
Shopify is giving its employees $1k to furnish their work-from-home setups - TheLastSamurai
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-shopify-employees-work-from-home-employees-1000-bonus-office-2020-3
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mgerdts
PSA: Used office chairs are a much better deal than new, at least if you are
paying close to list price. About 10 years ago I bought a steelcase leap for
less than $300. I've used it at least 250 days a year since then with no
problems. List price on that chair is $1k.

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Polylactic_acid
Used chairs seem to be plentiful. It seems that whenever a business moves
office they just throw away or sell for very cheap all of their chairs and
tables.

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imtringued
Selling for cheap basically means they want to get rid of it but not pay for
disposal.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Which is good for me because they are almost always still in really good
condition.

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znpy

      Shopify did not respond to Business Insider's request
      for comment. It's unclear if whether the $1,000 amount
      is a bonus employees will see in their paychecks, or 
      whether workers will need to expense the items they
      purchase.
    

Does it make any actual difference? Yes, it could theoretically impact
somebody's tax bracket, but do we need that level of detail?

Also someone is blaming a lot of companies with the "why wait?" theme.

The thing is, moving to all remote is not a company does overnight.
Particularly with matters of security perimeters, there's a lot of planning
that has to be done. Corporate firewalling on premise is a thing... Corporate
firewalling a laptop at home is a completely different matter. Assumptions you
can make about network in the office vanish once the employee is at home.

Maybe the wait was to implement at least some basic VPN connectivity, proper
firewalling and stuff like that?

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aka1234
Not to be glib, the difference between $1k on the check and $1k expensed
doesn't make a difference if you're well paid. If you're considering how it'd
impact your tax bracket, it doesn't matter to you.

But for the customer support reps? It might make all the difference in the
world. Most of those employees won't have an extra $1k laying around that they
can forego until finance gets around to finally reimbursing them for their
expenses. For the average customer service rep, the question will likely boil
down to:

1.) Can I not pay a bill (or three) right now so I can take advantage of the
program?; or 2.) Do I not participate in the program.

A couple years ago I had similar dilemma with expensing around ~$400 for
something. At the time I made about $50k/year and was supporting two
households in two separate cities. It took a lot of juggling household
budget(s) to wait for the 4 weeks it took to get that money back. That was a
lot of added stress when I was already working paycheck-to-paycheck.

Today? I make over double that. If I had to put out $1k, I could do so without
blinking. But I live a VERY different life now than even 2 years ago.

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xyzzyz
It makes large difference if you're well paid. You can only buy ~$650 worth of
stuff from $1k in paycheck, but you can expense full $1k of stuff in the other
scenario. Of course, you could argue that if you're well paid, you can spend
additional $500 of your own gross pay to top up that $650 to full $1k, but
clearly Shopify doesn't think this way, because if it did, it wouldn't give
any extra $1k in the first place, and just tell their employees to get what
they need and pay for it themselves.

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bonestamp2
Our office just closed too. We're using it as an experiment for wider work
from home in the future. This could have widespread impact on work culture.

If it works out, that $1k/person could pay dividends in savings if they can
reduce office space.

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nojvek
I realized that Shopify has a bigger market cap than Uber and has grown like
wildfire in the last few years.

Looks like a great company with a good culture and a great product.

~~~
pixelbash
As a developer on the blunt end of their theme development I have questions.

That said, they solve some difficult problems and no one else comes close at
the moment.

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simplyinfinity
Care to elaborate what those problems are?

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pixelbash
Well for one thing they seem to have have quite a comprehensive tax system
which they keep updated. Something I realised could be valuable when dealing
with a Californian client on a different Ecom platform.

Another one is a reasonably powerful but client friendly interface, which
sounds easy but almost all other platforms fail in some way.

Lastly it isn't totally bad for headless ecommerce, at least if you dont look
at the accounts system too hard.

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jackschultz
I'm a remote worker and I've found it hard to say something positive about the
virus, but having companies be more ok with remote workers and (hopefully)
finding work still gets done can mean more remote possibilities overall. For
me, that's a good thing.

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minhaz23
I saw someone mention that whats to stop them from getting comfortable with
remote workerse and then hiring cheaper labor from the next state over,
inevitably taking advantage of skilled international yet cheap labor,
remotely?

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axaxs
If the next country produces similar results, then who cares? If this brings a
great awakening in companies overpaying engineers, so be it. I expect to be
paid for my knowledge and experience, not because I need to afford an
apartment in the valley.

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lonelappde
It's great that people outside SV have an opportunity to earn money. It's not
great that putting the prole employees in fiercer competition funnels more
money to wealthiest monopolist capital owners.

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40acres
Damn this is awesome. I'm actually dreading working from home because I don't
have a desk, keyboard, or anything of the sort.

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WalterBright
Dining tables make the best desks. Lots of surface area, and plenty of room
underneath for cables and boxen.

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dazc
Failing that, a door with one edge rested on a radiator and the other a stack
of cardboard boxes.

I work from a proper ergonomic office desk now but it beat many other
alternatives including a dining table and various purpose-made 'home office'
desks.

(Accepting I got lucky with the height of the radiator).

~~~
MivLives
In the same vein I worked off a folding table for a long time. It was cheap,
large, and surprisingly sturdy. If I needed the room it took up back I just
folded it away.

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grumple
I work at a remote company and this is normal, but obviously Shopify has a
much better PR team than us.

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jaybeeayyy
just curious, do remote companies give you a stipend when you first come on or
is it only if you request it or something else? I've never worked for a remote
company but the place I currently work will let you borrow everything if you
need to work remotely for an extended period of time (family emergency etc).

Obviously I wish they'd give us money to set up a nice work station at home
though lol

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grumple
We're given some money initially to do setup and some more after your first
few months.

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geocrasher
You can buy a Herman Miller _refurb_ on Amazon for $500. It's a great deal.
You also need a second monitor, mechanical keyboard, webcam, headset. $1k is
plenty for all of that

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xeromal
People with mechanical keyboards in conference calls can jump in a lake. haha

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wyclif
I do this and honestly, it's not that bad if you don't have the mic near the
keyboard. The headset mic I have seems to drop audio dramatically just a few
inches away from my mouth, which is a feature, not a bug, if you're using a
mechanical keyboard.

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enobrev
This is excellent.

I've been working remotely for a little over 18 years, at first in a tiny
450sqft apt with 2 roommates and now in a house with an office with many other
situations in-between in a few different cities.

The most important thing I've ever done for my sanity, productivity, and
consistency is set up a permanent space to work. Same chair, same surface,
work only. My whole life could be a complete shit-show but my "office" was
tidy and available, even if that "office" was an edge of the kitchen table.

There are other things like making sure roommates and significant others
understand the boundaries when working and such, but dedicating a workspace
has always been the most fundamentally essential.

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janesvilleseo
I have worked from home for nearly a decade. I guess I don’t know what I’m
missing but I don’t need 1k chair. I sit at my dinning room table on a 50
dollar chair from Ashley Furniture. No problems at all. True I don’t have a
desktop and use a laptop so I can take it with me to onsite meetings or move
to another location like my patio, couch, or garage.

I’m not sure what I’d spend 1k on besides the machine I use to get work done
on.

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azhenley
For me a nice monitor is a must. I cannot be productive on a laptop for more
than an hour or two. It all feels so constricting.

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WalterBright
You can get some real nice monitors for $30 from the thrift store. I'm looking
at one on my desk right now :-)

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sitkack
It isn't quite the thriftstore, but the last 3 batches of monitors I have
gotten were all surplus or off lease.

Something like
[https://www.newegg.com/dell-u2412m-24/p/N82E16824260047?&qui...](https://www.newegg.com/dell-u2412m-24/p/N82E16824260047?&quicklink=true)

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archi42
Hm, everyone mentions chairs. Biggest improvement bang-for-buck was setting up
better lighting in my home office: I now got three decent 5.5W 4000K MR16 LED
spots over each of my tables and oriented to my liking.

Also, props for letting them use their office equipment at home. Asked my boss
for the same and he was happy to allow me to carry the better of my monitors
to corona/home office with me :)

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SoulMan
I heard salesforce is givng USD 250

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mtnGoat
As someone who has worked at home for many years, and has a nice home office
setup. $1k is not nearly enough... you need monitors, a decent desk, a nice
chair, office supplies, a printer/scanner, the list goes on and on.

~~~
philliphaydon
I think you will find that most of the people this $1k is targeting is people
who already have the means to work from home, but maybe need some additional
things.

No mic/webcam for meetings. Maybe own a laptop but don't have a desk/chair.

The 1k isn't about funding a fancy setup to permanently work from home. It's
about filling the gaps so that they can work from home as effectively as
possible during this time.

~~~
yani
The article says that the $1k is for all 5000 of their employees. I doubt all
of them have a laptop that they take home and most laptops already include a
decent microphone and camera. The budget definitely does not target buying a
laptop or desktop computer. It has to be for accessories like a chair, desk,
scanner+printer.

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byroot
Every single Shopify employee has a laptop they can take home.

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frenchie14
> Spotify did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

They should probably ask Shopify to comment instead =P

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yibg
I've noticed that BI's articles are full of typos. Not sure if they just rush
things out or what, but some of them are so obvious if anyone did a round of
proof reading they would've spotted it.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Proof reading doesn’t drive clicks.

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Cthulhu_
Act First Apologise Later, Move Fast & Break Things, etc

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mesozoic
SO $1 will buy you a chair...

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smnrchrds
I imagine they assume you already own a chair and a computer, but may want to
buy a second monitor for example to make it easier to work.

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kondro
Assuming you should already own a chair that shouldn’t be worth less than
about $1k (or a bit less than that second-hand) is a bit extreme.

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richrichardsson
A bit off topic, but it would be great if they invested some cash to do
something about the obvious scam sites on their platform. A domain like
fdkwbn.shopify.com should be pretty obvious to even the dumbest AI that it's
not a legit site.

