the rule, but I don't have a massive battlestation PC at home (nor the room to get one) so working from home means working on my laptop and constantly struggling for screen real-estate.

Secondly, large corporations seem to function via rules that are completely immune to reality. Every 10 years or so Intel will not only insist everyone is in the office, but will look at relocating teams into their head offices for any given project - literally giving the people the option "Hey! I hear Gdansk is lovely this time of year". This sort of organisational bullshit from large companies isn't going to go away. However, you can look at the opposite side, I know people (not engineers) who work at companies where they hot-desk every day and the office is only provisioned for 70% of staff to turn up on any given day because they're too cheap to actually provide everyone a desk.

I guess what I'm saying with that second point is that for most large businesses these choices are going to be more about corporate bullshit than some sudden epiphany that working from home is great.

My employer provides me (and other remote employees) all the equipment needed to work from home. Laptop, Docking Station, Monitors and Keyboards.

But you are right about the corporate BS.

You still need space to set it up. I have a large "battlestation" desk with multiple monitors and a nice chair at home but not everyone wants (or should need to have) that.

I'm fortunate enough to have the space in my 3/1 1140sqft SV home for a desk and desktop computer and the like. Basically, it's giving up a bedroom, although of course the computer does not take up the entire room. Thankfully, we don't have kids, so it's not an issue, but it's a non-zero cost, particularly if you're renting.

OTOH, of course, someone will come along to point out that you can afford 20 spare bedrooms if you work remote and can move from SV to a farm in upstate NY.

> My employer provides me (and other remote employees) all the equipment needed to work from home. Laptop, Docking Station, Monitors and Keyboards.

Isn't this pretty standard in the U.S?

I've seen employers even offer reimbursement for standing desks, antifatigue-mats, co-working space memberships and home internet.

A top of the line Laptop, Docking Station, Monitors and Keyboard would amount to a few hundred dollars a month even if all of it lasted a year (and most hardware nowdays are pretty reliable for 3 years atleast) - there's no point even discussing this from the POV of an employer that's not a ramen startup off a garage.

The savings from renting a place in any city, the insurance, maintenance and security costs are significant.

Every 10 years or so Intel will not only insist everyone is in the office, but will look at relocating teams into their head offices for any given project - literally giving the people the option "Hey! I hear Gdansk is lovely this time of year".

Actually, Gdansk is lovely all year round. If Silicon Valley could move to Gdansk, it would be a great step up (but not for Gdansk).

I use GNU Emacs via FastX to display on my macOS home machine. It's wonderful. Not affiliated with Starnet (the makers of it). Just a customer since the X-Win32 days.

Also use MS' RDP and brew + SSH + port forwarding + SwitchyOmega (Chrome extension).

It's like I'm at my desk at work.

I'm 100% remote, and on day 3 of employment, my job drop-shipped me 2x 1440p 27" monitors that my 2019 15" MBP powers just fine.

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