Engineer sues Amazon for not covering work-from-home internet, electricity bills | Hacker News Reader

Engineer sues Amazon for not covering work-from-home internet, electricity bills

theregister.com

26 pointstheonething8 comments

It's amazing how how stingy such a large company can be, especially when considering how much ill will you're generating with your six-figure employees over a couple hundred dollars. It shouldn't make any business sense.

I think it goes both ways here. It's not like Amazon was refunding fuel receipts before lock down. And when you are making 6 figures, maybe you can consider those couple of hundred dollars already included in your pay check.

All I see are stingy engineers making sure we can't have nice things, such as work from home.

There is a difference between a known expense and a surprise one. If your employer's new decision is making you lose money, the terms should of course be renegotiated. There is certain finesse and unspoken rules in doing business, and the employers unwillingness to compensate for such a miniscule-in-comparison expense has poor optics. I simply think this shouldn't be a suit-worthy thing for Amazon.

If they don't pay for my infrastructure then they don't have control over it and don't get to make directives about how it's configured or managed. I've been mostly remote for my 20 years of working. Sometimes, even recently, issues have cropped up because employers expect it to turn on and off like the tap, but I'm doing a network upgrade. Sure I've got my own connection, hell, I think we'll see companies in the future having corporate accounts to install second connections in home offices. It would make sense to get the control, the discounts, and stay the hell off my network with work stuff.

I know someone recently who had that happen. Work paid for a special work network to be added to the house.

That's interesting to hear! Based off of that I'd guess they are a pretty good employer, or they are fintech which means even if they are assholes they are paying well. Congrats to your friend!

I've been a serial startup guy my whole life and now at nearly 40 I'm starting what I plan to be my last tech startup. I will soon be hiring team members and I don't plan to build a business that isn't light and remote. With all of my new hires I will be installing a second internet connection in their house with gear I determine. This will give me complete control of the routing tables, security, and monitoring for connection issues and also they won't have to sometimes worry if my business is snooping on their personal life. I think there is market opportunity for the providers to see this happening and make it easier to do for business customers. IMO, it's critical.

Why amazing?

It is like how every self-made rich person is extremely stingy. They need those instincts to be that rich.

Plus one of their founding legends is that they were too cheap to buy desks. So they bought doors and legs and assembled them into desks. Plus as a bonus the doors come with a hole to route cables through.

Because these kinds of short-sighted policies waste fortunes on saving pennies. Even in your story building a desk yourself is not necessarily worth the time spent compared to focusing on your core business

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