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Does Your Company Pay For Broadband?
masq57 writes "My fellow administrators and I used to have company provided ISDN lines in our homes so that we could respond quickly to issues after hours. That was changed in the last few years to letting us expense our broadband service. Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers. What sort of experiences do the rest of slashdotters have along these lines?"
Next thing's to work on finding an employer that isn't run by such cheap bastards.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
..consist of a cell phone. However, I'm "the" IT guy, so if I wanted to hook up my own dial-up service I could. That's about it, though.
In my experience, it's been assumed that IT pros would have home Internet access because, well, what IT pro wouldn't have at least a consumer dial-up account if not broadband.
Paying for those things is a company's way of passing the employee some cash-value compensation without it being considered taxable income. So, add 20%-30% (depending on your personal tax rate) to the cost and consider that as have been subtracted from your pay package... consider yourself insulted.
Aside from that, this might be a good sign that it's time to start looking around for another job. This isn't 2002 anymore -- employers who still think they can get away with this sort of shit are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
No for broadband connection and no for Palms, cell phones, etc. Yes for Blackberries since they are part of the disaster recovery plan. If you do have broadband and you can justify needing VPN access they will hook you up with the necessary equipment and software.
My opinion and stance has always been "if you want me to have it, then you (the company) will pay for it." I've told employers that if they want me to have a cellphone then they had better pay for it themselves, 'cuz I won't have one if it's my choice.
if I could get my company to pay for anything outside of the watercooler I'd be stoked...
If it's something you spend any time doing work with, the company should fund that fairly it seems to me. The job market sucks now but asking you to pay for broadband service (or at least the portion you really do use for work) is akin to making you buy your workstation to bring in to work. In the worst-case scenario at least you can deduct it from your taxes though. Your CEO sounds like a real turd for making a comment like that though.
You DON'T want a pager anyway. In my experience, when they give you one, you are expected to respond if it beeps.
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
*/
Don't be an idiot, just let it drop, and if you get fired, collect unemployment and find a new job. Enjoy the free time in the evenings since they can't reach you. I work from home, so I pay for my own broadband, but no way would I pay for it for after hours support. Besides, they pay for my cellphone.
Why should they profit off your expense ?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
If you're stuck paying for your own broadband, can you write it off on your taxes like auto milage?
My company just laughed when I asked about being reimbursed for broadband. They also laughed when I asked about being reimbursed for my cell phone. I do have broadband (at my own expense), and I do use it for work (it's a lot nicer to do patches from the house, rather than driving 45 miles or staying late), but they don't have my cell phone number.
I consistently insisted that my cell phone not be listed in the company employee directory. I threatened to change the number when once it was listed. If someone needed me over a weekend, they could call my home, and if I didn't answer, then tough. If the company wanted to pay for my cell phone service, THEN they could reach me after hours.
Don't give in on this issue. Do you really want your employer to have you at their beck and call 24/7 on your dime?
If there is an after-hours issue, we will pay milage to come in and take care of it. But that's pretty much it.
Once upon a time I also had an ISDN line in my home, but the company at the time stopped that when VPN services became available.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Let's say Broadband is $40 a month, x 12 months a year, that's $480. Ask for a $500 year raise ($.25 per hour assuming a 2000 hour work year).
Yes, my company does pay for my home broadband access..and they are remarkably liberal about it. They don't care what servers I run or how I use the bandwidth (3 Mb/1Mb), just so long as I can still effectively do my job. Of course, I work from home full time, so the situation is a bit different than that of many in our profession. Josh.
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
While you still have one!
I know that's a pretty bleak statement, but it's reality.
If your employer wants to be that strict about TOOLS to do you job, they care nothing of you as a person. I would suggest running when they want you to pay for pagers, cell phones, and broadband at home (if its part of your job function). Next they will expect you to work for free!
They pay for our phone lines, broadband, company pagers, and the higher ranking individuals are starting to get blackberries. I think your company really screwed up by forcing you to pay for your connection to the company after hours.
:-P
Just use this excuse not to do any work after you go home
Nobody really needs to carry a blackbery, a cell phone, and a pager in this day and age. The three devices are so close tech they all fit in one shell with your choice of form factors ranging from the T-Mobile Sidekick to the standard Nokia models.
Business calls should only be a few minutes a month anyway, nothing you should lose money over. If you're being called regularly on the weekends, then the business has more serious issues about staffing...
In my experience, a dialup connection works just as good for a plain text/shell connection - IMHO ISDN lines were overkill (ofcourse this depends on the actual environment context).
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
They're going to pay for it.
Of course, if it's their resource, then they can dictate how it's to be used (ie; running Kazaa? Yer fired!)
I had this discussion with my bosses. For me to VPN under Comcasts EULA, I need the commercial edition for twice what I pay. If they want me to have it, I'll wind up with two cablemodems, one mine, one theirs.
They don't pay for the broadband - there's been no need to, but they do pay for the cellphone which I promptly turn off as soon as I leave the office. (Hey, they only had me promise to carry it with me, not answer it)
End of story.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My company doesn't expect me to pay for broadband at home, but my job doesn't really require me to have it. If I choose to do some after hours stuff from home, and I would rather do it via a broadband connection, then that's on my checkbook as far as they're concerned.
Curiously enough, I can remember when companies furnished cell phones to the appropriate personnel and actually picked up the tab. These days, we're expected to have a cell, but we have to pay for it on our own. Go figure. *shrug*
When you're not looking, this sig is in Latin.
DICE and Monster. After enough of you leave, this idiot CIO will get the idea.
I have DSL at home ($50/month), a pager ($20/month), a cell phone (+/- $80/month), and cellular internet ($80/month). My company pays for my pager, my cellular internet (gets internet access via PCMCIA anywhere I get a cell signal), half my DSL, and half my cell bill. I'm also a 1-man IT shop supporting 30+ users and 20+ servers including clusters, so even on vacation, I have to be available and reachable. Of course, we're not hurting for money either.
Yes you should be happy to do it, if you were a happy employee. Simply outline that while they want you to innovate, to give your all for the company, to make them better than their competitors, then they should be willing to do the same for you.
Tell them that if they treat you 'competitively' to what other companies are doing, then you will either work as hard as other employees or find a company that treats you better than they do.
We are going through the same thing here, and there is nothing worse than cutting back on employee benefits, pay, and perks and justifying it by saying 'we are doing what everyone else is doing'.
I think this is a fair deal, since on one side I really do use it for work, on the other side I don't expect my boss to pay for private use.
Typically, if a company really needs me to be available 24x7 (or even just the occasional after-hours job), they have paid for my internet access, as well as either a pager or cellphone. Some have been employer-provided, some have been the "buy and expense" variety. Either is acceptable IMHO.
I think it would be reasonable as a cost-cutting measure to provide a monthly internet connection allowance suitable for dial-up (if that's all you really need to be connected), and allow you to apply that to whatever connection you choose.
But if your CIO really thinks you should "do what it takes" to be a good little corporobot, I'd suggest that (s)he is an asshat, and you'd probably do best in the long run finding another place to work.
It'd probably help if everyone did it, but if they won't pay for it I don't use it for business. Not that I'd ever get rid of my broadband at home but that's another matter.
My employer will pay for broadband, cell phone but not pager (what's the point? text messages cover paging) for employees it considers mobile which is almost everyone outside of our main sites. Some areas even get better broadband rates because of deals negotiated due to the amount of employees we have.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"You should be a dedicated Officer of the company who desires to give us much deserved raises, so that we can be responsive, and do whatever else it takes to make us happy."
Basically throw their own corporate speak back at them, and see how it works on them.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I think the CIO is right if I understand it correctly:
No cable / DSL / pager / cell = not reachable outside normal work hours and physical presence at the site. On training? Have no cell phone? Expense calls from the hotel room when you check voicemail (in the evenings and mornings only I'd expect)
Blurring things is bad. It's bad for the employer who has to pay for it all, and it's bad for the employee because he has to tolerate the invasion. I have a cell phone, my employer does not have the number. And if he wants to reach me on a cell, he can buy me one and I will use it when he needs to reach me.
In the end, all is well and no one is hassling me at home. And I never have to use a personal resource for work. The line is clear and protects both sides equally.
Your CIO sounds like an asshole. "Dedicated" means dedicated to the work, not dedicated to spending money for your own company. (Hint to CIO: People work to get paid money. Not to spend money for their employers.) If the company needs you to have internet access to do your job, they should pay for it.
Any company which demands you restructure your own personal finances in order to be able to afford an internet connection that they require you to have had their head up their ass. Your personal finances are none of their fucking business. I realize it's much easier said than done, but if I were in your position and had such demands placed on me, I'd quit.
Put this arrogant prick in his place. All of you should collectively refuse to pay for broadband yourselves, and let him see how "productive" you are without his help. It is not your reponsiblity to spend your own money for "the good of the company."
What a crock of shit.
IANAL but years ago worked in a non-tech field (social services) in CA and as an employer we were required to pay for certain things for employees that were requirements for the job. For example each employee who worked in direct contact with our clients (in this case troubled teens) was required to have CPR certification and a TB test. While the employee was required to provide these (and cover the cost) at initial hire, because we required it as a condition of employment (i.e., it was necessary for them to do their job) we the company had to pay for renewals of CPR training/certification and TB tests (every 2 years if memory serves).
I would think that if something is clearly defined in your job description as a requirement, that it would be your employers responsibility to cover the costs/provide the needed equipment.
"She said, ooh eee ahh ahh..." -Lux Interior
What next, you have to buy your own desktop to use at their location, or you have to pay for the electricity used to power the servers? If you are using something because they _require_ it to do your job then they should be paying for it. If they insist in not paying, drop back to dialup for a while. The only reason to do what they're doing is to save money, a grand or two per year per person probably, and this thing if you having to be a dedicated employee is a coverup.
Personally, I'd suggest polishing up your resume.
Damien
I certainly hope, that as dedicated employees that desire to be responsive, that you also get some sort of monetary remuneration for your faithfulness. Continued employment should never be considered compensation.
The subject says it all.
That being said, supplying your own broadband is one thing (you're probably a geek that would have it anyway), but all the rest is your CIO crossing a line (s)he shouldn't be crossing.
I used to be able to expense broadband, but that last few companies I've worked for didn't even consider it.
Still, my current company does pay for the Blackberry, but that's only because they want to suck every possible moment of time out of us... no matter where we may be.
At this point, I'd pay *not* to have the Blackberry!
The place you're working for is a sinking ship ... they've run out of cash, and they're trying to download the costs of doing business on to their employees. Having lived through the dot.com bomb, I've seen this thing a half dozen times. If you don't play ball, you'll get bad reviews, and you'll eventually be dismissed for your "poor attitude".
Better start looking for a new gig.
S
The poster should try serving in the military. There is a saying in the Navy, if it didn't come in your seabag you don't need it. Basically, you'd be expected to provide the same job with no resources.
My father (I'm still in college, and though I work at the same company, it's a much more temporary position) was given a router and was allowed to expense our cable internet charges to do occasional VPN work. Now, he was too moral to take them up on it since he didn't work from home nearly often enough in his opinion, but it was fully legal stuff. Maybe Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (a mouthful to be sure) is just nicer than the average company these days.
I'm always right and I can prove it, because to the best of my knowledge, I've never been wrong.
... and make a bunch of calls... then when you go over your minutes make a copy of your itemized bill and give them the bill.
That should be enough to quiety convince them of your point.
If they expect you to be on-call after hours (it's officially in your job description, etc.), then it is reasonable for them to provide the means for you to handle that (be it network / Internet connectivity, hardware, software, etc). I've gone as far as requiring them to provide hardware (and I've gotten this for other employees as well).
As far as cell phones and pagers go, rates have dropped significantly, and personal use has increased to the point where it's like asking your company to provide you with a home phone so they can call you - it's probably asking a bit much. However, if you can show that your work-related cellular useage is hitting you in the pocketbook, then you should have the company provide you with a dedicated (business-stuff-only) phone that they can audit to their heart's content.
Knowing only the skimpy details provided in the story description, it sounds like your boss is a cheap asshole who needs to be set straight.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I've been a contractor at a pharmacutical company for over 3 years now.
My company still offers: cell phones and blackberries to full-time employees (non-contractors). However, I'm pretty sure you're responsible for your bill (or only reponsible if you go over the amount), and you have to have to a good reason to have a blackberry (like, a server admin).
They used to offer ISDN lines, but I don't think they do that anymore (the old adopters are grandfathered in though). I do know that they don't pay for any of the current broadband offerings (cable, dsl, etc), otherwise I know a lot of people would try to get it.
For a server admin or webmaster, these things would be very important. But to an in-house developer or something along those lines, it's not necessary.
When you're in the office, that is. Tell him you are absolutely, positively dedicated to providing your company the best possible service during working hours.
When you're at home, your time is your own, unless they're paying you extra. If your job is not like that, it's time to find a new job. "It's your job, suck it up," is not an appropriate response here; you're a human being, not a disposable resource to be used up.
Your CIO needs to show YOU that he's dedicated to having the best possible service available, and that he's willing to dedicate the resources to ensure it. If he wants 24-hour cell phone availability, he better be paying for the phone. If they're going to require you to use your own resources to perform your job, then they should at the VERY least reimburse you on a prorated schedule for the amount of time you spend using your net connection from home. Even if it's only a couple of bucks a month--hell, especially if it's only a couple of bucks a month.
As it is, all he's showing you is that you're not worth a goddamn unless they can squeeze every last drop out of you that they possibly can.
Okay, maybe not a troll. Just my honest opinion:
Just add up the time you spend at work browsing the web for personal enjoyment. Then subtract the amount of time spent at home on work related stuff.
(Maybe discount reading slashdot, maybe not).
It's better to have a decent internet subscription and figure out a way to pay for it. At least when you're fired, you'll still have an internet connection!
Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers.
What your new CIO is not telling you is that your department budget has been cut back and they are no longer able to pay for your broadband. If they won't let you itemize your broadband connection, ask if you can itemize dialup connection and phone costs for every call you have to make for business reasons.
If you have to be on-call, then they should at least reimburse you for cell phone/pagers costs. I'm not sure about blackberries, tho.
My company pays for my broadband and whenever I'm on-call, they pay for my cell phone costs and they provide the pagers. They also pay overtime for on-call related work, but my personal policy is, if I don't have to leave my house, I don't charge them. Also, they usually understand that if I stay up half the night soving a problem (from home or at the office), I'll probably be late for work in the morning and tend to look the other way.
How is your company's overall situation? Are finances suffering? Read between the lines on what your boss told you and figure out wether it's safe to protest or you should simply start thinking about employment elsewhere.
Disclaimer: IANAL, YMMV, caveat emptor, boni anima teuri amen, and all that.
No sig
They suspect that they can get away with it. I'm assuming that you've logged a politely worded, reasonable constructive complaint with HR and your management, and that it was ignored or provided with lip service.
You have two options:
1. Take a principled stand, and refuse to provide after-hours service unless you are compensated (e.g. free internet, or cellphone, or overtime). The risk here is that you'll be fired...probably for specious reasons unrelated to this issue, supposedly.
2. You suck it up and take it. There's no honour in losing your job and collecting unemployment. However, if you take this position (which most people would), remember when the economy bounces back that YOU show as much loyalty to the company as THEY showed to you.
Personally, I'd start looking for work elsewhere now.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
My fellow administrators and I used to have company provided ISDN lines in our homes so that we could respond quickly to issues after hours.
*AHEM* Not that I'm saying your ISDN line wasn't a good tool to "respond quickly to issues after hours" but...
In reality, your fellow administrators and your used to have a company-provided ISDN line in our home, pretending to need it to respond quickly to issues after hours, so you could get free internet in reality. Trouble is, your company wisened up to the fact that you shafted them, and decided that a a regular dial-up account, an automated phone call, SMS or Blackberry messages work just as well to "solve issues after hours".
Been there, done that. The bubble is finished, get over it...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Essentially institute a "safe auto" contact policy. You have an answering machine on your home phone number that they can call when they need you. You have, as far as they are concerend, no cellphone, pager, blackberry, or non corporate internet. If they send you an email you will get it when you are at work. I can not think of a single profession where there is a similar situation. Do construction works have a BYOB policy (Bring your own Backhoe)? No then why should 24/7 IT guys (which is what your company wants) have a BYOB (Bring your own broadband) expectation?
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
I wish my company paid for my internet service. However said company is owned by a cheap penny pincher....
I do have total access to our servers using VNC since no one else in this entire company understands what VNC stands for, let alone does. Just my personal experience...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
I was in the same situation about 3 years ago...and I worked for an ISP at the time.
They provided free dial-up accounts to all employees but that's it. As an administrator I required a little more than a dial-up.
The way I dealt with it is whenever we had a problem that I had to remote in for I would use the free dial-up account. When the owner asked why it took so long to resolve the problem I'd let him know that it could have been resolved a lot quicker with a higher speed connection, but I would not use my personal cable connection for work unless they paid for it. I even offered to bill them for the time I used my own resources for work.
After about 2 months and hundreds of angry customers (companies and home users) I got a free high speed account, a pager, and a cell phone.
Either don't use your personal resources or bill your employer for time using those personal resources for work.
Blackberry device and pagers should definitely be company paid. You should have a phone yourself, and some internet access, so they would normally be personal expenses. All connectvity software (VPN, etc.) that the company would require for remote connection should also be the corporate $. If a CIO was trying to wring this amount of savings it would signal to me that the end was near, and I would look to jump ship.
I'm a CIO and common decency wouldn't allow me to suggest such measures much less implement them!
Company provides laptop
Company provides 2 way alphanumeric pager
Company reimburses for Cable modem
Company reimburses for Cell Phone upto $50/mo
It looks like the CIO in the original message, dumping everything on the shoulders of the employees cost-wise is a pretty short sighted and wsounds like he/she won't last any longer than his/her sight.
Yes the IT personnel should be dedicated but in the face of contracting rate cuts, salary reductions and layoffs we suffered, if they expect me to foot the bill for things that that may end up as a responsibility to me (think about 2 year cell phone contracts) should I get laid off, does not make much sense.
As the wisemen at one time said, you harvest what you sow earlier. If they do not provide facilities for support they have to suffice with longer response times.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
I personally find non-reimbursement incredibly insulting, but let's not forget that the employer must be aware that these are deductible business expenses. At the very least, they should be willing to accept that they are getting the money back from your business expenses. There's nothing worse than an employer telling you to get certified or to fly to see client xyz but refusing to pay for the flight or training. I have had to contend with that on a number of occasions, and it's only with small companies. Any fortune .5k company will not only reimburse you, but force you to use the process. They don't want any audit screwing up their investors' opinions!
stuff |
Broadband usually has lousy SLAs (97% availability and things like that). For remote maintainance of decent systems, ISDN is a much better choice.
I pay for my own broadband, cell phone, home phone, and laptop. Guess what, EACH one of those I use as a resource in making my life/work better. Clients can't get through on the business line, they nextel me, GREAT. Good, I wish EVERY employee here was as dedicated, we would get more done. All that matters is GETTING THE JOB DONe, who gives a shit who pays for the cell phone, it's only $50 a month, and my pay is a shit ton more than that. My car, yep, if for whatever reason some other employee, or a boss needed one of my 3 cars, go for it. That's why we make THE BIG BUCKS, because it's WHATEVER IT TAKES.
My. Company. Doesn't. Pay. For. Shit.
Never have.
Never will.
Boss: "Help! Our App just crashed!"
Me: "Will you bill my toilet paper usage?"
Boss: "Umm... no... why?"
Me: "Because seeing as how I'M ON THE SHITTER AND YOU DON'T HAVE A DR PLAN, I can't help
you at the moment"
Boss: "...But..."
Me: [Click]
ZERO
The company does not get to use my private resources. You want to reach me after hours then you better recompense me and provide for the cell phone. If you want me to connect to servers at work, either pay for the faster connection or be limited by the bandwith I choose to pay for. ( And if the company pulled this on me after paying for bandwith, I would throttle my connection to a 28.8 regardless of what I might have.)
Fortunately my company has not got that cheap yet.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
My Boss is a Cheap Fuk, There I said it!
Sig: BEEeeeP,,Please press pound, so I can get on with my fucking life!
If they want that kind of response from you, then they should pay for it. I have separate cell phones, one for personal and one for business. I have two broadband networks at the house, DSL for personal use and Cable Modem for work. I have two toilets, one for personal use and one for work.. :)
I work from home, work pays for
{
home telephone
dsl
cabletv
} > all on one package
plus my mobile telephone
seeing as these things would be provided if my office were in the same building, it is to be expected that they cough up
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
My employer pays for a dedicated ISDN line for some employees (and checks the logs scrupulously for banned, non-work related use).
Since they're already excruciatingly strict about OT, most of my unit could have no better inducement to turn their pagers off and refuse to answer their cell phones altogether, than some nimrod trying to charge us for being contacted off-hours about work stuff. We're not salaried or contracted, 24/7 coverage was not a condition of employment when we were hired - and it's annoying enough to do things on our own time without getting anything for it. Having to pay for our "leashes" would be near to the last straw.
<grrr>
Where I work (a university) the attitude is that if it's work related then work should pay for it. That applies immediately to pagers and cell phones that are distributed to staff. If you already have a cell phone and don't want to carry around another phone, the university will pay for any overage charges that are work related (downside: you probably had work calls in there that brought you over the limit, but you still pay for personal calls in your overage - alternative is to carry a second phone that work pays for.)
This was also extended to in-home broadband access to those who could justify it. For example, if you are a systems administrator and you need to be able to respond to down systems during off-hours (i.e. you carry a pager or cell phone) or if you are a DBA who needs to respond to database problems, work will pay for broadband access. People like the financial support staff, most of the developers, and the web designers are not able to justify home internet access, since they don't need to respond to system problems. (Note I said "most of the developers".)
You have to re-apply every year, and your supervisor and the CIO need to sign off on it. You need to submit your bills monthly, and it only covers broadband internet. For example, if you have cable TV + internet, you only get reimbursed for the internet service. It's a fair system.
Hey, if you're paying for it, that means that you and your fam get first dibs on the internet. If they're paying for it, it kinda means you have to use it for work. Now, it's your and you you're letting work have the privilige of accessing you after hours.
It still really sucks though 'cause really, you'll probably end up using it just as much for work anyway.
...no two people are not on fire.
I worked at 4 IT jobs over the last eight years before my latest 'big corporate job' that required after hours support. They all paid for my DSL/internet access. In my latest role I work many a night and many a weekend, and now as a manager, so does my staff. We have not been reimbursed for Broadband since I started here almost three years ago, but we are expected to always be on call. Our phones and pagers are paid for, but not the broadband. Most of us feel happy to have a job that pays well(we may be just lucky to be paid well, I know others aren't). If you don't have financial reasons to keep your job, or you think you can easily pick a new job for equal pay, I would fight it. If you are happy with other aspects of your job, and are willing to suck up the cost, then just deal with it. Money is an evil, but a necessary one.
"I'm making gravy without the lumps baby!" -- Mad Bomber Which Bombs at Midnight -- The Tick
Last time i checked the IRS 1040 forms had a section specifically to un reimbursed work related expenses.
Sure, its only a tax break but what the hey. Electronic leases suck anyway. Sounds like your employeer is a real dweeb anyhow
It's really easy to say this while working. If you ever loose your job and out of work for 1/2 to a 2/2 part of a year; i bet that the cost of a cell phone or even broadband connection won't stop you from having a job. I see a lot of people that get arrogant and say that wont do this and have never been out of work in the 99 years they have worked; you have to remember that competition gets younger each year and the younger ones are hungrier than you. Eventually, you'll be out of a job if you don't support as much as your replacement does.
I had company-sponsored broadband for two yearrs, along with a cell phone and a cell phone bill being paid for the company. I don't anymore and I'm very happy. Having a company-paid broadband line or a cell phone makes it easier for the company to require you to do tidbits of work during your free time.
With no company phone or 'net access it needs to be something major for me to even respond to a request. Previously with a company phone I've had people call me at 1) 7AM 2) Sunday's at 10PM... and I'm a software developer, not tech support.
It sounds like your CIO thinks the economy is going to continue to tank. Or worse, is letting you know the company is in such financial straights that $500 month can make or break it.
Update your resume, start looking and when you start getting offers, you can decide if he is right. My bet is you will be wishing him a fond farewell. If you can find an opportunity as a group so much the better.
The ploy of administering guilt to ensure you "join the team" is just another emotional play. It begs the question, why won't he take a $500/month pay cut to keep the troops happy?
Move on soldier business is business.
Well, where I work the management attitude got more like what the poster decsribes during the last couple of years of downsizing. We stopped receiving on-call pay for after hours support but were expected to be available, sober and within two hours reach of the facility of course (if we wanted to keep our jobs). Luckily we don't have to pay for the cell phones/pagers we use but never say never.
In staying on topic we do not get reimbursed for broadband connections that we use from home to do work as the company views this as a convenience for us. I'm torn on that because I don't know that the company should be paying for my personal line but on the other hand what is convenient for me is also convenient for the firm since I can turn something around in minutes from home rather than driving all the way in which reduces downtime considerably.
"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." - Isaac Asimov
It's quite a nice perk, and they explained that as they are a broadband equipment/services-related company, they felt that all employees should have broadband access in order to take advantage of the company's equipment (a home/small office gateway router).
I have both cable and DSL paid for, as i do testing of equipment on both from home, so it's even better. DSL at 1.5meg down/1meg up and cable at 4meg down/384k up.
"Snoochie-Boochies? Who talks like that? That is babytalk!"-Jay, Chasing Amy
I'll leave it up to you to decide to take the hit or not should they decline the raise
AC comments get piped to
My current employer pays for my broadband at home, after hours support is a job requirement. My last employer would not, but still required after hours support. (That's one reason they are no longer my "current" employer.) I think anyone who needs to do regular after hours support should have their home service covered by their employer.
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
Despite being the most despised current corporation. People can choose DSL or cable depending on what works best where they live.
Broadband is one thing, but cell phones (for work use), pages, and blackberries are another. I work from home, so have a strong argument to be able to expense my broadband connection, however I don't expect to be able to because I would have it anyways. However, my cell phone is provided and I would fight tooth and nail if it were not. Do they expect that you'd pay for work related text messages from servers/services that need attention? That seems outlandish. In the case of broadband, you'd probably already have it, and it's not metered, so it is irrelevant how much traffic is work / personal related. However it is not reasonable to expect you to provide things like a pager for work emergencies yourself.
I question the business acumen of any executive who simultaneously pisses off an employee, and decides to extend the company perimeter into that employee's home LAN, over which he has absolutely no influence or control.
Why do they want the employees to be "dedicated" enough to pay for something the firm itself doesn't view as important enough to spend money on.
My work forced me to get a cell phone. Now ANYone can reach me at ANYtime. OH THE HUMANITY!
Now if your contract doesn't stipulate that you must pay for internet access, cell phones, etc., its your choice.(but it could cost you your job.) If they want to fire you, they will find a a way.
The other option is to pull an office space. That is, turn off your phones, internet, etc. and just ignore the outside world during your supposed time off. But like I said before, same thing applies about maybe losing your job.
Of course, nowadays, companies are crunching dollars by forcing mandatory overtime, less vacation time, etc. My uncle recently lost 2 weeks of vacation time just because the company decided that after 20 years of service, that someone doesn't need 6 weeks, that four is enough. Seems like a similar issue to me.
If they stop paying for your broadband, then it's none of their business whether you have broadband available for work use or not.
You can tell them how happy you are living off the grid and checking your email at the library. If they need to get a hold of you after hours they can send a bike messenger. Besides you sold your home computer to buy food.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
The broadband piece may be because most people don't just use it for work, but for their own use as well, and there is no reason work should pay for that.
Having an on-call pager or cell phone is not an unreasonable way to go. I have used worked that out with my staffs in the past and it works pretty well. If you aren't on-call you never get the call because some manager HAS to use the printer right outside his/her cube, and not the one 10 feet further down the hall.
Ride it out, but make it clear (if this is really the case) that you don't have room in your personal budget for high speed internet access, and that if you get the call it will take you X minutes to get into work.
Personally I don't take work calls on my personal cell (sometimes my wife takes it, or my kids) so it's not a reliable way to contact me. I do have a company provided pager.
YMMV
Eschew Obfuscation
Either the company is running out of money and wont survive long. Or, new management doesn't understand that employee morale is worth much more than a few bucks they save.
But getting to my Subject Line - Throw this at the VP (or whomever)... How can you ever expect to have an accurate Income / Expense sheet when you are shifting business costs to the workers? You're actually doing a disservice to the shareholders, because they're going to look at the bottom line. They will see smaller (or marginally decreasing) expenses related to reoccurring expenses, and think management is getting more effcient. This works great until the expenses get uncovered somehow (people quit, get a union involved, contact congressional representatives who then ask questions, etc).
To be very frank, bosses like this bury a company. It shows leadership is willing to be unethical to increase margins. As a MBA with 10+ years of network & telecom and military leadership training, I'd say the ship is sinking and it's time for you to get out.
...offers to contribute $50/month toward employees' broadband internet costs.
This is fantastic, because it lets me get a really primo package from Speakeasy for effectively just a few bucks more than I was paying for my crappy Comcast (you're not allowed to do that with your connection) cable modem "service."
If work does not pay for it, and I do (i.e. it isn't a free service), then work does not get to benefit from it for vital job-related functions. Incidentals, such as driving to/from work or calling in sick with my phone, don't apply to this rule.
You don't get to call my cell phone for regular work-related business unless you pay for it. You don't get to use my car unless you pay for it. You don't get to host dinner parties in my house unless you pay for it. And you don't get to benefit from me having broadband access unless you pay for it.
The only other option is that work documents that they require me to have such-and-such (broadband, cell phone, whatever) and then I write it off on taxes. I will also look at these work expenses I have been asked to pick up, and be thinking of those when salary negotiations come up the following year.
Jim
If you are required to use it for work, it's a business expense that should be paid by your employer. If they won't pay, you may be able to deduct some of these expenses as unreimbursed business expenses at tax time. IANAL. IANATA. YMMV.
In my previous job, I finally started refusing to pay for things that the company required me to have to do my job. You want me to have a pager, provide it. You want me to have a cell phone, provide it. You want me to have a home computer, provide it. You want me to have an Internet connection, provide it. My boss had a breakdown, and his boss was livid, but Human Resources came to my rescue and told them bluntly they had to pay for what I needed to do my job, and that I couldn't be disciplined for refusing to subsidize my employer.
If you love your job, talk to your personnel department and see if someone can talk sense into your bosses. Otherwise, I'd look for a job where they treat you fairly.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
I work for a pretty large company that has offices all over the place, so e-commerce is a pretty big thing. Many sometimes work from home, but when they do it's frequently on dial up. I guess dispite its size the compnay is not going to subsidise people downloading 1000s of mp3s and DivX movies. Some use ISDN but very few have broadband. I think the ridiculous 4GB per month download limit may have something to do with it.
Happily they use company laptops and not home computers to log on. Imagine the malware if they didn't.
May the Maths Be with you!
...but that's because I pick up voice mail over the weekend and have to enter them into our system. It's a nice thing to have outside of work though.
using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen.
Your boss:
"No lights, heat, water, toilet paper for you - if you were dedicated you would provide them yourself. That computer on your desk - well, it isn't there anymore so you'd better go out and buy yourself another one.
Oh and furthermore, from now on you have to pay for your own broadband at work too, but of course the dedicated won't mind that."
When it comes to a breakfast of eggs and bacon, the chicken is committed, but the pig is dedicated. It sounds like your boss is considering you to be the latter.
If it's anything they require that you have it, then I'd say they should pay for it.
Regarding the cell phone, I pay for my own and bill them on my expense account for a prorated part of the minutes that represent business use. I'd have the cell phone anyway. They do supply a pager at their cost.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You might want to double check on liability issues. Depending on the exact nature of the business involved, there could be legal issues.
(I.e. if the work involves things like medical or other private information, working on/transmitting those over 'personal' equipment or an ad-hoc telecommuting arrangement may be a legal no-no.)
I am not a tax lawyer...
However, I think you could write it off as unexpensed business expense -- like auto milage.
But the kicker is that you would need to have enough of these types of expenses to pass the 2% minimum in orger to receive the deduction. Meaning, the sum of all of these types of expenses needs to be greater than 2% of your taxable income.
-mls
For things like pagers, blackberries and mobile phones, if the company wants you to have them so that you can be on call, then they can damn well provide them and pay for them. Especially the pager.
If you can fix the problem at home over your broadband, then fine - consider it money saved on fuel getting to the workplace, and time as well (if you get mileage back for out-of-hours calls). If that means upgrading your broadband to a business package, then the company should pay the extra, but otherwise for home broadband that most IT people have these days, I suppose you have to accept that it is something that is now taken for granted, whilst back in the days it wouldn't be.
Yeah, you are losing a benefit, but only because times change.
I'd politely inform the company that "due to the companies inability to cover a $40/month ongoing support/maintenance cost - I was unable to respond to said problem this morning until I reported for work." Sheesh! I mean does it really saving the company money when xyz mission critical application built on a platform costing $$$ of dollars goes down but no one is there to respond?
I believe it is the customer that suffers by this. I negotiated paid Internet Access as a condition of my employment. It only makes cents (bad pun, I know) for a company to provide Internet Access to their support staff. Take care of the people who take care of you otherwise karma becomes a boomerang.
I'm an intern at my company. But I hardly intern. I'm the only IT/Sys Admin here. Everything has been outsourced to other companies until now. Get the hint that they're cheap? I don't even get a cubicle. I get the end of a desk by the secratary. Now how the hell am I supposed surf porn like this?
A few of my IT buddies went through a similar situation and explained to the CEO they could not afford the extra cost they would incur when they became responsible for home broadband access and company equipment and requested a salary adjustment to compensate them for the extra money they would be spending. After several meetings with the new CEO they got a salary increase and some extra time offer for their trouble.
At my employer, the option of expensing cell phones & broadband is up to each manager's discretion. In my department, if you are willing to put your cell phone into the corporate directory, they will pay for the service (within reason, of course). I telecommute on Fridays and therefore my manager allows me to expense my broadband. I also have a router providing hardware VPN and an IP phone at home.
If you work for a company that sells some sort of product/service/hosting, then the cost of your cell/pager/Internet connection should be built in to the cost of doing business (i.e. charged to the customer).
If more companies do this, neither you, nor the boss will feel that money (yours or theirs) is wasted.
Your attitude is awful. I will never work for someone who thinks the way you do. Even if someone is posting from work right now, it doesn't neccessarily make them less productive. Breaks are neccessary here and there to clear your head and allow you to be productive. You cannot require someone to have internet access (or in particular, fast internet access) in order to be able to work additional hours. How does it show distain for the company if they don't have internet access or a cell phone? Having a life outside your job is not distain for the company, it's healthy.
There is a collective struggle between workers and owners (and their proxies, bosses). This series of events shows the subjective weakening power of the workers side here. They want you to pay for the privilege of being a 24/7 on-call wage slave. There's not much you can do as an individual, although if your company gets worse than industry average you can split.
What you can do is band together with other IT workers and educate and organize. You may remember recently there was a desire to retract the FLSA laws from even moe people. Most IT people legally have no right to overtime anyhow, despite the 19th century battles for an eight hour day. In fact, your time is now around-the-clock, and at your expense. Communicating and organizing with organizations like TechsUnite, the Programmers Guild, Washtech and whatnot will keep you appraised of these things. The ITAA, the IT owners lobbying group, has been lobbying in Washington DC for years, and was flooding newspapers with stories of IT labor shortages in the late 1990s. This has been a common industry tactic - industries used to flood newspapers with stories of labor shortages in the early 20th century, which newspapers like the Industrial Worker used to mock.
The two big factors in the struggle are hours worked and pay per hour. Employers always are trying to expand hours worked, workers if they have any power are trying to reduce the number of required hours. In terms of pay per hour, the fight is over how much of the wealth you create, and workers create all the wealth, goes to you in wages, and what percentage goes to the owner in profit.
Something people say is companies are getting tighter due to the economy, as if political economy was something completely alien from people like the weather. On the contrary, employers felt their expected rate of profit was falling in 2000 so they stopped capital spending, thereby creating unemployment, which drives down wages. They do this until their expected profit rate comes into their expectation range again.
I have to pay for my connection my self, as well as any and all technological items that may be needed for my job as a programmer. I have my own laptop I take to work to work off of. The only thing that is paid for by the company is my cell minutes used when talking with people off-site.
The next thing you know, you will have to pay for your own shackles used to keep you near your desk during working hours. In fact, pretty soon you may need to bring in your own desk and chair too. On the bright side, if they make you pay for your own pager you can just not buy one and tell them the only service you can afford doesn't work near your house.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
yes, you now can feel free to have a life when you get off work each night! if manglement does not give you tools to respond to off-hours issues, and does not reimburse for same, fsck 'em. phone rings, thank them for the notification, and assure them they can solve the problem before you get back in the morning.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Employment is a equitable business arrangement, not a marriage. You're not their bitch.
Tell them that if they want you to work outside of normal hours they should pay you overtime and give you the tools to do it.
You shouldn't have to subsidise your employer out of your own wallet, or give them more of your time than they are paying you for.
They also have a group plan with Sprint PCS that includes unlimited text messages. But the included phone wasn't nearly as nice as my current one (and I don't get messaged nearly as often as the Help Desk/server guys anyway), so I'm just expensing the equivalent amount from my own plan.
That's a supremely silly argument the CIO's using. Not wishing to pay for the company's out-of-office access to you suddenly makes you not dedicated?!? Perhaps it means the CIO's not dedicated to the access needed by the company's customers ...
my company pays for broadband and I havenot bee contact off work hour, yet. :D
Does your CEO need a new boat, you should be willing to take a 20% salary reduction. So what if you have 6 kids to feed, you have a job and your superior needs a new boat on which entertain others members of the ruling class. You will just have to eat a bit more mac&cheese and raman noodles for the next several years until the CEO sees fit to bump your salary up a few fractions of a percent.
You should be willing to do anything for the corporate bottom line. Anything...
I don't see anything wrong with a business having certain expectations. Most all expect you to get to work on time and they don't care if you have a car, but they at least expect you to have reliable transport.
If you are an IT guy, a broadband connection from your home can give you "reliable transport" without requiring you pile into your clothes and drive to the office at 3AM every time some little something pops into your obsessive CEO's IT-ignorant brain.
If you don't want a blackberry, don't pay for one. I never would carry a pager (again) for any amount of money, and I make that clear from the get-go. I don't even carry a cellphone - if someone wants me they can try to call the landline or they can leave an email. If this isn't a big enough toolbox for them, then it's time to talk about mo money... simple as that.
Tell your CIO that we all think he is wrong.
Corporate knows its IT staff will want broadband for themselves. Why pay for it?
Where is it going to stop? Where the employee wants it to stop.
My company isn't paying for my home phone, but it could be used for similar contact after hours uses.
(as a lawful evil player) I think companies should go the opposite direction. Give everyone broadband connections, enforce VPN connections to the company intranet, force VoIP, and force anything else you can to control your employees.
Monitor everything. Data mine it all.
then sit back and pull the strings.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I can imagine a single pager/cell phone/blackberry being an appropriate business expense. If the company wants to contact you after hours, they should provide a way to do it.
Internet access is another story. You could always go to the office. I mean, it sucks, but if 24/7 maintenance really is your job, then you have to do it. Just be sure to let them know that your response time may go down since you'll have to start driving to the office to fix things.
Unless this is the sort of business where you have actual owning shared its completely wrong to put up with this sort of crap. Small startup companies where you have a good personal relationship with the owner, sure, use your own stuff. In a corporate enviroment, no way: - if its used for work, the company pays.
Broadband - $50 - 100 per month
Cell phone - $50 - 200 per month
Blackberry - no clue so I'll say $50 per month
Pagers - do people still use those things?
Short end is $1,800/year to a possible max of $4,200/year. (Sure you could claim it on your taxes and only be out ~ $1,200-2,800 like that is supposed to make it any better.)
Smile while you are at work and get that resume in circulation. I'd quit on this issue alone because it looks to me that it's just the beginning....
10 MD
My company reimburses up to $40 a month for internet connectivity if you "qualify". Qualifying means you and your manager say you have a legimate need to work from home on occasion.... staying qualified means you actually connect from home at least 3 times a month (loosely enforced from what I can tell).
Odds are everyone here would pay for their own anyway, but it's a nice $500 a year raise for most people, which really doesn't hurt the company and fosters plenty of good will.
Of course, I have a company that very much has the attitude of make the employees happy... because then they do good work. I'm relatively new to the work force, but from everything I can see (and everything I can compare with friends at other companies) it's a very good philosophy.
sounds like they would not be getting ahold of me after hours. No pager No contact after hours. Sorry. We get 1/2 Internet for high speed up to $25.00 and also a pager or Cell phone up to $50.00
If you realistically only get called once in a blue moon, providing a full-time broadband connection is overkill, and I think they have a point. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a company to pay for everything that might conceivably be used for work, when it's something you likely would already pay for, and will likely use predominantly for personal use.
With the company I work for, it's a judgement call by the manager - direct work-related expenses are reimbursible (i.e. work related cell phone calls). They will only pay for the phone itself, or the monthly fee if you are in a position where you need to use the cell phone day to day to do the job, such as sales folk.
In my case, I telecommute full time, so they pay for a telephone line, my DSL connection, and misc office equipment and supplies. They don't pay for my cell phone (except work-related call charges), but it is a tiny minority of my usage.
The only problem I see in the scenario as it's laid out is that it was a blanket decision by upper management, rather than giving lower level managers the ability to decide what is appropriate for an individual situation.
Is the company in dire trouble now (that being the reason for the cutbacks), or are they going to be in dire trouble soon because of such cutbacks?
It's almost certainly one or the other. If the company is hurting, an dthis is a part of across-the-board, temporary cost-cutting measures, they should say so, and you can decide how to react.
Otherwise, there's a clueless twit loose, and s/he needs to be dealt with, or your group (if not the company) is dead, dead, dead unless something changes.
As for the details in the meantime, I agree with the "Easy one" poster. It woiuld be one thing if you'd hired in under those terms. But just yanking them because the new guy has his own definition of reality? Maybe you should explain that a real CIO provides his people with the best tools for their job.
My previous position with Nortel Networks required that at least one person in our group be on call 24/7. To that end a pager was rotated through the members of the group on a weekly basis. Internet access from home, while not a requirement, was suggested. Now while I never expensed that service back - I would have purchased it regardless and as such did not want to take advantage of the company - I was provided with a company paid for cell phone, and extra "Pager Pay" while on call. This was standard practice under my Director and of the several groups under his command.
I also remember members of my group getting laptops instead of desktops if they did not own a computer at home.
I would find it de-motivating for an employer to request I provide my own cell, pager and/or Internet access to do a job they hired me to do. It is assumed in most offices that an employer will give you the tools to perform the job required of you, at least in my 6 years young career.
My point being that any company that requires you to perform a duty for them, should at least cover expenses that the employee may incur during the execution of those duties.
Such my experience: Pager, Cell phone, and (if I wanted) Internet access was covered. I.E. the tools needed to perform the job I was hired to do.
-Ghost
Plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, or pretty much any tradesman, are expected to have their own tools.
Hell, McDonalds' employees pay for their uniforms.
Is it really that unreasonable to expect computer professionals to have a computer and internet access?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
i'm still laughing.
pay for broadband?
I'm paying part of my health insurance.
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
I work for a small telco/ISP/wireless company, that owns all its own equipment. However, we employees are required to pay the same rates as our customers for our wireless services, but I guess we are lucky in that we DO get a free dial up account.
At least thats my experience.
I am. A Digital Monk.
I work for a smaller company, and they pay for my cell phone. If I drive to branches (I work at the corporate office) then I keep track of my mileage and get a reimbursment check each month. They dont pay for my cable connection, even though I do work from home at times. I always answer my cell phone, and if I go into work on the weekend I add it to my mileage.
If being certified to fly is something that wasn't a requirement when you got the job, and then becomes one to "keep the your job" without them providing the training... then they've just changed your job description. They can't fire you for not meeting the new description, if they let you go they've laid you off.
Big difference between the too... it means you're entitled to a full cash-out of your vacation time, severance, and unemployment. Suddenly, that cost savings for making you take the training on their own gets wiped out with the cost of having to get rid of you...
We need to curb this kind of behaviour early and with all means necessary. If we let him get away with it, soon they'll have you pay them money to go to work, 25 hours a day.
Dance on his grave and sing Hallelujah!
Money for nothing, pix for free
With the market becoming more competitive, your company is probably trying to cut corners, hence the shafting of it's employees. IMHO if a service is going to be used for business purposes then it makes sense that the Company helps pay for it.
"The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world" -The Brain (Pinky&the Brian)
As far as the type of phone number you provide (cell-phone or regular), that should be up to you, as long as you can be reached at that number during the hours you are required to be reachable.
If you have a cell phone, but do not want them to have your cell phone number, then you should give them your non-cell number, and when you are away from that phone (and no one is there to take a call for you and call your cell phone), set up call forwarding to your cell phone.
My current company does not pay for any of those things - no internet, cell phone, etc. They don't even pay for internet access for everyone inside the company building. I tend to think of this as absolute cheapness on the companies' part, since these tools can help dedicated employees do better jobs. Real performance evaluations will weed out those that aren't dedicated.?
Luckily, I am currently hiding at a customer site. After that... well, anyone need a couple of software contractors?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Not everyone can afford to have ideals. More often than not, the employer's attitude is: "There are more suckers where you came from, and they'll have their own cell phone." Thus, you would be out of a nice paying IT job, and working at McDonalds, where you have your moral standards of not having to pay for a cell phone. The bottom line is that you do what you have to do to keep a job that you want. When the job isn't worth the pay/benifits, then you'll quit, and the next guy will have it.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
expects me to steal bandwidth from my neighbors via their open access points. ;)
We have to pay for the service and then at tax time we get a special slip that gives us tax credit for our expense.
I think is something like a expense to preform your job and your get a tax credit in return.
To me it is just one way the company is off loading its cost to the all ready lowly paid employees. They figure if you like the job you will work cheaper (strange how many leave after getting more than 2 year of exp. for a job at double or triple of the salary).
I work for a major wireless company. I pay next to nothing on my personal cell phone with the company's service, plus I have a rim/good/blackberry device on which I have my office email and calendar plus instant messaging. They do not pay for our home internet access, however I have a company provided laptop with dialup internet access. If I am on call, a special phone is handed to me for "Official Use Only" for that time period - usually one week. Other employees are not given my personal contact information, but my manager can contact me at home or via cell in an absolute emergency if he has no other way to reach me first.
We get a cell phone, some get an on call pager, and others get a black berry. We are provided laptops if we travel or work remote. We pay for our own broadband or internet connection. The company does have dialup and vpn for remote access.
....which is in affect what you will be doing. I and my co workers have already told those that we work for that we expect them to pay for these things. That we work for a very large corporation and that they cannot and should not expect us, its employees, to subsidize their daily operations. Its one of the few things we have been very adamant about. We have given them very clear examples of what they can expect from us as their employees:
If they do not pay for a cell phone, do not expect us to anwer our personal ones outside of business hours.
If they do not provide us with a laptop, do not expect us to have a working computer at any given time.
If they do not provide us with some kind of net connection(we did not make broadband mandatory, but we did make it clear that several of us do not have land line phones), do not expect us to be able to respond to emergencies with any kind of quickness. A number of us commute...it could take hours to get into work at any given time of the day or night.
Any company that is worth anything should be taken to task for this kind of thinking. Period!
Dimes
...esp for the lame speeds you get.
A two second call setup and connect - O Joy.
Not that speed is the point here, but I figured I'd say it anyway.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I've known people who've worked for companies that required employees to bring their own office supplies. But their situation sounds different from yours. In fact, you're looking at one of two scenarios AFAICT:
After that, avoid buying even a single paper clip. If your CIO throws a fit, remind him who's paying for the cell. Then start pounding the pavement.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
You wouldn't happen to have a mullet, would you?
~Philly
...provides me a cell so i can be reached after hours. i am to pay for whatever "over" minutes i use. trick is, no one can tell me how many i have per month. i called the cell company, and they said that our company has an unlimited plan, so i should be able to call anywhere, anytime.
i see $17 - $29 taken out of my check every month for "24 hr phone".
my company knows that i do not have net access at home.
Since these are unreimbursed Employee Business Expenses you can write them off on your taxes.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
So we are going to take away your benefit of a home-ISDN line to save money at the same time (on your own dime) you are going to provide the same fast and professional customer service when a client is having a problem with a system. So how much more is the CIO's bonus when he shows the Shareholders how much he cut back expenses this year??? If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. -Lane Kirkland-
So through the netadmins, and some other contacts of ours, I get free Broadband.
:-)
I boycott signatures
--- Office of CIO of big company --- Ring... Ring.... CIO: Hello.... Hey Mr. Gates how are you? Bill: Fine... Fine got a proposition for you. [more useless drab] CIO: So you mean to tell me have the developers pay for the tools they use to develop software... ingenious. It's a win-win for both of us. Bill: Yeah we can roll out a new version of Visual Studio every year and we both benifit. Hey next week I want to talk to you about having all of your employees pay for Windows. CIO: We'll do lunch. what the heck. The minute I pay for work cellphone, pager, computer, etc. is the day I leave IT and start my own .com
To me, a dedicated staff is one that is willing to be available after hours. Making them pay for their connectivity is asinine. I don't know what the job market is like in your area but I think this is a strong sign to look elsewhere.
Doubtless other posters will say that if they don't pay for it then you shouldn't use those devices/services for company work. My advise is that if it's your dime, drop the expensive blackberry for a cheap ($5-$10) a month pager, change your cell phone number and don't give the new one to your employer, and begin the job hunt.
95% of the slashbots responding to this thread are jerking off at work. But if the employer wants you to pay for your own home broadband, fuck 'em, right?
I like the fact that my wife's business pays for broadband... gives me the arguement to say, the business wants money for providing the connectivity to your business. Lol!! This would work for roommates.
They cannot argue that.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Anything? You mean you already have a cellphone and if your boss calls you on it -- presumably business-related -- you refuse to answer?
I agree that you do have to draw the line somewhere. ("You buy pens and paper for yourself, so we shouldn't have to.") But be careful what hill you want to die on. As an example, I think cellphones (probably with text messaging) are so ubiquitous now that work should not have to buy one for you. Cable modem is more iffy. A specific kind of cellphone, PDA, etc, they should buy it.
(This is no different from the old low-tech world. If your employer required you to wear a specific uniform, they paid. But if they required a suit and tie, you paid. Even if you're a t-shirt-only man outside of work, suits are still general-purpose and ubiquitous enough that you're expected to get one yourself.)
If you are a sub-contractor (10-99) then you could be asked to provide your own equipment. If you are an employee, everything goes on the expense account. Many work force people carry 2 cellphones. 1 for personal and 1 for work. I personally dont need to be contacted because I use Linux and my systems run just fine without me. One reason a Chief Officer says you need to buy your own its because they buy their own due to the fact no one can justify they use it for work. ;p
pretzel_logic
... and I pay for my broadband.
"It was hell!" recalls former child.
You do realize that .5k has the same number of characters as 500, right?
Not as deductable as you might think. The IRS has special rules for dual use items such as cell-phones and laptops (don't know about broadband). Companies that give their employees these items must either have a policy that forbids their personal use, or must enforce recordkeeping of when it's used for personal, when for business.
(I work for a law firm, and have had several conversations regarding these rules.)
> get tea
No Tea: dropped.
Man, bad enough crap like this is happening, but did ya have to advertise it on /. so every freak'n PHB in the world would get similar ideas?
Senior NCO in the fight against entropy. I've seen things, man. Things no one should have to see.....
"using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen."
I'm dedicated and responsive... only don't expect me to pay for work.
Your private resources are yours only... don't use them for the company...
"Why didn't you used your broadband to fix the server? - I don't have one... I don't need it for my personal use"
Want me to use a cell phone? Pay the bill (they already pay), but nobody at work had my personal cell phone number before it... the ones who had knew better to call me about work...
I do have a personal cell phone and internet connection and I work for a small company. I can be contacted if needed via cell phone 24x7, and the company does reimburse me for any charges from that call. I can not access the company network from home, so I have to go in if I am needed to do something. If I am needed at the office, then I have to judge the importance of the requirement for me to be at work versus not going, and the consequences of that decision.
If you are required to connect to the office systems regularily and work via the internet, then some payment for your connection should be made. If they want you to carry a pager or blackberry, and you do not have one, then they should definitely pay for it, or have it clearly stated that your job requires it and you are expected to pay for it. That way, everyone in the same position has the same requirements and everyone has to go buy them, or no one does. This is similar to saying that you are a system administrator in the office, and you should supply your own computer to perform your work.
I feel stupid, but I'm not getting the slang here for Blackberry.
To me, a blackberry is a "fruit" and it grows on a bush. Techinically it's not a fruit, but to everybody else, a blackberry is treated as a fruit, and you know, it's black, it's a fruit, and you eat it.
I love deadlines. I like the "whoosh" sound they make as they fly by. -- Douglas Adams
Many tradesmen also do not want others using their tools for fear of damage, theft, loss, adjustments, etc. I know I get mad if my wife uses any of my tools and doesn't clean them or put them back in their proper place.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
It's unfortunate that the CIO wants to cut this -- there is definite value in having reachable employees (whether via cell or text message, pager, or able to VPN in through high-speed internet), and most smart CIOs realize that the costs are quickly covered by the expenses saved via a remote employee and that it is a worthwhile cost. When I started my current job I actually had two items put into my contract, one, that I would be able to expense business-related expenses (most people probably have this) and that the company would pay for my home internet and cell phone bill. They were more than happy to do this, as I am only one of two IT people supporting 20+ servers, 25+ TBs of storage, firewall, VPN, laptops, desktops, and basically the entire functionality of the company (we're a data / tech company). Even the employees that just do production work expense their cell phone and internet access, and the company has no problem, and they are even buying most of us laptops (Latitude D600s) to encourage us to work remotely (but not requiring it).
I may be way off base, but to me if you are a contractor, you should bill the client for part of the connection used to access the clients equipment, and certainly for your time.
As a person who is full time / salary, I'd say no, you should pay for your own connection.
The expectation generally is you are willing to come in after hours to correct any 'critical issues', or pull all nighters from time to time when a project or situation requires.
If you can save yourself a ride in the car to work by logging on remotely, thats just better for you in terms of money/time/stress.
Keep in mind also, the employer may of had to pay large sums of money for the equipment and software on the other end to allow for this type of access. So they are fronting a bit of the bill already.
That being said, it would be very nice of the employer to chip in on your end, but I don't see it as being the 'right thing to do' from an employer perspective.
There are always exceptions. I worked for a large and popular 3D software company not to long ago. We installed VPN access, the policy was you pay for your end, we'll pay for our end and we don't mind if you do not come into work so long as you get your projects in on time. One of the key developers decided he wanted to move way the heck out in the boon docks, no broad band, DSL or calble... anyway the company did not want to lose this fella, so he was given a free sat uplink and everything else required to connect back to the office.
i ramble...
Every few weeks, we have a Slashdot article that looks like this:
"My company is saying I have to do something I don't want to do. What do you think -- should I do it?"
One set of indignant respondents says:
"You should slap your employer in the face for even thinking of making such an outrageous suggestion! It's that simple!"
A few timid people respond:
"Well, but you might lose your job."
The information content in these postings is very, very low. I could write a very short program to generate these entire threads -- the original article and the replies -- in a couple of KB. The whole thing is just unbelievably repetitive, not interesting, not informative, not insightful -- just repetitive and stupid. Please stop. Please... it's like reading talk radio. It's just moronic.
We expense cellphones, broadband access, and Blackberry units. The communications equipment and service used to be paid for by the company. In fact, repairs to the hardware now comes out of our own pockets since the hardware is in our "protected possession".
~Anonymous
Well, where I work (large financial firm) the management attitude got more like what the poster decsribes during the last couple of years of downsizing. We stopped receiving on-call pay for after hours support but were expected to be available, sober and within two hours reach of the facility of course (if we wanted to keep our jobs). Luckily we don't have to pay for the cell phones/pagers we use but never say never.
In staying on topic we do not get reimbursed for broadband connections that we use from home to do work as the company views this as a convenience for us. I'm torn on that because I don't know that the company should be paying for my personal line but on the other hand what is convenient for me is also convenient for the firm since I can turn something around in minutes from home rather than driving all the way in which reduces downtime considerably.
"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." - Isaac Asimov
You'd think that HR departments and corporate management would wise up at some point but they never do.
I just went through two interviews with a major grocery store chain whose name rhymes with Croger. I was offered 50K/yr, no vacation the first year, 24x7 pager support (unpaid), but wait, that's not all. I would also get to pay for the privilege of parking and walking 5 blocks through the lovely downtown area (otherwise referred to as the decline of western civilization) just to arrive at my luxury mini-cube (or cell, whichever you prefer).
Mind you, I have 15 years experience writing engineering software in C, C++, Java along with a dozen other languages and administering just about any modern platform commonly found in business. Fortunately my current job is close to home and pays 22K more than they're offering (and actually features a vacation!). Why did they waste my time? My final conclusion: They're idiots... They actually looked shocked when I told them I wouldn't even consider a job that didn't offer any time off for 12 months.
Is there no end to the greed of these businesses?
IT gets broadband, cell as needed, pager as wanted.
:)
Remote sales get broadband (and dialup), cell, and a laptop/printer.
Field supervisors get cell and laptop/dialup as needed.
Top lackies get pagers as needed/wanted.
The boss gets anything he wants.
I, as top IT dog, had ISDN @ home paid for by me. Dialup connection was covered by work along with cell. Somewhat different today -- broadband is covered and I take care of VoIP for the base line. VoIP line #2 is a "work number" covered by the office.
Anything less at any time for any reason is a pay cut no matter how you slice it and/or dice it. Bend over -- you just got shafted.
...we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen...
When clueless managers start cutting benefits, especially those that could help you do your job better, its a sure sign that the company has changed its priorities. And with upper managment on board, it sounds like your company is inexorably sliding toward the short term viewpoint AKA 'cut costs this quarter' style of managment.
Your new 'CIO' sounds like the MBA/bean counter type to me, which means he is going to be totally clueless when it comes to your job, the job requirements, and help with technical issues.
Even his argument that you 'need to be more responsive' rings of MBA bullshit. This guy is simply about cutting costs in the short term to the detriment of everything else to make himself look good. Then will bail out or blame others before everything turns to fossilised shit.
Dont walk --but run to another company that cares more about its employees and customers.
the company I work for has this system in place that gives you a certain amount of money which is not declared on your wage state, straight to your bank account - to make up for expenses you supposedly might have at home ...
...
:)
at first I was like - nice - how generous
turns out after a while, that this is a common practice to give an employee a certain amount of money without being taxed as an employer - because, if the employee can not show on what he spent this extra pocket money (through bills, invoices, etc) - he will get taxed to the full extent !
so - be careful when something looks good, it should arise a bit of suspicion ; accountants can do wonders to enlighten a querying mind
this is a situation in Belgium ; the amount an employee on average receives extra is around 100-300 USD, and is being given under the term "representation costs"
(nevertheless, I work inhouse, and almost never get out)
... the boss pays for and provides the larger and more expensive tools. For instance,a 150$ trim mower I buy, a 40,000$ tractor he buys. A 125$ string trimmer I buy, he popped for a 900$ one for heavier jobs. He pays for all the fuel I use, diesel and gas, and he pays for any maintenance parts, but I do the repairs, if possible. I guess a rough analogy is my fuel is like your bandwith, so in this case the employer pays for it.
And I bet my take home is a lot less than most peoples. Every job I ever had I mostly had to buy tools for. That's how it works. Nowadays they will play off the threat to outsource the white collar workers job, or bring in a "legal" h1b worker, in the blue collar world you get threatened with an illegal immigrant to take your job, or they ship your job to china or someplace like that.
This job I am lucky, he's good about tools and some bennies, so -so on pay, but job security is high if you stick with the job and don't be a slacker or complainer and can work self motivated with minimum supervision. I always task myself MORE work than what is expected, hence I get a better deal than most of his other employees, who don't last long, especially with the provided tools, which let me do my job easier. Small tools I would have anyway, so I'm not shy about using them for the occassional smaller job where they fit better.
I guess it boils down to how much you want the job, whether you can get another one easily that will pay you more and give you more benefits, including employer mandated and provided equipment. And if it's mandated, it's deductable usually if you have to buy it. If your employer wants more signs of loyalty by the workers taking up some of the tool costs, are they matching it by providing better pay, working conditions, guarantees on employment for the longer term, anything along those lines? It works both ways near as I can see. You have to also look, if the company is in trouble and needs to cut costs across the board, has management given up anything fairly, or is it just the employees/non owners feeling the brunt? That would make an attitude difference as well if it was only one sided against your favor. I'd be looking for another job on the side then, before they implode.
Making yourself comepetive with the services offered by others in your field is what it's all about. If you won't pay for them, someone else might - and then they will be able to provide more feature-rich service than you. They will have greater value to your employer then you (even if they have lesser skills, just because "knowledge" is not so easily visible as "hours worked" on the bottom line).
Life's a balancing act. If they shake the line too much, go dance in someone else's bigtop.
Any fortune .5k company [...]
That's an odd way to say 500. It even doesn't save you any characters...
Any tools that are *required* for the job should be paid by the employer. Period. That is the cost of doing business. Something like broadband access from an employee's home should be covered if the employer deems it necessary but not covered if considered optional.
The trend is definitely toward cutting costs by overloading employees and cutting benefits but that only goes so far with me. If a prospective employer states in the interview that certain costs will be my responsibility and I accept the position then I accept those costs as well. If I am not informed of costs up front after I ask what my responsibilities are then the costs are not my problem.
Things do change from time to time and corporate policies do favor the company, often strongly. If an employer told me that I would now be paying for my work cell phone or that they wanted me to use my personal phone for work related business I would simply say no. Most employers that are worth working for will discuss changes before implementing them. If they don't then you don't want to work for them.
I have left a few positions over similar circumstances and will do so again if the situation arises. Look at the way your company treats you when you judge whether they are worth working for or not. Good money never comes close to making up for poor working relationships.
I think I've got an easy solution for you... though it may trouble you for a while.
Drop Broadband - this will hurt a little, but when they do get you at home, you won't be able to help them because you can't connect to the company network.
Drop Pager - why would you need a pager for non-company use anyway... unless your a drug king.
Drop Cell Phone - This hurts too... but the first time they need you and you're not available, they'll reconsider this decision.
Of course... and I would not condone this as I think truthfulness is ALWAYS the best option... you could just say you did the above.
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
Look, not to sound unsympathetic, but if this is the biggest problem you have with your employer then you geeks have it easy. There are millions of people whose employers won't pay for a cell phone or a dsl line. In fact, these same people also don't get blackberries. Come to think of it, they also don't get paid vacation or health care, or even a living wage.
I feel about as much sympathy for you, as I do for Mr. Burns.
According to the IRS, you can deduct the equipment costs for a computer that you purchased as a condition of employment. My suspicion is that you can tax-deduct a wide variety of such expenses, though only your accountant knows for sure. I personally do not allow my personal equipment to ever be used for business purposes unless I am shown a guaranteed compensation schedule for it.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
I'm not sure how it works in your specific country, but in most places companies are better off giving you better fringe benefits than paying you better salaries. The reason is that benefits are tax write-offs whereas salaries are as much as double-taxed in countries like Canada or USA, i.e. the employer pays tax on salaries in addition to the employee's income tax.
If your company is willing to cut benefits that can be written-off, your bosses are clueless. This will be the first of many mistakes they'll make on the way to bankrupcy. The other possibility is that they're already in financial trouble and this is a panic move to save some money without pissing off the employees with salary cuts (and alerting the media and competitors).
Either way, your ship is sinking, jump!
-hadohk
Work paid for my cell phone for years.
Then they decide to stop paying for cell phones. I bitch about it being a short sighted penny-wise pound-foolish policy. Said bitching falls on deaf ears and they cut funding anyways.
Fine. My out of office message now specifies contacting my boss, not calling my cell phone. If work calls outside of my "free" hours timeslots, they pay for that portion of my monthly bill. If I use 300 minutes of the 500 plan minutes in a month, and 30 of those are for work use, then work pays for 1/10th of my bill.
If its the weekend and work calls my cell phone I do not feel an urgent need to pick up. If they leave a voice mail I feel just fine not responding until I'm in the office on Monday.
To put it short, if my employer feels that it is not important for them to be able to reach me when I am not in the building, then I'm going to act like it's not important for them to be able to reach me when I am not in the building.
And you can take your team-player should-be-willing-to-pitch-in speech and stick it where the sun don't shine. You're taking advantage of an expensive resource that I'm paying for out of pocket, if you're not willing to help mitigate that cost then I'm not willing to let you use that resource.
Saying that I should be willing to use my broadband, which incurs a usage fee, for work just because I already pay for it is like saying I should be willing to drive people around in my car just because I already pay for it.
There's a law against forcing someone to use their private vehicle for work related tasks without compensating for fuel and wear and tear... I see no reason that same principle shouldn't apply to any resource.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
My company pays for everything....
Cell phones, pagers, Laptops, and all IT people can have DSL in their house for free....Just expense it out....That's what we do...
Thank God!!!
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
I am an intern, and i have worked for this same company two summers in a row. They give me (the intern) the hook-up, as well to all of its emplyees. Cellphone, laptop, blackberry if i needed one - but i dont, so that doesnt happen. Developement software - the works. Its nice. Pays well too. They even pick me up in a limo every morning because I am too young to drive...ok well im kidding about that last part, but none the less they are relatively good about this stuff.
The first rule of business: Profit
Profit = people giving you their money. It doesn't work the other way around.
Sometimes in order to profit, companies have to cut perks, benefits and even salary. It's nothing personal, it's just business. The company is looking out after itself. You should do the same. I drill this into my friends' heads. I've seen to many great guys great fired just to improve the bottom line and those that remained were given less pay and commanded to do more.
Find a company that's still learning the ropes... one that's still kind to its employees and gullible enough to offer perks. But know that every company will wise up sooner or later and stop offering such things... they may even fire you right after giving you a glowing review because you make to much money... the last reason I got.
Play hardball like they do and always be on the lookout for something better. And remember, it's nothing personal, it's just business. Put yourself first.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
If you are like me you probably are wired to the max whether employed or not anyhow. If it is your stuff you are effectively autonomous and a free agent relative to much of the needed equipment. Consider acting as such. Let those who want to use your stuff for their purposes pay for the privilege and for your time and input accordingly.
Company provided, of course. I am on call from eight AM to 10 PM, except on weekends where the clock is 9 AM to 7 PM with alternate weekends off. My hours are very reasonable as I am at the office from 9 AM to 4 PM and simply have to be available for phone support during the mentioned hours. I can come and go as I please, take afternoons off, etc. As long as I have my mobile phone, take calls and fix the problems my boss really doesn't care where I am. There is the odd time when a server is down or a network change has to be made and then I pull an all nighter, but it's rare.
I can't imagine doing my job without a mobile phone, it would be impossible. There are too many problems that require immediate solutions and any company that takes IT support seriously realizes the cost of downtime is going to far exceed the minimal cost of a mobile phone. In short, they cannot foresee the the long term loss from the short term gain. Too bad.
I had a company stop paying for my broadband at one point. Fine, I won't use broadband anymore.
Whenever they paged me (on a pager they paid for) and some sort of administrative work was needed, I drove into the office, performed the work and drove home. Charging the hours I spent, of course. After a couple months of this they realized it was cheaper to pay for broadband than to pay for my round-trips to the office.
Forcing you to pay for your own *gasp* broadband is not unreasonable. forcing you to pay for the pagers, cel phones and blackberries is. If you are hourly or salary, you do not include your commute time when submitting your time, so why should you whine about not having your broadband paid for? Instead, if you are on call, make sure that all time spent working after hours is marked down on your timesheet.
Consider yourself lucky that you got your broadband paid for up to now.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
This person has not yet learned what it takes to make tech-heads happy. To make matters worse, the only way for them to learn is to get hurt by their own policies. You have to leave that place, or else this person will continue to believe that this is accetable management.
Smile, nod, pay for your net service, and use it to find another job. When enough people leave, then the company will be hurt, the CIO will get a black eye, and, though they will recover from it, lessons will be learned and whomever replaces you will have a much better boss, a CIO who has learned how to treat people like more than a number. It is the only way to make the change.
i wish.. but first priority is to get a job.
In some states if your employer expects you to be "on duty" after hours and respond to a situation/emergency within a certain time frame, then you are on the clock and need to be paid as such.
Of course if you're salaried/exempt then you're SOL. But that doesn't mean you're working 24 hours a day for the man.
This kind of cost cutting is a bad sign, if they won't even pay simple expenses such as these then it means the company isn't making money.
Time to look elsewhere for an income.
My company sets aside $150/yr/employee. You have a choice of: a) internet access, or b) professional memberships (i.e. IEEE, ACM).
You say : "You should be a dedicated CIO who desires to empower your employees with the tools they need to perform at the highest efficiency and with the quickest responce time (And if they are willing, to allow them to respond to work problems from home etc...) You should be willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen!"
I am in the same situation as you were, where those benifits are paid by the employer. I currently carry 2 cell phones (one for work, and one for me), and I would still give that responce in a hartbeat if they wanted to take it away. I also don't think it would last long at my office. If everyone takes the stance of "If the employer doesn't want my after-work-hours support, they aren't getting it" it will crumble.
Sounds all too familiar!
... Thanks Dubya). The bigger the corporation the larger the greed factor. We can only hope what goes around comes around ... and that we will be alive to see it!
If employees were not expendable/consumable before, they certainly are these days. Look at where all of the work is going. Outsourceing oveseas is a way to bypass all of us in this country. They can use up the masses overseas because they are willing to work for what we would consider nothing. Corporation are not outsourcing because they have to but because they can (get away with it
I've had to do everything from systems administration to tech support to programming at a relatively small (about 75 users) company. They gave me a cell phone so they could reach me for tech support calls away from work. I'm fine with this, as they're footing the bill on it. If they think it's necessary that I be able to react to a call within half an hour (commute of 30-45 mins) for something that can't be done by a random user over the phone, they would have to at least cover some of my home internet access costs. If they insist on a VPN connection to connect to the company's network, and I don't have VPN capability with my home router, I'm not going to do any remote administration. If they want to supply me with a firewall/router with VPN capability, I'll gladly borrow one while I'm employed there.
You're under no obligation whatsoever to be on call if you're paying to be on call. Either they can give you a raise to cover your costs on the grounds that you make yourself available, or you aren't available. Simple as that.
As a rule of thumb, if they're not paying for it, they don't have rights to use it.
If your new CIO is cutting these 'benefits', he either:
- is making a statement to his minions (and more importantly: to his peer C-men) about being in control of the budget.
- has knowledge of a shaky financial situation ahead.
- wants to test you and your colleagues to find out who are submissive and who isn't.
- is just a schmuck who doesn't know better.
I would make it clear to him (on paper/mail) that those tool(s) are indispensible for providing service outside of business hours and that they should not be dependable on personal budgets.Sit it out for a couple of days/weeks, the more he is getting to know the team, he may as well see how those tools are important to you and to the business.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
The new CIO maybe saying "the dedicated" crap, but he thinks your all using these as nifty toys on the company dime or worse using them for activities that don't help the company like your own personal gain. I'd get out of there fast before he decides you need to buy your own chairs and desks for the office.
Getting certified and travelling to client sites is not something you would do with your own money.
Getting broadband and a mobile phone are things a lot of people do on their own.
Heck, I would rather pay for these things on my own, so I can choose when and whether to use them for work purposes.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
My company did the same to me. I canceled the broadband (and re-opened the account under my own name) and changed cell phone numbers and started watching caller ID; I would answer calls from coworkers, but not my boss. When they called my home phone, I told them it would take me 30-45 minutes to get into the office (accurate). Most problems were found to be able to wait until morning.
Eventually, the CIO got caught in the wave of downsizing and cost-cutting that set off this penny-pinching. Now I'm simply not on call after hours -- the new guy understands that if the money isn't there for it, the service won't be, either.
I'm the IT Director and I had to fight to get paid home broadband service for myself and two techs. The argument against it is that the two techs are hourly employees and any work they do from home needs to be on the clock. We each submit a bill once a year to verify the current costs and we get a check each month.
The company also buys our cell phones, laptops, PDAs, etc.
My company pays for broadband. But you have to sign an agreement allowing your machine to be searched at anytime. Don't want to be spreading around those trade secrets I guess. Since they are anxious to trample my privacy and they don't support GNU/Linux, I have no interest.
an ill wind that blows no good
The IRS has strict guidelines for determining status as an employee. These guidelines are a result of M$ trying to pass off employees as contractors, or vice versa, in order to finagle their taxes some years ago. The guidelines mention something about whether or not you are required to use the equipment furnished by the employer/client. I seem to recall that, if you have to furnish your own equipment, then the IRS considers you a contractor, not an employee.
Just because your company has a policy doesn't mean you shouldn't try them to make an exception for YOU. (Just don't tell anyone else what you're getting.)
Best Buy can have you arrested
I use my cel phone for work related calls as well as personal calls. As a result I just ask them to cover the work related calls / charges and go through my bill at the end of the month.
You do not understand.
The top management is not trying to save money.
They are trying to increase THEIR OWN paychecks.
Check into it.
I am willing to bet on it.
Many companies in recent bad times increased executive compensation.
And cut benefits.
Bastards.
wake up and hold your nose
There are some questions that need to be answered:
If the answer to any or all of the above questions is "yes" -- especially the last one -- then the company should pay for it since it is the principal beneficiary of the work that these devices and services enable. It is up to the employer to provide the facilities, materials and tools required to do the job (unless it is explicitly stated otherwise in your employment contract).
If the company is willing to accept lower customer satisfaction ratings or interruptions in business continuity by not paying for these items, then it should be optional for the employee to pay for or use these items in their work. If it's not important enough for the company to pay for these things then it certainly isn't important enough for the employee to do so.
Whatever the case the employees should not be put in a position where they are forced to fund business operations to do their jobs -- which is very much what this sounds like.
All of the above were expensable, plus a few lunches here & there, plus mileage running company errands.
Pagers eventually were phased out in favor of cell phones with built-in paging. I declined the home PC (since it would have been an Intel box) and picked up an AlphaServer 1200 w/Tru64 for home instead, and had that on my employer's network with the supplied hardware VPN box.
The catch? 70+ hour weeks on salary. Not complaining though, at a very strong 6 figs.
No the CIO is "in" with the brass and will never get fired, no matter how shitty a job he does. As long at the CEO can check his email anytime he wants, it will look like the CIO is doing his job. When things get borked further down, it will be the employees fault.
/. whenever I want!
/. means I'll be working this evening on jobs that have to be done by tomorrow, but as my boss, I've approved the overtime pay ;-)
Find another job and write off the company, or start your own business. I did, and now I get to post on
(of course, spending 30 mintes reading
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I really don't mean to seem flip - I am in the job market, so I know how hard it is to find such a job - but this might be time to look for another job. When companies start down this road, it's a sign of one (or two) of two things: 1) an insufferable, micromanaging, pennywise/pound-foolish tight-assed, non-caring boss, or 2) a company that's in such dire financial straits that they're looking for any avenue to save money. You don't want to work for a boss like that, and if the company is in such financial trouble in a generally improving economy, they're not in good shape.
If it were me, I'd start looking for a job, updating the resume, etc. After I started finding job prospects, I'd be tempted to tell them that since I used broadband primarily for work, I'm dropping it. See how they respond.
But I agree with you, pissing off your employer is never a good idea, and when you don't have another job lined up, it's a really bad idea.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
...but they do pay for the cellphone which I promptly turn off as soon as I leave the office. (Hey, they only had me promise to carry it with me, not answer it)
You're part of the reason IT jobs are being outsourced.
What you need to ask yourself is what happened to the old CIO and what idealogies did the new CIO get hired? I am willing to bet you that this new CIO is probably trying to gain some quick points by lowering his monthly budget thus making a quick impact impression with the other "shirts". This will probably be shortlived. When a server dies and you do not repsond because the latency of your dial-up connection is crap, you can be damn sure that the blame will be placed on the fool that cut your connection.
"responding quickly to issues" could just mean being able to send the occasional email or check out some powerpoint slide show.
I work for a school and they provide me a Treo serving as my cellular, pager and PDA.
They pay for my DSL at home. I have the bill sent here to the school and send it interoffice to our department admin assistant.
I'm expected to be available 24/7 and my share of the 365 in conjunction with my other network engineer here. We coordinate our time off so one of us is always here.
I'm salaried.
In the past, my job at 'middle sized ISP (20k subs)' paid for a cell phone we all shared in the department. They also paid in full for my pager. I got free dialup.
My job at 'small ISP (serving 5000 subs)' gave me a cell phone which served as my pager. I was not in range of DSL or wifi with them, but I still have a free dialup account from them (they know about it) and I had my own DSL that I paid for myself.
It's pretty much given that if I'm working to monitor and maintain the network, from wherever I am, they'll provide the means to connect me to that.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
My company stopped paying for broadband when wi-fi caught on in the neighborhood...
whooops, not what the poster meant...
"I'm a karate man. Karate mans bleed on the inside."
company doesn't want to pay for my resources at home, company does not have access to my resources.
they wouldn't pay for my cel phone, so i stopped answering it. they ended up getting me a work cel phone. they don't pay for my internet, so i don't answer emails or write reports or troubleshoot at home. i get extremely nasty with them when i get an overnite phone call about the stupidest things
bottom line, i don't work 24/7. i am not at the whim of the company to do what they want when they want. if they don't like it they can fire me. oddly, i've said that for 4 years, and i am still here.
have no fear, you can do it too. just say no.
My boss payed for my hookers.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
My company pays for my cell phone, and my DSL line because they are required for work and they expect to be able to reach me via either at all times.
:)
If your company doesn't want any such assurance, then sure its okay. If your machine is swamped for porn torrents or whatever, too bad
If your employer requires you to access the company network from home, the broadband service is deductible if half your activity on it is company related. For that matter, so is the computer, whatever software you run on it and related equipment/supplies. Check IRS Pub 529 for details. I've used an accountant for the past 20 years to do this. I build myself a new machine every other year and use it only for work. I have a home office in one room of my house and only do my work-from-home stuff in there.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
It's not "dot-bomb" sophistry; professionals require professional tools. Which are never cheap.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
They do not pay for phones.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm a photographer at a small daily newspaper, and I'm expected to be contactable at all points during my day. Instead of footing my cell phone bill, my company issued me a pager.
This is 2004, last I checked, and I can only assume that they expect me to return the pages with a pay phone or my personal cell phone. What did I do?
I returned the pager and I use my own phone to answer their incomming calls. In their minds using my own phone is a choice I've made, and it's not their problem to pick up the tab.
On a side note, I also use my own laptop for photo editing because their computers are crap. My situation is the case at many small newspapers.
Please shed a tear for the underpaid journalist.
Point of this anecdote is that, if it is necessary for the company to function and it fits into the budget, then yes, they should be obligated to pay for at least part of your broadband connection. Many companies can and will do this, and will generally consider it easier to just pay the whole damn thing or up to a fixed amount (just so you can't get the OC3 into your home and expect the boss to foot the bill). The mentality is simple - it is something that can be called necessary for corporate functionality, and therefore it is something the company needs to spend money on.
So yeah, if your CIO says you should pay for it, then your business broadband becomes your personal broadband. Tell him that you can't be obligated to use your personal belongings for company usage, and per IRS mandates, because you're a W2 employee, if you don't have a company sponsored broadband, you cannot administrate from home because the company is not providing the tools you need. (OK, this doesn't work if you're 1099.)
Mind you, the last part I'm probably just blowing out of my @$$. After all, IANAL.
This sig no verb.
The employer doesn't owe you anything, nor do you owe the employer anything. Your job is based on a mutually beneficial agreement.
If the change in policy results in the agreement no longer being beneficial to you, or if you can find an alternative that is better, you are free to do so. Similarly, you are free to demand broadband, a blackberry, and a hot tub as conditions of your continued employment, or a 25% raise, each of which your employer is free to refuse.
If you want to keep your job, you'll understand that the company needs to make a profit. Benefits are usually cut when times are tough. If you get a flat tire on the way to work and show up an hour late, you'd expect some understanding. Similarly, the company may need to cut benefits in order to get through a short term cash flow crisis.
If you have a new CIO, chances are he/she is trying to be a hero by immediately cutting costs. The decision may be shortsighted, and you might want to run the risk of explaining why there may be better places to cut costs (keep in mind that some people do not like being told that a decision they have made has been wrong... many people are also not keen on reversing a decision they have already made, as irrational as it may have been)...
Best of luck... you can always start a web hosting company at home, host a site via your broadband, charge someone $1 a year for it and claim the loss against your taxes.
Amazing magic tricks
Do you REALLY need a cell phone AND a pager AND a Blackberry? I would think a pager alone would be sufficient. It's enough to let you know you're needed, and where. You can work out the rest (I hope). Everything else is a perk.
Our IT department all got cell phones a couple years ago. Do you think anyone can get a hold of them. No. They "don't want to give there numbers to just anybody". So you had to call one of them to get the number of another one, but, oh, you don't have the number.....that's useful.
As for connectivity to work, I certainly agree that the company should be responsible for a PORTION of your broadband and you should have sufficient access to SSH or whatever you need to do the job. I know I'd hate to drive all the way in to the office ( hour drive) to fix something I could do in 2 minutes from home if I had the right access. But, how much of the broadband usage is personal and how much is business? 50/50? Not likely. Can you really expect your company to pay the whole shot when it's really only used every now and then for work?
There's nothing cheap about being pragmatic.
ddumb question, yea... but i have not heard that term for anything other than the fruit.
I am the primary IT contact for any issues in the field for a very large - open 365 days of the year - 600 units operating in 38 states - cash business.
About 2 years ago, one of the VPs in my dept sent me a $1500 cell phone bill asking that I pay for "any minuites incurred over [my] alotted plan limit". I paid it, but then let the VP know that if they DON'T want me to turn my phone off at 5pm every day, and leave it off until 8AM the next day, then they better not dare send me any more cell phone bills.
Have not received another one since!
If you have a technical job (webdev, sysadmin, engineering, IT, whatever) you are also likely to be someone who is going to have a cellphone and broadband, whether you're employed or not. Asking a company to pay you for these things is not unreasonable, but neither is rejecting this request. My company moved from a location that was accessible by public transportation to one that is not. But I didn't expect them to buy me a car. What I did expect was for them to continue to pay me a good salary so I can afford things like internet access, cellphone and vehicle -- which they've done.
/. seems unfortunate. To be happy at your job you should be psychologically/emotionally aligned with the goals of the company as a whole. Try recognizing that a good CFO (one who might well *prevent* the kind of burn rate that prevents startups from reaching break-even) should make every effort to reduce costs, keeping you and everyone else in a job. Also a huge factor in reaching financial stability (which makes potential investors happy) is predictability. A CFO would usually prefer a flat $100/month stipend to all sysadmins (for example) to ad-hoc $70/month requests, as it can be more easily budgeted.
The degree of "us vs them, screw the greedy bastards at the top" attitude I see here on
Note I do feel that 24/7 oncall duty or any kind of undue access to your time should be accounted for in your pay. If you and bob are paid the same, but you're expected to field 3am phone calls and pages on the weekend, and bob is not, that is a problem. But you should consider this accessibility and all its various costs as accounted for in your salary requirements (just like you pay for gas in your car if you commute) and not insist that it be reimbursed separately.
That may have been rambling and only somewhat coherent, but I'm, ah.. done.
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
That said, it happens all the time. I used to work as a network engineer at an at-that-time well known research organization that ran an at-that-time large piece of the Internet infrastructure. The folks doing second-line 7/24 on-call support weren't compensated for being on call. This was totally inappropriate (and probably violated the host organization's regulations) but happened anyway, because we liked our jobs too much to go elsewhere even though there was an OK job market at the time.
Seems like you have a few options open to you:
Bitch up a storm. Usually the least effective, most frustrating option in most organizations.
Passive-aggressively bitch -- when called say "sorry, I have no home Internet access that I can use for work purposes, you'll need to ask someone else to do that". Better than option 1 anyway.
Suck it up. Decide that you like your job well enough to endure a few insults. This is what I did in my earlier job. Worked out OK in the end. With luck your new CIO will transition to ex-CIO soon.
Polish up your resume and move on to some place that's professionally managed. In fact polish up your resume anyway -- maybe your new CIO knows something you don't, the company is almost out of money, and soon it won't just be perks like DSL that are disappearing.
Here in my own happy-work-land we have achieved a sort of reasonable balance. If I want to work from home (a perk) the company will pay for VPN access (about $300 a year IT costs and license fees for one user) but I have to pay for my internet access. Broadband or dialup or none at all is my choice, but no internet = no VPN.
I'm not "on call", so I don't carry a cell phone or pager, but if work calls and I answer, I almost always will try to help out.
If I can save the company 60 minutes of downtime on one of our big systems, I have more than covered the cost of the VPN. Plus, it never hurts to be a hero once in a while.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
What we really need is 1-900 numbers for our cell phones. Then we can make a profit when the company calls us on our personal cell phones. Many Motorola phones even support 2 lines, so you could even have a different ring tone when someone calls your 900 number!
I assume that your CIO uses his own license of Excel from home, and bought the computer on his desk then, right?
Watch out about doing the extraordinary!Otherwise, it become ordinary, then expected....
If you're always pulling rabbits out of hats for your employer, instead of appreciating it, they will begin to EXPECT it from you. Then the one time you CAN'T, you will be PUNISHED!Don't let the extraordinary become ordinary!
I have a friend who swears that a: "Planned outage" once in a while can make them appreciate you more....
dedicated staff who desire to be responsive
:-)
Sure thing, but you see, in the evenings I run a small consulting firm, and they bill $200 an hour plus expenses. So, no I don't mind the boss expecting me to pay for my own internet access and cell phone as long as he is willing to pay my rates.
In the post H-1b/L-1 USA, lying jerks like the CIO in question have lots of negotiating position. It might be hard for you to find another similar job rapidly. You might consider starting a business in which you control the customer list.
You don't work from home, you don't carry a pager, and you don't give them your cell phone number.
Instead, your replacement will take care of all those pesky "issues" like decorating your cube and picking up your paycheck. If you really are an integral part of keeping a company running 24x7, then your salary probably already reflects it. Let's be honest: most folks have 1+Mb Internet connections and cell phones anyways. It's not like the co. is asking you to maintain a DS3 into your basement.
It's easy to sound-off on /. posts, but you're facing a reality of today's business world. Try negotiating an in-between solution. Discuss with management that you recognize most folks have Internet connections and cell phones anyways. (Now, they'll recognize you live in the real world with them.) Then explain you are committed to the company, cite examples, etc... (Yea, basically kiss-up a little). Then explain that you'd like to expense a portion of your business-related expenses. If 50% of your cell calls are work related and a fourth of your Internet time is resolving work issues, then you'd like to expense those percentages of those bills. Explain how this arrangement would help you adjust your budget during this transition period that the co. is going through.
After a while, you can push those numbers up a little since no-one will actually look at every in/out-bound number on your cell phone bill. ;-) And as for the so-called transition period, how many "temporary fixes" are still in place years later? ;-) Don't take any big stands on this issue. Don't bring it up in the weekly staff meeting. Let this negotiation occur quietly between you and whoever approves your expenses. It's the real world, population: us.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
then these things are not a requirement.
If you are REQUIRED to have broadband (or anything else) the company should pay for it.
OTOH, if these are things that make doing your job easier, but your employer does not require you to have, then the employer should not have to pay for it.
As long as the boss isn't going to bitch at you for not having braodband/blackberry/alpha pager/etc, then refusing to pay for them is fine.
I never understood why people actually want pagers, blackberries, etc.
When I contracted at Warner Music Group, I avoided getting issued a two way pager as long as possible. Eventually when I was added to the "on call" rotation, I made the argument that I was saving the company money by not requiring my own pager and worked it out so that I shared the two way pager of one of the other admins. Whomever was on call would have to drag the damn thing around and get/deal with the messages.
I gave my cell phone number to my boss and a few coworkers but made sure that it wasn't published on any other lists. The company wasn't paying for my cell phone bill so as far as I was concerned, it wasn't up for their usage.
Evolution: love it or leave it
This is the point of confusion in my mind. Who's benefit? They benefit from your accessability. If you employer wants you to have better than dialup speed access one a single phone line and hit or miss phone response, then they need to cover it at least in part. Otherwise, expecting you to cover it out of you wages w/o a pay raise is effectively a pay cut. Likewise, increases in such costs would be pay cuts.
You employer has to understand that if they want to motivate their top performers, they cannot do so with pay cuts. Further more, since cell phones and the like cost per use, if they contact you a lot or make you use them excessively on their behalf, it is pure cost to you with out motivation to the company to try to control those expenses. It would be irresponsible for you to pay for them if the you employer is going to make excesive use if of them.
Basicly, your employer is the one benfitting you login from home, during vacation, at 2 in the morning to fix a problem while taking to tech support 2 timezones away. A dedicate employee would like knowing he can do that, but being dedicated does not mean you are made of money unless you employer pays you truly obscene amounts.
Of course, if you tell you CIO this, he may understand or he may take it as insubordination. If he understands, he may try to work out something to limit paying for non-work related use (like expensing).
If he take offense, then you have a decision to make. Is this guy and some what dense when it comes to dealing with support? Does he consider your job overhead? Chances are he going to keep try to sap you to save the company money. He'll kill moral and if he peers and superiors do recognize it, then things will get a lot worse before they get better.
A pay cut would have been honest; this is a "hidden fee" that they're charging employees to work for them, with the added insult that they're trying to guilt you into not feeling "dedicated" enough if you complain.
I work for a major telco, and our management currently pays for broadband for people who are required to provide 7x24 support, people who work from home, and senior management.
In a relentless drive to lower costs, this policy is under review, but we haven't heard the results yet.
Most of my co-workers have laptops (I don't) and they expense their broadband bills monthly. I could expense my broadband, but in order to do my job remotely, I would have to install additional software on my personal computer. Given that there is no place for personal software on corporate assets, I believe that there is also no place for corporate software on my personal assets, so I manage with a 56k dial connection when I do 24x7 support.
I see no need to try to expense my phone bill, because I would have that regardless and there is unlimited local calling anyways.
A previous manager once asked me for my personal cell phone number so that he could have it printed on my new business cards. I asked if I could expense the bill for my cell phone if I agreed, only to be told that the company does not pay for personal use items. That being the case, I decided that my personal cell phone would remain for personal use only.
I don't view this as not being a team player. I work a lot of unpaid overtime, and when there are fires to be put out, I stay for the duration until things are under control.
I do not see it as being part of my job description to subsidize a multi-billion dollar corporation. If they want me to be available outside of the office, they can provide me with a cell-phone and/or pager. I will not use my own assets to help them do their job
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
are evil and should be shot.
.
"we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers"
Even if the job makes them mandatory?!
It's part of the trend created by a buyers' market for labor (like the companies which have been dropping the relaxed dress-codes of the nineties, "just because we CAN").
One solution is fake-sincere passive resistance: "sorry you couldn't reach me last weekend, boss -- my device and reception are s-o-o-o unreliable, and I'm locked into this service-contract and really can't afford anything better [whimper]".
And if they give you sh*t about it, contact the appropriate governmental body for labor affairs.
(And when will I-T people start waking-up to the true value of labor unions, dammit?!)
(Hmmmm . . . I wonder if it might not improve wages of US/EU workers, to send someone to go to India and start labor-organizing *those* I-T workers . .
I have 2 quick points.
1. I'm a dispatcher and work with mechanics. The mechanics make really good money, however they're expected to buy their own tools. Some of the tool boxes have $20,000 in tools. And that's normal for mechanics. The world might be going that way, but if you can make more money someplace else it's your right to go do it.
2. By being a company man, doing whatever it takes to be available, working inconvenient hours, and being a team player I've managed to double my salary in a few years, and expect to do so again in a few more. Hosing everyone else by being unavailable and not doing your job isn't going to get you anywhere.
There's my 2 cents
Let me enlighten you to a little secret...over the past 4 years the US has been in a recession and IT has been hit very hard especially. A lot of shitty companies went out of business for spending tons of money on shit they didn't need. Now most companies will NOT pay for any of the listed items you mentioned. The fact that your company has been doing that means
1) Your company makes a shitload of money still
2) Your company is retarded and spending way to much probably in debt and probably going to start layoffs soon
I don't know any fellow tech industry workers who have their cell phone, pager, pda, home dsl paid for anymore. That shit just doesn't happen round here at least. Here = Bay Area.
Ave Molech Setting
CIO's wouldn't be able to pull this kind of shit if we were a union trade. We could demand better pay for having to subsidize company architcture or they would have to pay for it themselves. Otherwise we walk while the windows worm of the week burrows unopposed.
If half the CIO's of the fortune 500 were giving evil eyes to your CIO because of a sympathy strike on your behalf, this would be an entirely different story. Such a CIO could be endangering their carreer if they turn the screws too tight on their staff.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
It's time for a fresh look at your employment.
Don't up and quit just because the new CIO has decided to focus more on the bottom line and less on perks and warm fuzzies. There's a strong push to make IT Managers more accountable for actual dollars ever since Enron went south.
Which is a direct response to the happy days of free bagels and gournmet coffee dispensers for every office. The bubble is gone. Time to deal with it.
Pretend you just got fired. Go home, sleep on it. Come back the next day with a 'new job' mentality. Take at look at your responsabilities and your compensation. Is this what you want to do for the next couple of years?
Amd if the answer's no, start looking. I just ended 3 months of unemployment with three job offers. The jobs are back.
P.S. non reimbursed business expenses are a tax write-off. Call your CPA for details.
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."
...but remember that if you don't want your job, someone else does. Remember that if you want your job, so does someone else who will work for less. The company doesn't truly care about the "best" in most cases, rather "good enough"; you should think the same way. In the "best case" scenario, the company pays for broadband; in the "worst case" scenario, you have to... but not like you weren't going to anyway. If need be, look at the expense as an investment in keeping your job.
While Carly's alturism is questionable, the statement is very poignant. Regardless of what your personal feelings on your employer are, the reality is that they provide a means to live. Very few of us grow our own food or own land on which to build a house meaning we must buy these things. In order to buy these things, we must involve ourselves in the societal structure of work.
For a momentary aside, I recently left the technology sector to try my hand at marketing and frankly the payscale/workload equation outside technology is terrible by comparison. In an ideal technical situation, a system administrator is doing the job best when the phone never rings thus leaving free time to improve. Not many jobs are like that.
So integrating into the society of work requires a few things above and beyond the listed requirements of adequate skill. For many jobs in many locations, a worker must have transportation and a wardrobe of some effect. Neither of these are required specifically by an employer, however, if an employee cannot make it to work or looks below standard upon arrival, chances are that employee will not be employed for very long.
Carly's quote is of relevence because in order to keep that nice, well-paying tech job, the employer must remain competitive in the field and the employee must as well.
If you have a stable tech job and make a fuss about the cost of broadband, you are ceasing to be competitive. If the employer pays for the connection, that's icing on the cake.
I've read all the ranting about "my time" and "their time" and all of that nonsense. Above all, an employee should enjoy their job, else everyone suffers. So if an employee reasonably enjoys their job, they will do what's required to keep that job. If that means taking a $45 a month unofficial paycut, so be it.
But chances are anyone truly invested in technology will have a broadband connection at home and often carry a cell phone. Share it, answer it, don't answer it, do whatever you want to...
To continue my aside, tech. works are seriously among the most spoiled individuals in the workforce. While our roles are crucial, they are also often overstated as well. If you ever leave the fluff of the tech. sector, you will find that many jobs are way more ass-kicking and paying for broadband is the least of your concerns... after health-care in many cases.
nuckcl(at)yahoo.com
--
Elizabeth sent me this story called "Geek Player, Love Slayer" out of the Missouri Review. Being the production monkey formerly known as the IT Guy, I found a bit of humor in it as well as some relevant commentary, including the line Liz originally quoted in her email, How did Computer Guy become the lifeguard of the decade? as well as How much cultural power will the Geek Player amass before people realize he's just a guy who can talk to machines? and Those guys had a certain pathetic, introverted arrogance because they knew they had the rest of the office by the stones. But they were basically frightened of people.
http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Fi ct ion&title=Geek+Player%2C+Love+Slayer
Over the years of spending so much time in the lurid blue embrace of the cathode ray tube (and now the pale glow of ubiquitous liquid crystal flat panels), I understand these concepts. Technology was raised to a power in that wrinkle in time when everyone needed a computer to do busines
What sort of experiences do the rest of slashdotters have along these lines?
It's simple. See, there's this management culture; it's ubiquitous. Bunch of back-slapping, golf club playing, BMW driving, Hamptons vacationing, Montessori school tuition paying, 'right-sizing', ice cube chewing,golf shirt wearing gekkos, most of 'em. They would fire their mother if it was expected of them. They do NOT do what is right, but only what is expected of them.
Being highly proficient in doublespeak, they can deep-down know what they are doing would land them in hell, were there a hell, and still do it, in order to keep their corner office. They will do what is MORALLY and ETHICALLY wrong, if their boss wants them to. They have no soul, but perfect teeth and hair.
Their bosses want to maximize profit. They don't give a damn how. If they have to pound their employees in the ass by forcing them to buy required tools themselves, and can get away with it, they will.
In short, they are scum, in my experience. I mean these things in all sincerity and after much observation and meditation.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
If they demand broadband, then they pay for it. However, they reserve the right to demand that it only be used for their purposes. Same for cell phones, etc - if they want it, they pay. However if they pay, they can (and probably should) dictate how it's used. ...which is pretty much what we do here.
For general users, I provide them with a machine, and we pay for the cablemodem. The caveat is that the machine will be used *exactly* for work, and nothing else. They're free to connect a personal machine to that cablemodem, but the stuff I provide had better not ever touch anything other than here.
At home, I pay for the cablemodem since it's a legacy anyway. I do have, however, a machine that is dedicated for work - simply because I've told my employer that I will *not* pollute my personal property with their required software, nor will I compromise my machines' usability with their software's requirements... unless they wish to take responsibility / liability for the impact of their software on my machines - if their crap bones it, they pay. Obviously, they got me a dedicated box for the task.
So, fair's fair. If they want you to be accountable for providing equipment, then you have complete authority over how it gets used. Likewise, if they want authority over how it's used, then they are accountable for providing it.
Sounds like your CIO wants the authority, while sticking you with the accountability. Use that exact expression when you discuss this topic, and you'll discover that your CIO must change his verbiage one way or the other, very quickly.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Be pro-active and load up on the deductions. After all, the CIO's policy is official, so you can't really have work-related home broadband without a work-related home office to terminate it in. Same with the cell phone and other stuff. You can probably load in (and depreciate) most of your home equipment...heck, even your Starbuck's wireless bill! (Always available, right.)
that they are running out of money, and you are better off starting to look for a new job right now.
The old workplace first scrapped free fruit, then they started with the rest to cut minor expenses, but many of them. Result is, some employees will leave the company, and often recruiting costs of one employee + the higher salary he wants makes it bad business for the company.
That was YOUR choice. You volunteered to do those things, and at a startup, it was recognized and appreciated. This guy's boss is just cheap. It's more of the same old mentality: Let's squeeze as much profit and productivity from these people as we can without spending any money on them. And if they balk, hint at layoffs.
He may not have any choice, but his piece of mind will be greatly increased if he can find another job with reasonable superiors. The ones he has now are making unreasonable demands at his fiscal expense.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
You may want to check out the regulations set forth by OSHA in regards to how you work. You may meet the requirements of an hourly worker, even though you are paid salary.
Being hourly vs. salary can affect what the company can expect from you in so far as after hours availability, and what they legally need to provide you in regards to equipment that is needed to do your job.
IANAL. When companies require you to do things that can be considered "shift work" (set shifting start and stop times, set breaks, many folks doing a similar task, etc.), under OSHA, they may not be able to declare you as a salaried employee. This is a really gray area, and bringing it up may cause problems with your boss.
A few years ago the company I worked for used to supply a few of us with ISDN lines (this was before cable/DSL was readily available) so we could work from home. They paid for the connection and footed the bill for rental and calls. At the time, though, ISDN was still metered by the minute in the UK and so you paid for the duration of your call - what's more, if you bonded the two channels into one 128Kb connection then you paid for each channel (ie. it was effectively two separate phone calls). Off peak this could be as much as 5p per minute per channel. In otherwords it wasn't cheap :)
Well, all was fine until the sorry day when I downloaded the Unreal Tournament demo to try out. Suddenly I found that being one of the l337 few with a 'low ping' connection I was really good and so I bought the full game when it was released. Next thing I knew I joined a clan and was playing all the time. Then - you guessed it - the bills started arriving....
You try explaining to your boss how you've managed to wrack up a bill for over 100 ($185) a month by 'working from home'. Not easy, especially when the server logs seem to indicate you'd never actually telneted to the server more than a couple of times to read your mail... Bah!
... along these lines is that a company that does this is only one step away from laying off people. If you're one of the fortunate ones, you'll be laid off first and can quickly set about finding a better job, because those that are left behind will find themselves increasingly burdened with more and more work, less and less resources and increasingly dismal prospects for pay raises and advancement.
These sorts of "frugal" cost-cutting measures are either a sign of financial trouble or gross ineptitude. Or both. If the company requires you to be available after-hours, they can expect to pay the cost for the level of availability they require. Unless you know it to be a case of gross managerial ineptitude, assume that they can no longer afford to pay the cost and that this is a red flag going up...
(re: the tax issue or "pay your own"... the company can write the expense off... you most likely can't)
It takes an idiot to do cool things - that's why it's cool!
... if the employee owns all that stuff, and one day with no notice his job gets ourtsourced, at least he already has all that stuff, very useful for looking for another job. if you get canned,and your weekly income drops to zero, and you then have to increase your expenses by getting a phone and net connection, etc just to look for a job, then that would sucketh. If you are already using that and it's been budgeted in to your "lifestyle", then it's not much more. Besides, what geek doesn't want his own cellphone and computer and broadband connection?????? If your employer gives you *duplicates* of them, fatcity,use 'em, if they don't, you still want your own anyway.
Remember that 'unreimbursed' business expenses cannot be deducted from the AMT. If you're not close to the AMT threshold, then no worries.
Having said that, I would gues that the cost difference between say ISDN and DSL could be deducted since a major reason fo going ISDN is higher reliability.
This is a slippery slope of bullshit, and your CEO is covering something up in the financials. I would bet if you looked through his monthlies on your server's, it would give you your answer in black and white... more like red actually.
Do not cave into this. The company is asking you to work with tools you provide. It's one step away from a giant pyramid scheme. You should start looking for work elswhere- today. You already know this, or else you wouldn't have posted your fear on slashdot.
Get an exit plan now. Tell the CIO to stuff it. Jump ship.
First of all, as others have said, if your company needs to make these kind of cutbacks to survive, then your company is in bigger trouble than you apparently think.
You have effectively received a pay cut. Do you want to work for a company that has cut your pay? If so, suck it up and keep working for them.
I will pass on a very painfully learned lesson regarding loyalty to your employer. Unless it's a real small operation (and I mean, a partnership or sole proprietorship), have none. With a CIO, this is clearly a corporation. I've worked for a lot of them and I've made the mistake of being loyal to a few that I thought were "good." In every case, that loyalty got me nothing substantial (a "thanks" was about the most) and often only the expectation of further loyalty.
The worst was working for someone who I've known for 25 years. In the end, things got so bad, he (via the company), effectively stole money out of my 401K (though I've since had the money returned). The point is: Don't expect your loyalty to get you anything. If things look bad, they're probably worse than you think and you should at the very least, start looking for a new job.
I'm on call all hours. I expense my broadband and my cell service. My company pays for my phone, my palm, and my laptop.
I pay for my own cell phone ... I pay for my own broadband ... heck I have even paid for software components out of my own pocket when I thought the management were too illiterate to understand why I needed it in our software ... I answer tech support emails at all hours of the day ... I make international calls from home to reach customers ... ... and yes I am happy they pay me to do what I would be doing anyway ...
... we're struggling ... we're spending more money than we make ... but I have faith that if we make it over the financial hump that I will be rewarded ... three cheers for small companies!
Like alot of IS related companies mine is not doing so hot right now
Why are all the ask slashdot articles these days just 'me too!' bait that the author has to be writing just because he/she/it knows that we're going to side with them. It's not really provoking any meaningful conversation.
in bed.
Reducing tech pocket litter is a plus!
If they arent interested in providing you with the tools you used to use for your job maybe you need to do some retooling. Obviously the organization doesnt feel you need these tools so why should you worry? If you miss a system problem or a phone call or a page because they didnt pay the bill that is their problem not yours. Deny yourself the tools they refuse to pay for, let your performance suffer for it. The worst thing that can happen to you is termination of an old job and endless new opportunities.
Bottom line is: if they dont care neither do I, who needs that stress?
Just some random thoughts on the subject.
Remember, you can be replaced. Can you handle the benefit reduction? No? Okay then, quit. Otherwise, the new Bush economic order relies on compliant labor and you'll just have to submit to the capital.
For crying out loud! Even /.ers are too stupid to realize that ISDN is baseband, not broadband.
ISDN uses digital signaling, therefore it is baseband. Broadband uses (multiple streams of) analog signaling.
Get it straight!
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Don't forget. Write off your broadband, check your email before leaving for work and when you get home. This will satisfy the tax man so you are on the job even while you are commuting to work. Your work started when your checked in. Therefore also deduct your mileage.
I only hope you have enough miles, broadband, and other expenses to equal the 2%. You can also use this to ask for a raise by showing how much your job is actually costing you.
I always pay for my one Cellphone, Pager and Internet.
I would rather not have them controlled by the company I work for and possibly bound to the company rules of use.
Same goes for my home broadband.
As for after hour contact... Oh the joy's of CallerID.
Yup, you sure do.
You get the "freedom" to come in on the 4th of July to work on someone else's server.
You get the "freedom" to spend your money on work related Internet.
You get the "freedom" to spend your money on work related cell phone minutes.
And for what? To be treated like a professional? Wouldn't you rather be compensated like a professional?
Where I work, we have what's called "leave days", and when we need to take leave, we do, it's why they give them to us. When we are sick, we take "sick days", we don't have to ask, that's what they give them to us for. If work requires us to be on a pager, they supply it, common sense says it's their responsibility.
I'm very sure your boss "loves" you. But as for me, I don't own the company, I require compensation for my work. And, because I work for professionals, they treat me as a professional, without asking me to shell out a lot of cash for the privilege.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
as long as you only use it for work
But why should it be? That's just a cheap excuse for employers to bias the deal so they can get more than they're entitled to: a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.
As you say, "within reason" certainly is the key, and in this case, the employer's behaviour is beyond contempt, and they deserve to lose every employee they've got, starting with the best. Fortunately, when employers get this screwed up, that's usually what happens.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It could be the boss feels that these devices are not strictly necessary, and he doesn't really care if you have them.
If you want to get them yourself, to enable you to do your job better, that's up to you. That is a fair statement.
What would be WRONG would be if the company REQUIRED you to have these devices and services. In that case, they should pay for them, definately.
I use my home server for work on a very regular basis. For testing, for storage, and as a general waypoint for anything I don't keep right at work. The NAT is set to allow me to VNC to my boxen on the homeside should I need to grab a file from home.
All of my development stuff (currently a document-tracking webapp) and/or trials (new mail filter for spam/viruses) go to the home server first. If they survive a trial period there, then they come to work.
Of course, I use them for other things too - so they're on my dime (including the DSL). But at work I'd be much less productive without them, and thus I can definately see how a connection to the homebase could be useful for others at work.
someone posted,
"I telecommute full time, so they pay for a telephone line, my DSL connection, and misc office equipment and supplies. They don't pay for my cell phone (except work-related call charges)"
I (and most of us, I'll wager) would gladly pay for those things ourselves, in return for being able to work from home *instead* of working at the company's location.
I am completely amazed by what you Americans allow your employers to do to you. You all seem to think you should give your whole lives back to your employers.
In Europe it is normal to get 35-40 hour working weeks, 20-25 paid holiday days a year and paid overtime.
In the USA you all seem to be expected to work in your own time, get 10 days a year leave and no overtime.
Jeez you all should grow some balls.
For example, if you live in California, Calif. Labor Code Sec. 2802(a) states:
An employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer, even though unlawful, unless the employee, at the time of obeying the directions, believed them to be unlawful.
Of course, if you don't want to make an issue of it now, just keep track of all your expenses, document why they are necessary, and when you leave the company sue them for the expenses during the statute of limitations period.
---
The preceding is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute any form or offer of representation. You should seek the advice of a compentent legal professional licensed in your jurisdiction prior to taking any action.
Everytime they call you on your personally financed cell phone, respond with "I'm on a job interview right now with [Insert biggest competitor here] and I can't talk".
NTITE
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
Yep, we should all be dedicated to the corporation. Of course, the corporation will lay me off in a nanosecond if it will bump the stock price by a point, or if the company moves my job to an offshore company that the CEO just happens to be invested in, or if my new boss wants to hire her best friend for my job. And I'm supposed to foot the bill for work-related items to "help out the team"? Not bl**dy likely. It was exactly this mentality at corporations that pushed me into becoming an independent hourly worker.
Home office deductions are a sure-fire way to get audited, particularly if you also have a real office to use.
Expenses incurred on behalf of an employer are deductible only if you are REQUIRED to expend them, not for convenience. You will not pass muster simply based on the statement of a boss that the broadband is required IF you are dedicated to the job.
--
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
Skilled tradesmen are generally self-employed or working for a small business, and as such they provide for themselves. They are also their own bosses. They can set whatever rate they think they will get hired at -- and if you need a plumber at 3am, you can bet that's going to be nice and high -- and they take it home, not some faceless boss figure.
When you're being employed by someone else, they're effectively taking most of the credit for the fruits of your labour. You can bet they're making more out of your work than you are, several times over. That being the case, you better believe they're going to be expected to cover the overheads, including sick leave, provision of tools, and so on.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wrong.
I use VNC over dialup and VPN all the time.
A few years ago, it was possible here in VA to get a state tax credit as an employer if you gave these services to your people, and it saved them a commute. As far as I know, these credits went away along with the state's budget surplus, so around here, at least, there are less employers willing to offer paid broadband at home.
Regarding the basic premise of the question -- I think there's been one year in the last eight that I haven't had a cell-phone/pager that I expected might be called, so I guess I'm used to it. Most of the organizations I've been with have expected that people who made their careers a priority wouldn't complain. That assumption has been baked into the compensation plans, vacation time, etc. - I could have chosen jobs that didn't assume unpaid overtime and unlimited access, but I would have given up pay or other benefits in exchange.
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
Are you certain about that? There are plenty of multi-million dollar companies that do not net a profit for many years at a time. Amazon was not profitable for the first four or so years, and for all I know still is not.
There is definitely a criteria however. This keeps people from creating companies for their hobbies and writing them off, but I thought the time frame was around seven years, and the criteria was related to gross income.
-Hope
...you're asserting that this company will somehow reward him for these forced changes. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts they will not. If he ever reaches the position of manager in this organization, it won't be becuse he abided by his company's recent refusal to pay for work-related expenses.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Your experience is skewed. The Bay Area is the tech toilet of planet Earth whether you realize it or not. I'm sure you have an idea of this since www.fuckedcompany.com has it's own section just for that particular shithole.
The rest of the US is not as screwed up as that area- which is something you don't know. I.T. workers don't live in boxes and in homeless camps... really.
And so, here's option number three, for those of us not living in the land earthquake bait and the non-working homeless.
3)
A: Your company has no money at all and are going to use passive and active forced attrition, just so they can survive long enough for the CEO to steal half of the pension fund.
B: They will then offer the last remaining retards a job in their new remote Bay Area office park- conveniently called "Casa de bastardos estúpidos" aka suite 69.
C. After the direct deposit check clears in Guam, you all get a email on the Blackberry device you just bought for $500 saying, "You're All Fired FuckNuggets! Wooo Hooo!"
D. The end.
At my previous job we had a very solid telecommuting culture, the company had embraced the concept and most of the times it worked really well. Employees that telecommuted at least 50% of the time were reinbursed for cable modem or DSL, and if they needed a dial up it was provided by our own people, so no need to pay for an ISP.
Everybody was happy, work got done on time, we won awards. The works.
When things went south, the bean counters sort of took over and started cutting costs left and right. Broadband reinbursements were the first ones to go. The IT people were ordered to itemize their Nextel bills. That kind of thing.
Eventually the company got gutted, and pretty much everyone either bailed, got laid off or the bean counters found an excuse to fire them for cause instead of lay them off.
During the same time, colleagues elsewhere in the country told me they went thru very similar experiences, so the next time I see indiscrimminate cuts like these, I will know it is time to pack my bags and try my luck elsewhere.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
against them. Cancel your pager, change your cell phone number, cancel your "regular" phone service (who needs it anyway) open up another IM account. Once you're gone from work you're GONE.
If they fire you over this, sue for profit.
His possition sounds different to yours, the company sounds like its going downhill and is more likely to fire your ass than give you a promotion. If you have been with a company for a long time and are one of its 'founding' members you will always be valued. This does not sound the case for him.
My personal attitide is that unless I have a stake in the company, I'm not gona put in the extra effort, I've seen too many people get screewed over that way.
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
You can't do much Windows admin work via text/shell connection, and 56k + RDP/Citrix is very painful.
I wonder if you really are GillBates... he would have known that.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
However, I watch out for who I work for. I was "downsized" when the company I worked for closed their west coast office because, "it's cheaper to do things in Texas".
Where I worked, most people had been there over 10 years, and knew their job, why they did it and how it affected the other jobs (which they had been cross trained in). They pay was good.
Meanwhile back in Texas, people came to work at 8:04 am went to lunch at 11:56, came back at 1:04 and left at 4:58. They were traied to do one job. They don't know why the are doining it, if they are doining it right, or how it impacts anything else if it works or not. They make little better than minimun wage.
I have heard it called "The Wally Factor".
A company either wants a building full of "Wallies" that can be replaced for $8.00 an hour like a module. Any Wally can be plugged into any job and be trained to do it in a day or two. No skill or expertise required. Just dont' expect Wally to understand why he does it. He is paid to push the button 8 hours a day. Who knows what the button does?
A good company does not want Wallies. They want to pay a decent wage for the services of an employee that brings a skill set that allows them to do a good job for them. This includes knowing what is going on.
I won't work for a company that wants to call me Wally. Or in other words, I am as loyal and hard working for a company as they are loyal to me.
I.E. if they would close the plant on me with 30 minutes notice. I am willing to walk out on them mid shift to find a real job.
It may take me a while longer to find a job. However, I end up working for an employer who knows they are getting a good value for what they pay me. I am a professional.
If you don't recognize the value I bring to your company, then why would I want to work for you? So you can tell me how hard it is to find another job and treat me like crap and tell me I am lucky?
I am sorry. My employer is lucky to have a staff of people who are profesional and know how to get the job done, no matter what is thrown at us. They can take it out of their 60% markup on their product.
But you go ahead and keep that attitude. If you don't realize that you are an equal party negotiating for your services with a party who is no better than you are. Then they are going to pass you up, and hire someone like me. I am more than happy to see you go and take that job for $8.00 an hour that I just said "no" to.
--------
vi +
No I'm not asserting his company will somehow reward him for his efforts. What I am asserting is that his company may fail to continue REWARDING him -- or penalize him if he doesn't comply with these 'changes'. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts they will. That's my assertion.
Of course, it's up to him to guage. I have no idea who he or his employer are. He'll need to figure out whats best for him. A full picture helps.
I hear the slave market is depressed these days ... a "buyers' market" so to speak.
I'm guessing the "disdain for the company" shown by employees couldn't ever be as much as the condescension and disdain your post shows for its employees.
This isn't serious, is it?
Actually, I know it is serious. But it is bordering on the absurd.
If my management wants me to work remotely on company business outside of normal business hours, then they better pay for my broadband and the other tools required to do my job.
Now, if I want to work remotely (i.e. telecommute) during normal business hours, then I should be willing to pay for the infrastructure and services to do so. Just like I pay for the cost of transport to get to work, I should be willing to pay for my telecommute.
Yours,
Jordan
If you're going to pay for your own broadband access, cell phone, pager or whatever, then I'd use those resources and the time after hours to start building my own business. Whether in technology or another field.
That's what I did and have a fairly profitable sideline today. If my employer wants to buy my after hours time that's fine, but no freebies. And if they do let you go you'll discover the responsibilities and joys of running your own business.
The only way to like the boss is to be the boss. And there are many, many small to medium size businesses, anywhere from 5 to 15 workstations, that can't afford a full time tech but would love to have someone to call to help with computer problems now and again. Mailings are the best way to find them. Send them a sticky card they can put on the side of their computer. Real estate offices, small medical facilities, restaurants, legal offices, home businesses. There are a ton of places out there. You'll even get calls from bigger companies because they're short of staff and need temporary technical help.
The way I'd look at it is your employer is giving you an opportunity to learn about professional liability insurance, getting a business license, advertising (I'd wait on a yellow pages ad), and paying quarterly tax returns. It's not that hard.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Cheers!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
As long as I'm not firing you for issues relating to race, creed, color, sex, place of national origin, or sexual orientation (and, possibly one or two more), you're toast.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I'd rather get a paycheck everyweek then have my company BK because they were too busy paying everyone's broadband, cellphone and pager bills. Quit complaining and remember: in India they all carry their own cell phones and pay for their own broadband. Oh and they cost like 1/2 of what you do!
damn, next step is probably to get the employees to PAY to be allowed to WORK, 24/7...
Has this world gone crazy?...
If you've ever been comped for that stuff, consider yourself lucky. As a consultant, most companies in my experience don't do that at all.
df
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
My company goes 50/50 for my Cable Modem access. Every month I get a check for $19.98 after I submit my bill. I figure that's reasonable since we also use the connection for personal and spousal business use.
$ man woman *
-bash:
IANAAccountant, but I do my own taxes and forget it.
Employee business expenses have a 2% AGI floor on Schedule A. What that means is if your income is about $60K a year, you don't get to deduct ANY of those expenses until they are more than $1200. If you have $1500 in expenses you get to deduct $300. (If you make more than $140K it's even further limited.) Whoop de frickin do.
I had a retarded CTO ask me to give them a cell number they can reach me at after hours. I basically told him I didn't have one (not for them at least). After a couple of months of asking (off and on), he finally said "I don't see how you could work here without a cell phone". At that point I reminded him (again) I'd be happy to carry a cell phone. I then asked him which phones the company provides. It dropped until he decided it was critical.
:-)
I now have a company paid for cell phone in addition to my personal phone. The attitude was pretty sad and another company has been calling me now and then to join up with them. At this rate they just might get me
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Absolutely!
At the company I run, not only are my employees dedicated enough that they're willing to go the extra mile to ensure availability in the off hours, but they do the same during workdays as well. They work in a cubicle that they rent, with a desktop PC that they purchase from the company (at a more than reasonable rate, due to the volume discount that we get and generously pass on to them), use office supplies that they provide, and even pitch in for their share of the electric bill.
Some would call it "wage slavery". I call it "smart business".
Of course, this is only theoretical, since I haven't actually hired anyone yet. In fact, no one has even sent me a resume. I'm sure it's because everyone's such loyal and dedicated employees that they just don't want to leave the companies they're already working for.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
It's pretty simple to me.
If it's part of your _job function_ to be on-call, or otherwise, then the company absolutely has to pay for the service, simply for the risk-management aspect of making sure that the service is indeed always there. One other poster mentioned your "free internet" you get out of this: well, this is pretty simple -- if the company doesn't want to let you use it for free internet, nothing stops you from paying for your own recreational use connection.
If it's not part of your _job function_ to be on-call (since, I too have been in R&D '4th line' support at times), then the company can't really demand anything of you. If you truely don't use the internet, you can claim that you don't have the budget for it - company can't force you to do pay for it out of your own money. If you do have your internet connection, then I don't actually see a problem for the occasional times you may need to use it for company purposes (after all, how many of us occasionally surf at work for personal and other reasons).
Whenever a new guy comes in and starts cutting back, it is never a good sign. I would start looking for signs that the buisness might be firing people and perhaps looking for a new job. At the very lease when a new boss comes in and starts saying things like "if you were a dedicated employee..." it is the start of a stressfull workplace.
Secondly, as others have mentioned this is the equivelant of a paycut. I suggest you treat it as one and ask for a fair raise that is equal to the ammount paying for those things yourself will cost you.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
if you pay for it then you have 100% freedom to turn it off at any time for any reason. that goes for bandwidth or wireless leashes, doesn't matter.
> I have gotten my first slashdot freak. My life is now complete.
Only one? Mr. Nice Guy! You need to offend a few more people, you aren't doing it right unless you get a dozen or so freaks. My secret to success is saying things about Steve Jobs that aren't adoring (don't have to actually slag him, just imply you aren't drinking the KoolAid) or offend the slashdot hivemind on a political issue. i.e. Don't be a socialist, slag Dean, or now Kerry.
Of course you have to intersperse some more popular tech type comments to keep the karma high enough to retain the +1 posting bonus because not only will the actions above get you freaks they will also get troll/flamebait mods. I have NEVER posted a negative view of anything Apple related without getting modded down. They really don't want to hear it.
Democrat delenda est
In a perfect world, I agree that we (IT Pros) should not have to fork out our money for company time. In my personal case, I get my cell expensed, but I would be a liar to say that the majority of my home broadband usage is for the company VPN so that never crossed my mind to get that expensed.
But the sad fact of the matter is that it is an employer's market out there right now. So if you don't want to tow the company line, no matter how crooked it may be, there is some desperate unemployed soul out there who will work for less money than you and pay for his own cell phone ready to take your place.
Because of the way this industry is right now, the employers have the employees by the balls in many cases.
We pay for our network administrator's broadband, cell phone, and an IBM Thinkpad with all the tools she needs to remotely administer the network from home. I started that when I hired her. It seems stupid to try to economize on essential tools, then expect her to come in during weekends and at night to perform administrative tasks when the users aren't on the system. She can do most of that just as efficiently, or more efficiently, from her deck via the wireless router we got her. She's happy and a top-notch admin. I'm happy because the network works and I don't get calls during my off time about broken crap. The company's happy because we don't have disruptive turnover of expensive professionals. It's a win-win thing.
In true capitalist world you would pay to work ! but we are still in communism as we get paid for our work... damn commies, they got us...
who is paying for hotel and travel and cell-phone and so forth out of his own pocket. [chortle!].
Seriously, if it's important to the business needs of a company, they'll pay for it. That's how companies express what matters to them.
Unless you own shares in the company, I'd make the decision on paying for broadband (et alia) based on how much it's worth to you.
Personally, I like broadband and just cause it's easy I sometimes use it for company purposes. But that's me.
Seriously ... that way you easily have an excuse not to purchase stuff on your own.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
My last job changed ovet the years. When I started we were rather small. Everybody was motivated to make something out of it. And we wouldn't mind doing extra things to improve service.
We were compensated. If there wass a reason to start later. No problem. If we needed something to improve working conditions. No problem. If there were problems at work the boss would do everything to get the problems out of the way.
As we got bigger and bigger, the climate changed. Less compensation, more work, employees were no longer top priority and even the coffee got worse.
I understand and know things change as you get more professional, but the result was the employees were more and more on their own, were less happy and therefore less motivated and worst of all (for the company) no longer willing to do that little extra for the job to improve quality.
Tough luck. Base line is I want to feel appriciated for what I do. That is more important to me than paying my expences, but if I'm not appriciated I'm just not interested anymore to give that little extra.
In the end I gave them the finger. Something I should have done a year sooner and it was a hard decision to make, but it was the best one I've ever made. My new work has so much better conditions that even though I earn less now I'm in fact better off than I was before.
Privacy is terrorism.
Are you telling me that you would not own a computer or have broadband at your home if your company does not pay for it? Sure, back in the day my old company would pay for a "maintance link" into the systems so that I could perform emergency services on their, and client's, systems. Now the internet and broadband are common, and most people I know have it. I am payed to keep systems running in a 7/24/365 manufacturing environment. I am compensated by salary, bonuses, stock, etc. That is what pays for my computers at home and broadband connection. If you are an Admin, deal with it, or get into another field.
--"I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it." Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still(1955)
or be replaced by a few Indians... that's the ultimatum that seems to be going around these days. You basically get to keep your job if you're willing to make yourself as cheap as foreign sweatshop labor...
Where I work (West Virginia) as sysadmin for a network services company, I'm offered a mere $10 a month in compensation for my cell phone.
I turned it down, so I have the priviledge of turning it off, and ignoring it when it's the boss calling, otherwise I'd probably rack up more than $10 worth of my minutes used by the company.
In the case of the story author, I'd refuse to get a cell phone or broadband for company use. I'd not give them the number if I had a cell phone, and I'd tell them I'd cancelled my broadband that I use for work they now won't pay for, and won't get it back unless they reinstate it. If they want you to work, then you should show up for work and be on the clock.
While it's not 1999 anymore, it's not 2001-2002 either. If you are good, companies that pull that kind of shit won't be able to retain you (or their clients) for long by nickle-and-diming.
A broadband connection costs the company what, $40-50 a month? Which is money IT can write off their taxes.
Corporatism != Free Market
The companies we've work for tend to be about 50/50 on paying for cell phones and a little less willing to pay for broadband. Computers are all on the employee and PDA are almost entirely on the company. It's not that they can't afford it but rather if they need the employee to have it and somewhat if the employee would get it anyways.
-Tim Louden
If you pay for your broadband instead of work paying, whatever you do on it can't get you fired.
We got that memo too, it stated that we were going have to pay for our own communications devices going forward.
Last friday I checked in with my manager before leaving for the weekend, I gave him one of these little FRS radios and said that i would be available on channel 8 ctcss code 36 if I was needed to, say, keep the company online or something...
he at the radio, looked at me and said "your kidding right?"
I said "yeah, but you started it"
They dont pay for your car, your clothing, etc... either. Ultimately information devices and Internet connectivity will will be regarded as staples and all be expected of you. Your employability will be based on having them. I can imagine a time when you will be expected to bring in your own computing devices to work - if you "go" to work at all. The whole backoffice will become public space - like your company parking lot already is - and only the core protected information resources will be controlled by the corporation.
"very like a whale..."
Is there a desk in your cube? Did you pay for the desk? No.
Is there a workstation in your cube? Did you pay for the workstation? No.
Is there a phone in your cube? Did you pay for the phone? No.
If it's at the office and you need it to get your job done, the company paid for it, right?
So if it's at home, and you need it to do your job, the company should pay for it. If they don't want to pay for it, then you obviously don't need it to do your job, so your job function obviously doesn't include off-hours support.
The small company I just started working for will pay for a cable modem. I had no idea companies did this, and I think it's great - thats about 300$ a year in savings.
However as a small hosting company, I'm also on-call 1/9th of the time when I'm at home.
When I was in a perm job I funded my own narrow-band connection and used it allow me to work from home one or two days per month - that saved more than the cost of the connection in travelling costs AND meant I could take it a little easier...
If the company provides you a benefit (company car, home broadband, computer, blackberry) that you can use for personal use, they are supposed to report that personal use ($/%) to the IRS as imputed income, which Uncle Sugar uses to soak you on 4/15.
Yeah, right.
"Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers."
Sounds like your CIO has been reading too many stupid management books...
The most useless layer in IT departments are IT managers, as it's the worst job IN IT... The worst ones are paper pushers, meetings-goers, and subscribers to the latest fad management book.
The best ones break, die, or go somewhere else because they try to actually take on the impossible job of PROTECTING their staff from the other layers of management which match the descriptions above, and they get to go to meetings instead of doing cool IT work.
I don't know how big your company or IT staff is,, but if your staff is fairly small, I'd get together as a group, DO NOT get cellphones or other stuff they won't pay for, and cancel your "work" broadband connections (it's for home use now) until the idiot with the expense account, fancy office, company cell phone and car who does nothing better for the company than warm an expensive chair backs down.
I'd bet this CIO is relatively new, and from the "beancounter" mentality, and is looking to score points with the rest of upper management. You can usually back such people down if you show a little steel.
Corporatism != Free Market
work won't pay for cell phone, pager or ISP ... then work better have a problem only when i'm on site. how's that?
So what does good ol' Kolmogorov have to do with this?
I only know him for his steady-state balance equations.
Just remind your employer that as their policy states, any data that runs on their network is their property because it is on their network. This means that if you pay for your own Broadband, it is your network, and thus any data on it belongs to you. Of course this would be more convincing if the broadband connection in your home were in someone elses name, such as your spouse.
I know a sysadmin who bought his own laptop that he used for his stuff and work. He didn't want to have to carry around 2 machines and he valued his privacy. He was and is an honorable guy.
The day came when the Powers That Be wished to paw through everything. They looked through the servers, they looked through the network, they wanted to look through his laptop.
It didn't belong to them so he could say "No". It took a little while for them to understand why (as is often the case with The Powers) but they didn't want to get a warrant, they didn't want to get sued, he didn't cave to pressure. The "No" stood.
He couldn't have done that if he had been using a work box.
Folks can work from home 2 days per week. Here are the rules laid out by the corporate office:
You must have an office at home (desk,phone,computer). Your bed and the couch are not offices.
You must have broadband.
You should be ready at any time for your boss or the CEO to 'drop by' for an office inspection (as if they have the time..).
The company will not pay for office supplies or communications (broadband and phone).
And why should they? You make plenty of money right? Just write every expense off and get a big tax return. If your company is making WAY too much money, they could pay for it and write it off, but usually that's not worth it to them. After all, how much time online is spent working, and how much is spent playing UT2004?
TallGreen CMS hosting
Finally... Someone that makes sense! I too, am American, but I am currently living in Europe. Have things really gotten that bad in the "old country"? When did everyone become so weak that they are willing to put up with this? (I don't mean that as a flame, either.) These are clearly business expenses... Stand up for yourselves! As for "loyalty" and "respect". These are things that must be earned in both directions. The company does not sound like it is earning your respect and is certainly not respcting you.
On the one hand, I feel that if you are being compensated more than adequately (or maybe just above market rate) in terms of you actual money and totality of other perks.. and you've tried negotiation to maintain these services,.. and the additional costs to be incurred by you if you were to pay for them yourself are bearable,.. then maybe you should just accept the changes.
On the otherhand, if your employer never does anything for charity, maybe you should be asking why they expect you to? My feelings is that the only company you should ever bust your own bollocks for is one that YOU own, or that a loved family member owns. Your bollock busting efforts are in the end for the benefit of shareholders (who as shareholders contribute.. what?) Does the employer offer a bonus scheme?
I find it ironic that the vast majority of the people who are writing on this thread are stealing Internet access from work.
This is a double standard - you either use it at work for work, and use it at home for home, or you use 'em both for both - and work pays for work, and YOU pay for home.
And for all you flamers who want to write back and tell me you're on your break, or this is personal time or whatever - seriously, sit down and do the math and figure out how much time you spend trolling on slashdot instead of doing your job and following up with your customers.
The company does not pay for broadband. But they sure as hell better pay for highspeed access when I have a company provided laptop and go on a training trip or a conference trip. If they want me to pay for my redneck walkie talkie (Nextel) then there ain't no freakin way in hell I would do it.
Gorkman
Thats not entirely true... The owner of the company I work for decided we needed a CIO. We will call him Don, who came from a big company, we will call it Insight. We (the IT department) knew right off the bat the guy was a retard but since the owner is very ignorant when it comes to technology and believed everything this guy told him. Well one of the programmers and myself got fed up with it and started tracking his surfing, without him knowing of course, and come to find out he spent half his day doing personal stuff... Like downloading guitar tab, mp3s etc.. but the kicker was him surfing monster looking for a job. Needless to say, with a little effort on our part and 90 days, we had the butthole fired and I took great satisfaction in locking him out.
We used to not get compensated at all for out of hours support (which there was a lot of).
We lost a good sys-admin whom I'm sure left atleast partially due to the unreasonable and uncompensated demands on his time. After he left I was doing more out of hours support myself.
Eventually it got to the point where I figured it was in the best interests of the *company* that all out-of-hours work was compensated.
Why? Well, for several reasons:
It's a hidden expense and causes employees to get very annoyed and some cases cause their work to suffer too.
Without making the company feel the costs they won't dedicate the time during working hours for employees to sort out the software bugs and system glitches.
I am now much happier, I get time-off-in-lieu but more importantly we have more failover systems, better monitoring and emergency procedures and more of the system bugs fixed. I don't think this would have happened to the degree it has if I hadn't requests time off in lieu for out-of-hours-support during a company meeting.
He might think he's saving money by pushing work and expenses onto employees but it may actually damage the business.
In my limited experience devices and services provided by employers (DSL, pager, cell, car) are used a minimum of 80% for non-work related purposes (see recent Wash Post article on social use of Blackberrys by Capitol Hill staff. Your tax dollars at work. No link due to Posts dreadful archive policy) .
It is a significant expense for an employer to take on when the direct value they receive is so low and they are items that employees would probably take on themselves. And that is the key, any item that it is easier for an employee to take on themselves not only saves you the direct cost, but indirect administrative costs. Sure it is good for morale, but at what cost.
Obviously the posters company is not very employee savvy. I used to include summaries of company expenses with employee raises and salary changes and show them the total cost that the company was taking on for them beyond their salary (Health care, car, phone, life insurance, etc.) It really helped them understand the total cost of an employee to an employer. If I could put up with the down-time, I would frame it as, "You can buy your own broadband and VPN in or you can drive in, your choice".
That is utterly ridiculous. If he wants you to perform work after hours he can supply you with the requisite tools. Otherwise you can just tell him that you can't afford broadband and that you have better uses for the money. Unless he intends to make your providing his company with free Internet access a condition of your employment: in that case I would seek employment elsewhere. People like that make me ill.
Of course, my current employer doesn't even provide his software people (or anyone else for that matter) with Internet access at their desktops. We have to go out in the hall to use a communal Web station for that. But no-one has tried to get me to pay for that service when I'm working on my own time. Your CEO needs an attitude adjustment, because he will lose his best employees if he stays that course.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If your employer needs you to do a job, he should provide you with the necessary tools.
My group on the other hand covers $25 a month (that's about 1/2 my bill) for anyone in the group. It doesn't matter if you work 24x7 support or not.
As a stockholder I find this wrong. They should not be paying anything for broadband unless:
- The person can not/will not have broadband on their own.
- The person does on-call support.
It is a waste of money for a corporation to pay for broadband when most techies would have it anyway. If they meet the above requirements I can see paying for it. Of course there are those that would "say" they can/will not have broadband on their own, but really they would, just to get the reimbursement. That decision is on their conscious.I refuse to submit the expense reports for broadband based on my belief.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
Our company pays for broadband or a landline if you live out in the boonies. They also pay for cell phones.
If you company wants support 24x7, then they need to provide you the tools to make that happen. It's in their own best interest since it puts you in a position to respond and engage corrective action. Use the simple equation time=money. If the company isn't willing to invest in tools for remote support then obviously the offhours downtime isn't worth worrying about or costs very little in terms of productivity. Where I work, 5 minutes of downtime = $850, so responding quickly is somewhat important to the bottom line.
Does the company expect people to bring their own office supplies, computers, phones, desks, and office furniture when they come to work?
If you get off hours support calls don't answer the phone (invest in caller-id) or if you accidentally answer the phone, tell them your computer is not working and you are waiting from a callback from Dell technical support and need to hang up and to call back in a few hours.
Like my daddy always says, "Boy you want to play dumb? I can play dumber."
Amen to that.
I left the Bay Area in January of 2000 and never looked back. Got out just before the roof fell in.
Here in San Diego, there's plenty of jobs and dignity to go along with them. Anyone at my company who would suggest such morale-busting measures as the article poster would be shitcanned by our CEO and board for gross incompetence.
Plus, all the homeless junkies in San Francisco really got to me after six years. That city REALLY needs to do something about that.
So, if you value your dignity and your paycheck, get the hell out of the Bay Area!
And, one last thing. Guys, quit being willing to grab your ankles and bend over just to keep a job. You fuck it up for the rest of us who are trying to earn a living with some dignity and respect.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
Get out of IT as fast as you can. I spent most of my life in IT and the single best move I ever made was going to law school.
IT in America is a dead end. The pay is crap, the people you'll end up reporting to are idiots, and you'll feel the full brunt of what it's like living in the mind of George Bush. For God's sake...
Get a trade, anything, just get out of IT as fast as you can. You'll thank me later.
I work for an Internet service provider, but I am in the sales department. (insert sales slime joke here)
As such, while I'm not given free broadband service or a cell phone, I am allowed to expense 50% of those bills. The company also provides me with a laptop to use while on-site with customers and prospects.
I suggest that you check with your state to see what laws there are regarding employees that are on-call (if you are). There may be laws that say that they have to pay for your cell/pager.
However, there's no law or requirement that says they have to pay for your Internet connection.
My recommendation is to try and "sell" to your CIO the benefits of paying for your Internet service. These should be rather obvious. Of course, he/she could still tell you that you need to be dedicated and there's nothing you can do about it.
In California, all employers can let someone go because they don't like your attitude. Fighting this too far could very well get you fired.
Then again, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad idea if this company is cutting its budget so tight that they can't afford a $100/mo bill.
-David
I work for a company that provides pagers, phones, laptops, brodband, & second phone lines to people who need it. When I first started it was simple to get this. You simply told your boss that you needed it and started submitting expense reports. No justification was needed. Needless to say, it was very widely abused. There were numerous people who didn't do any off hour support who got everything paid for by the company.
It cought the attention of our CIO too. He decided to make a few adjustments. Unless your boss was willing to assure his boss that you consistantly were needed for off-hour support, you couldn't expense anything. Every person who was approved was reviewed by management two leves up.
The result is that a lot of support people continued to be able to get their support tools paid for, but a lot of middle management didn't. It also really cut costs with almost no impact on support.
I also once worked for a company that wouldn't pay for a a second phone line (this was before broadband). A co-worker of mine put together a case that if he worked one hour more a day from home, the productivity gain was a lot more than the cost. He was approved & he routinely put in 2-4 hours more. It worked out in the businesses favor.
Do you remember changing jobs during the Dot com boom for better perks and salary. Even if you didn't, you probably noticed those perks increasing during that time to improve your job retention.
Isn't that the flip-side of this argument? Now that jobs are more scarce your employer is putting the squeeze on you a little bit in return. Just like before, you have the option of looking for another job.. only now you know it's going to be a lot more difficult than it was 5 years ago. So you stay and put up with the loss of perks just like your employers had to fork out the perks when they were afraid of losing you.
It's just the way the cycle goes.
You can get DSL for $35-45/mo, a cell phone w/ 1000 anytime minutes for $40/mo, and unlimited cellular internet on top of that for $20/mo. free SMS or $5/mo will cover paging.
Workers only create wealth when paired with certain resources, which the company provides. Just like workers expect to be paid for their time, investors/owners expect to be paid for the employment of their cash and assets, as well as some sort of risk premium. That's what profit is, return on a (risky) investment.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
its a little more then that.
.mp3
We, the technology workers of the country, have let ourselves be screwed over.
How?
As a whole, many of us don't pay attention to politics.
As a whole, many of us have a screwed up idea that says we shouldn't ge orginaized.
So now, according to federal law, we arn't paid overtime if we make more then about 28 bucks an hour. roughly 56K a year. Could you imagine that ever happening if we had a organization to work for us in the government? you know, lobbiests.
State laws have changed radically of the years as to what legally qualifies us for excempt status. Exempt status has always been a lot more narrowly defined then corporations have let on. There still jsut as narrow, but most have exceptions for 'computer professionals'.
We could be the most powerfull union(yes, I said the dirty word) in the world. Large corporations no that, the government knows that.
We are so large, that if we had reasonable solidarity, we could change the laws of the US easily. We could be so large, that we could hire enough lobbiest to change the stupid DMCA laws. We could stop the insane copyright abuse going on.
Think about that next time sone person gets fined there life saving becasue they created a search engine that searchs for a compressed programs that happen to end in
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I agree with the consensus that what your employer is doing effectively constitutes a pay cut without notice, and you should consider your future accordingly.
Another aspect is that, if you're being told "use your own gear", you've got no real obligation to actually have your own gear in a state that's fit for use when the "I need help now" call comes through. If you happen to be rebuilding your home PC, or if your kids/wife/gf happen to have your mobile phone at the time, or your modem just died and you're gonna have to go out and pick up another one, or your cheap-as-chips ISP blocks outgoing port 22 access and you didn't know in advance, or you happen to have just put your clothes in the washing machines at the local laundromat when the call comes through and you won't be home for another 90 minutes, well that's just gonna be their bad luck.
What's that? They're expecting you to be available at no notice *and* have all your equipment in full working order at all times? Well, maybe they'd better then think about the disruption that could ensue if your (now unmaintainable) home PC happens to dump a virus on the corporate network - maybe it'd be cheaper all round if they bought you a PC for work purposes only and looked after it themselves.
Note that I'm not recommending you purposely disrupt things in the above described manner, but a email message outlining the risks of any of the above occurring due to their cost cutting and your requirement to now budget accordingly might do wonders.
I'm given stock options and a cheap linux box. I am required to bring my own cell phone and salary.
My employer reimburses us for our Internet, up to $50/mo. For me, that means Broadband (cable modem service) is paid for. :D
I believe the actual policy is that it's proportional to the number of days in the month that we use the Internet to do "work", but considering that the SysAdmins (me, the Sr SA, and our boss) have odd hours, where we often do work from home practically every day, that means that it's covered.
This is the first place I've worked at that would pay for the Internet service, so I won't complain.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Just happened last month, in our Network Operations Group. Funny. We have a 15 minute SLA, and most of us live over 30 minutes away, with no traffic. Waiting to see what happens when we hit a Severity 1 issue (National outage) and it takes an hour before anyone can even look at it. I wonder what the Labor Board will say when the unlucky bastad who was on-call, refuses to use his/her own broadband connection to log into the network to work the issue, and drives in, then gets fired for not responding "responsibly and quickly". So, if you're unlucky enough to be a Sprint PCS customer, and your wireless web goes down (and stays down for hours on end), you may know why :-P
My company, a manufacturing company up here in Canada, has some strange ideas.
Pagers: We supply them. A pain in the ass for those of us in IT, as we're in charge of them (Ever realize how often pagers go missing / get damaged?), we handle all pager requests. OK, fine, not a huge issue. Company pays, users get them. Users are NOT responsible for them, all charged to company. Lost pagers are charged back to company. Money loss, but essential most of the time.
Cell phones: Users own their own cell phones, pay for their own plans, but are reimbursed for business related costs. Company does not dictate who owns / has a cell. Fraud / improper use is HIGHLY cut down. And to cut down on extravagant costs: Only certain users can charge for cells, and if you do, you don't get a pager.
Home phones / internet: You use, you pay. You don't use? Feel free to get your job done anyway you want. If that requires you to come in, that's your issue. If you prefer to work from home, hey, congrats, save yourself some issue, but that's your choice. Bad idea? Maybe. But for us, it's a convenience factor. We give dialup access to laptop users. every 20 users share 1 DU account (About 550 Laptop users). Again, their choice to get a laptop, their burden.
For the IT staff, it's similar: 24/7 operation, you're on call. Rotating cell phones (Company owned), everybody has a laptop (Fun). You have the choice of coming in to fix the issue, or working from home on dialup, or your own connection. The choice is ours. If the company didn't pay for the high speed: Would you still have it? The answer for all but one of us: Yes.
Companies give employees the ability to work. If the employee is in a position where their job requires them to work 12 hours a day, they have 2 options: Deal with it, or leave. If you can't find something else, then you deal with it until you get work elsewhere. We come and go as we need, time off for family and such, but even then we're still on call should emergencies rise. Are we paid well? I guess. We all have jobs.
I'm happy. Sorta. And searching for better. I was unemployed for 2 years, I'm happy with what I have. Until I can find something better. In today's IT society, isn't that what the prize is? Income which doesn't rely on the phrase "Would you like to upsize your fries for only 49 cents?"?
Think about what you have, not what you have to endure.
When all else fails, use fire.
... from the unsecured wifi router down the hall.
Corporate secrets be damned!
you didn't have q cell phone to begin with. Now I have a 20 daller a month expenses I didn't have before. You bet your ass if the company expects me to pay for it, I AM getting the cheapes one, and they can pay for all the phone calls over 60 minutes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
PHB sez:
"Work is a privilege."
"Time off from work will not be given for any extra hours worked since work is a privilege."
"Working from home is a privilege only granted to a few. The rest have to drive in to work. Since it is a privilege and it allows you to spend more time with your family, we do not reimburse anyone for their broadband connectivity. Your extra time with your family is your reward."
"You will restart your computer when you come in to work, when you leave for lunch, when you return from lunch, and when you leave for the day so that the hours you work will be tracked. These times will be checked against the hours on your time sheet(salaried employees are required to work a minimum of 42 hours/week). Time sheet falsification will be grounds for immediate termination."
Welcome to the new economy. Guess who is already packing their books out the door with the economy picking up??
Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers. What sort of experiences do the rest of slashdotters have along these lines?"
Your company is in the process of being run into the ground by beancounters. This will continue on all fronts until they close the doors.
Run away, or you may get stuck turning off the lights.
1) Identify the ten largest investors in the company.
2) Send them a polite, anonymous e-mail about the state of the company.
3) Cite recent cutbacks in the IT department as evidence of shaky financials.
4) Chip in for the "Going Away" cake for the CIO.
Most CIOs that I've worked for have been fucking idiots and the same seems to be true where you're at. Hold out and start looking for another job where the CIO has a clue or isn't a bean counter.
My compay was recently hit with an audit that has prompted policy changes in braodband / cellpone use. The issue is that the US government wants to tax the employee for the "perks". Most companies write these off as business expense, there for not taxed. So, for the company to continue to do that, the expenses have to be solely for work. I may soon have to pay for every minute of cell phone use that is not for work, and pay for my own broadband.
I my experience i have found that when you give it all you got and then some, it make preserve you job. However when you need leeway from the company forget about it they seem to forget all you do for them.
I've been around the corporate racetrack a few times; long enough to know that when your boss starts counting pennies, it means that she don't consider your services crucial to the bottom line.
Corporate executives frequently get all kinds of benefits and bonuses, anything from hard cash, interest-free loans, company cars, company-financed homes, dry cleaning, free lunches, maid service, etc. all because there is a perception that these individuals are difficult to replace and are critical to successful implementation of the company's long-term strategy. I've rarely heard anyone in a boardroom argue over the merits of any company-financed perk, except in cases where management was looking for an excuse to get rid of someone and wanted to encourage that person to get rid of themselves. The message is clear - if your company is tightening the ropes on this type of spending, than there's a good chance that someone has determined that you are:
Don't fool yourself into thinking that flexible hours or last week's heroics in fixing the email server mean anything to the people at the top of the corporate food chain. The problem with IT is that every system failure is often seen as an indication that you're not doing your job properly, and even when nothing fails, it's a red flag to your boss that she can probably get someone less qualified and less expensive to do the same job that you're doing. It's a no-win situation. Unless you're dealing some moneymaking aspect of the company (i.e., that the company generates cash via IT services) than chances are good that you're about to be sidelined and replaced. Cash and compensation is always the bottom line for respect in any business endeavor; if you're not seeing dollars or perks, you have no respect coming down from upper-management.
I work for a very small, eight-person, technology-focused investment bank. We make a lot of money, but we don't get shit in terms of devices, because yeah, we're pretty much expected to be that kind of person anyway, else they wouldn't have hired us.
Read jack phelps dot net
The last time I was in an on-call job (net eng) I had a company-paid *leased line* in my house. And your new CIO wants you to pay for your own DSL?
If your resume isn't up-to-date, do it now. Get a new job. Seriously. If he would pull that kind of "you should pay for it yourself out of company loyalty/go-getter spirit" line on you, believe it when I say this is just the first of many indignities that will be heaped upon you. If you don't start looking now, you'll be sorry,
Heck, if you're in the LA area, reply and post the URL to your resume here. I just filled all the open positions on my team, but you never know when something might come up.
If your company was a good place to work, it's a shame this happened to you. I hope you find something good soon. If it wasn't a good place to work anyway, well, no harm done in heading for new pastures now.
I have cable broadband at home and wouldn't dream of charging that back to my employer regardless of how much it might be used for work. However, I also had a company provided cell phone and not only did they pay for it, they gave me (and others) an annual bonus for carrying it (and, well, answering it when it rang...).
But a job is like many things in life. You have tradeoffs. If your job is wonderful otherwise and you just disagree philosophically on this one point, then shell out the bucks and focus on performing to the extent that your raises will cover the new expenses. But I think I'd want to understand whether these requests are quirks or symptomatic of a larger employee relations issue.
"we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen"
So they want to make money out of your support but they're not willing to pay you for it? Time to find a new job.
Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen.
As well they are, of course, dedicated employers who are willing to give salary bonuses every time you respond quickly to problems and showing your loyalty and dedication, right?
You company wouldn't give away it's product for free, and neither should you!
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
If they expect it to be used for work, they need to bear part of the cost. Not all necessiarly, though that is ususally a good thing to do as a niceity to employees (keeping people happy is important). It's the same concept as paying milage on your car if they expect you to use it for work purposes. I had a job as a delivery monkey for a travel agency in high school. Most of the time, I drove a company car while at work. However, in the event it was unavailable, I was expected to use my own car. However I was paid per mile, a fair bit actually.
The "because you'd have it anyway" ISN'T a valid argument. First off, there is no proof of this. Right now I have broadband since I have roomates. However if I were unwilling or unable to have them, I'd probably get it shut off since it would be a large expense I don't need. The real reason, however, is that your stuff is your stuff.
I mean extend it a bit further, the company says "We need to use your closet space for storage, but we aren't going to pay you since you have it anyways." Or how about "We need to use your yard for a party, but we aren't going to pay you since you have it anyways."
The issue is that your personal property is just that, personal property. Your employer has no right to demand you use it for work. If they want you to use it for work, they need to pay for it. Maybe not the whole thing, but they need to pay for what they do use. If they don't pay for it, they don't have a right to demand its use.
Don't purchase a cell, pager, BBerry or broadband. Politely explain you simply can't afford it in your budget. Consider taking it up with the CEO. Get it all in writing. Review your job description and if you are exempt or non-exempt. Then, if things get bad, get an attorney.
I've been at several companies that reduced employee benefits in one way or another.
Whether it's no more stock options, or no more free broadband, it's always for the same reason;
The company is having financial trouble.
It's possible they'll get over their hard times, but it's far more likely that they'll go under.
When they do, you want to be ready.
You could start looking for a new job right away, but at the very least you should be ready to start looking.
Don't make any large purchases, get your resume up to date, take home any personal items...
-- less is better
When companies start doing this kind of niggling cost-cutting that only saves pennies while pissing off employees big time, it is a sure sign that layoffs are soon to follow. In less than a year they will have a set of layoffs, so the original poster had better start looking for a job now.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
And food and gas and all kinds of things? It's called a salary.
Dedicated Employee, Inc. regrets to inform our customers that, due to recent budget cutbacks and rising expenses, we are no longer able to provide free after hours technical support. After hours support will now be charged our standard consulting rates of $150/hr with a 1 hour minimum billing per call. A page or other form of contact to which an out of hours response is requested or expected will count as a call. Billing begins at the initiation of contact. A 50% surcharge will be imposed for any calls which interupt sleep or sexual activity. In addition, for any interruptions impacting relations or a romantic or sexual character, there will be a $100 surcharge to defray expenses incurred in restoring harmony. In the event that the call disrupts any movie, play, dining out, sporting event, or similar activity expenses incurred by Dedicated Employee and companions in attending said event shall become a reimbursable expense. In addition, there will be a $300 dollar infrastructure surcharge for each month in which out of hours services are rendered to help defray the cost of cellular phones, portable and handheld computing, internet connectivity, wireless connectivity, home office space, and other infrastructure expenses. Any work related calls or other forms of work related contact initiated by customer or their employees, subcontractors, affiliates, agents, customers, or any other party to whom customer provides our contact information shall constitute acceptance of these terms on behalf of customer; we would like to underscore the importance of taking whatever steps are necessary to prevent unauthorized calls including, but not limited to, mantaining our out of hours contact information in strict confidence to avoid any liability for calls. A 33% discount will be extended for calls where the fee for the call can be entirely deducted from a prepaid deposit account. A late payment penalty of $50 per month plus interest at 5% per month shall apply to any amounts not reimbursed within 30 days. Questions regarding these terms should be brought up during regular working hours to avoid being billed as an out of hours call.
We believe that these new terms will allow us to provide more efficient, professional, and courteous service by insuring that we have the resources necessary resources at our disposal and by minimizing disruptions. Further, this new policy will better enable customer to properly account for the previously intangible costs of various possible courses of action. To minimize the costs incurred under these terms, you may wish to consider instituting a policy of solving foreseeable problems before they they escalate into emergencies. Thank you for your patronage and we look forward to serving you in the future.
Next they'll require you to show your good faith by using your own credit card and/or funds for travel and business expenses. These will be reimbursed when the accounting department gets around to it, although you can be very sure the client will be billed immediately.
First time I went down that road was in 1994 or so, when if we travelers wanted a Thinkpad, the company would buy it for us and let us pay it off on time, with interest. If we declined, we got one of those awful Win-laptops. (What the hell were they called, anyway?) If you left, all the money you'd put in was kept by The Firm.
My experience has been that when the company wants you to equip yourself, or use your money for any but the most trivial expenses, they're probably on the path to ruin. Let them come up with a standard wardrobe of necessities and find a way to equip everyone with what s/he needs.
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
Say your DSL is $35/mo. Say you make $35/hour ($70k/year).
Pick 1 Friday every month and go home 1 hour early. Or, if that's too obvious, shave 3 minute of work off the end of each day.
Even better -- spend an extra 3 minutes reading Slashdot every day. There! Very bold! Feels great, huh?!!
I work for an IC design company and we do well in these sort of benefits.
- all managers and all technical support get cell phones, calling cards, and conference call cards.
- all designers who request it get broadband at home paid for.
- all managers, sales, marketing and customer support get lap-top computers (IBM ThinkPads).
- all executive get free Blackberries.
Both the CEO and I (CTO) have T1s to our houses, but we also provide Broadband/DSL to our employees in the department (IT) as well.
The CEO gets one because he was tired of DSL/Broadband reliability and well--we want to make him happy. I have one because he offered, so I accepted--both of which go to the company network, not directly to the net, but it's only 1 hop away.
Anyhow, we try to be flexible with our employees, so if they have personal/family issues going on--provided they're not absolutely needed at work--we'll let them work from home. Additionally, we find that a happy employee is willing to check email and take care of mundane tasks at night if they're bored and actually increases productivity.
Turnover in IT is costly--the training on our custom systems is incredible. We like happy IT people and they appreciate the extra efforts we put forth. Broadband, Company Cell, Brining in lunch are just a few things we do to keep them happy.
Amen to the amen. I jumped in 2002 from the Bay Area back down to L.A. Never been happier.
If you have at your company's expense a blackberry, a cell phone, and a pager then there is definatly some waste. I would imagine that there are some people taking advantage of the broadband as well. If they take away all three of your gadgets and make you pay for some way to contact you then I think that is a bit extreme on their part. They should at least provide you with a pager if you are that important.
My company doesn't provide me with any way for them to contact me. They do the network guys, but us software guys have our own cell phones. Sadly mine doesn't work very well within a mile radius of my home, so I am forced to write more robust code so I don't need to be called.
'Same speed C but faster'
I worked for a company for five years. They used us to do onsite work using our cars. I had to leave in the end because I used my car so much in that time (only getting fuel paid for), and now I owe $12000 on a car only worth $4000. Upon my leaving, others hinted they would leave too. They now pay maintenance costs too. You have to be reasonable on costs, but you really need to see how much !everything! costs. Then see. Is Broadband something you may be able to live without being paid for?
The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers.
I know this is a late post to the discussion, but what this is beginnging to look like is technological Road Warrior phenomena not to far off in the future. Wouldn't you agree.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
Do you want that job? Then follow their silly rules. It's that simple. Really. You do not have an unalienable right to free broadband, pagers and blackberries.
Are they assholes? Yes. Will whining to Slashdot about it help? No. There's a reason I don't clean sewer systems for a living: I choose not to.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
But, I refuse to buy my own pagers, cell phones, etc. I don't want a cell phone, and if my company requires one, I sure as hell am not going to buy one. Same goes for PDA's. I have my own sony clie. If the company decrees that I must have a wince device, then they can buy the stuff. If you don't have any personal need for something, then why should you be forced to buy it? (books on topics that I have no use for at home, but need for a job are another example).
I only bring this point up because we often forget it, but those wonderful marketing folks have to pay for the suits they wear out of their own pocket. Companies do not provide extra money for them to look nice, and it is a requirement for their job.
Granted they do get a tax write-off for it, but like mentioned in other posts, it won't come close to covering the full price.
Also the pager/cell phone/dsl is provided as a convience so that you can do your job from home. The company can decide that it requires an IT person onsite 24/7 instead of letting you carry the hot pager for a few hours a week.
1. I don't want my employer's policies applying to my home. Think pr0n and/or p2p.
2. If I'm working on a non-work related project at my house, I want EVERYTHING associated with it to be done on my dime. Don't want them to have any hooks into things done on my time.
They have a tremendous selection of fresh juices
If there are other employers in the area who will pay you your going rate plus obvious expenses, then think about leaving. Your employer will then be screwed when he finds out it will most likely cost even more to keep his systems up after you leave for greener pastures.
If the company doesn't want to pay for broadband, then when something breaks, you come into the office to fix it. If they don't want to page for pagers/cell phones/etc. then they get service when you happen to get the message, can come in, etc. If these decisions on the part of the CIO mean that IT productivity goes down and response time goes up, then document that and produce the docs. But don't expect to get a Blackberry as a reward; a plain ol analog pager will do what they want to do.
That being said, you might try reading Paul Straussman on technology expenditures. For most people, increased speed of contact doesn't really have an increased productivity element, either for themselves or others. There are a certain number of jobs where it does, usually either sales, professional services or management type jobs. OTOH, spending money to buy faster laptops for your sales force is also a lose. You have to look at what you think you're buying for the money.
...before they make you pay for your own workplace insurance.
The small software company I work for allows us to expense broadband and cell (though we are telecom related) up to a decent cap.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
RIght now I beleive I'm overpaid and would take a 10-15% pay cut if I went onto the open market. So when I see some stupid cell bill that is too high or something, I just quietly forget to expense it because it's chump-change compared to the money I'd lose by raising too many eyebrows by being a penny-pincher.
So if you are being paid a normal amount that you can find anywhere else then tell your boss to earn his quarterly bonus by cutting down on his fucking coffee and leave your pocket book alone. If you are in a weak position skillset-wise or just don't want to lose an otherwise cushy gig, then let it slide and don't lose the war by winning the wrong battles.
Why should your employer buy something that you
would have purchased anyhow?
You're a freakin' geek like the rest of us.. you
can't live without broadband.. and they know it!
-- gozilla
My company actually terminated paying for cell phones and broadband - and I agreed with it.
...
Budgets were tight, and in reviewing those with broadband and cell phones, we couldn't come up with anyone who didn't have a cell phone and broadband anyway for their own personal use.
So why should the company pay for it? It's a nice perk, sure, but when the money is tight
If they want to pay for a cell phone they can. In the mean time they don't even know I have one. (A previous employer did know and was unhappy I wouldn't give them the number.)
c lient-sent-me.
Here though one employee brought in a copy of MS Office from home (that he bought for himself) and it's now installed on a dozen computers. Now when someone opens a word document they come around the whole office trying to find out who has Office open on their machine and can-you-please-close-it-while-I-read-this-file-a-
It's actually quite amusing and I'm okay with MS Office checking the LAN for the same serial number. Oh #$!$ come to think of it that's what has happened with the last 2 or 3 OS X updates too. Hmmm that's not nice for Apple's sales. Cheap f*ckers!
I've always felt that I'd rather pay for my own internet; otherwise, my employer has the legal ability to eavesdrop on my internet as then it's just another extension of their business. I really don't need them knowing the kind of pr0n I favor, nor, more realistically, to whom I'm sending my resume. I feel pretty certain that, as the bill payer, they have the ability to audit my usage. On the other hand, I don't have a cellphone. If my employer wishes to reach me when I can't be expected to be at my office phone, he'll need to buy one for me.
--
$tar -xvf
Get your colors straight, man!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's a simple rule to keep track of... never ever let the employer spend your money for you. In its purest form, it means no expensing anything, no up-front cash of any sort for your employer, even if it's to be reimbursed later. (which often times works out to much later)
The only "exception" I make to this simple rule is that of convenience. I bring my laptop to work because when I go on a service call, it's convenient for me to have my laptop as a resource. I could do my job just as efficiently, although more unpleasantly, without my laptop though.
A smart employer will realize it's unwise to pressure employees into using personal assets and resources for company business. One manager I used to have always kept the "what if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow?" concept on his mind. If getting day-to-day business done at work depended on my bringing my laptop, how much forward-thinking does it take to realize this is BAD if you quit, get fired, get injured, etc? If the manager truly cares about the business, they won't try to get employees to donate to the company - in fact, quite the opposite will be true, to prevent the creation of a failure point. At my last job, I actually had to put together a case for why it was useful to the company for me to bring my laptop in for them to allow it.
As for the more specific issue of the company wanting you to spend money for them... well, there are a few professions where this is supported to an extent. Mechanics sometimes are required to provide their own tools, although they often are reimbursed for costs of purchasing replacements, and I think this is partly done because the mechanics are picky about what sort of tools they prefer to use.
Spending cash monthly for your workplace is insane. Never forget that you have a business relationship with the company, nothing more. "Company loyalty" is an illusion created by businesses to increase proffit margins - a place where they try to get something for nothing. This comes in many forms... working OT without clocking it (or pushing hours over to next week etc), being on call (or carrying a pager) without compensation, use of personal equipment (especially transportation) without compensation, these things are all ways for your employer to get something for nothing from you.
In your case, if the company refuses to pay for the line to home, they have no business expecting you to pay for it for them. Also, ask yourself how much of your paycheck is to compensate you for being on-call while at home? If you are an independent contractor, you are paid a flat fee for the expenses you incur, and it's your job to evaluate whether you are being compensated for all your expenses plus your time and effort. As an employee of a company, you should have a clear understanding of what your paycheck is compensating you for. For most people this means the work they do for the company while on the clock, and that's it. Period. If they start asking you for more, then you start asking THEM for more. Nice and simple.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If only that were the case! Loved the post, wish I still got mod points :).
If your company requires you to have these things for work you car use them as tax write-offs. Isn't that the way it works?
One thing I haven't seen among all the arguments is the cost of expensing all this. That is to say, the cost of moving the bill through the accounts payable department, bank, whatever approval chain has to approve the expenses, etc. While this number varies greatly, the lowest I have seen is about $25 (US) per expense report, and the figures go much higher (upwards of $45)depending on how well the company is organized, how well the process is automated, etc. So, for every $50 DSL bill, it actually costs $75-$95 or more due to the costs associated.
My company has a pretty progressive policy, but we have a fairly mobile workforce. Broadband to the home is considered an employee expense unless the user is home-based or has a Senior VP willing to back them (which only happens if it effect the company's bottom line). Mobile services get thrown in one big pot, and you can expense up to a specific dollar amount depending on job role (Sales gets more than Facilities, for example). So your Blackberry, cell phone, wireless internet (Wi-Fi or cellular), and any other mobile cost is up to you on how it is spent. Some folks have it all and pay the extra, some just a cell phone. And that way the expense is done once a month, and the cost to the company in overhead is one hit instead of three or four. Figure our cost is about $30 a report, 2 avoided each month, 3000 employees filing, and you are talking $180,000 savings a month. Real money even in a large company.
All that said, if the company is telling you just to buck-up and take it, time to look around. Your management lacks vision and is groping around. I'm all for well thought out plans, I helped put the one above together. Even through it in the long run cost me a few bucks a month it saved the company thousands of real dollars without pissing everyone off.
-G
"We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them"
- Warren Zevon
-G "We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them" - Warren Zevon
I work for a small startup, and get my blackberry (phone and data) completely covered by them. Consequently they can get a hold of me 24/7, but they don't abuse that, I only get called if a production server is offline. My home broadband is paid by me, although I do keep the receipts for the accountant. If he makes use of them I didn't ask. I couldn't see providing the company with a way to get a hold of me that I wasn't compensated for in some way (pay, reimbursement, or permissions).
Luckily, he was totally incompetent, or you'd have been practicing drawing red circles on the Sunday newspaper.
Seriously, though, it took you at least 4 months to hang this guy out to dry. If he'd had even a bit of common sense he'd have made you guys cry uncle in one way or another. And you have a CEO who appears to at least care a little bit - that sets your company apart from the 80% who's CEO determines policy by the size of this coming quarterly bonus.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I also was 24x7 support girl, so i had a 56k lease line to my house because dialup was not an option (very rural, very bad phone lines). Then, my line went away because our corporate parent didn't see merit in my connectivity. So, now, it takes me 35 minutes at a minimum to get to work and fix things. By the way, that's 35 minutes I never get paid for. Nice, huh?
The interesting thing is that as IT people, we think we're integral to the business, and we think that people will protest when we aren't allowed to do our jobs. We think that our end users will somehow spring to our rescue and upper management will see reason and we will retain our ability to provide good service. The truth is that we all work with sheep and although they'll complain, they won't do anything for anyone but themselves. Over the last 6 years, I've watched our service levels go to Hell because our corporate ueberparent has increasingly dictated our every move. Our users just sit there and take it, whining to each other all the while but doing essentially nothing to change the situation.
If I were you, I would start looking into a new job. Your choices are sit there and take it, or get out. I'm choosing B at the end of this month. Good luck to you.
maybe one day i'll be smart enough to come up with a cool sig, too.
I have a corporate credit card, that is charged AGAINST MY CREDIT RATING SHOULD somthing go wrong, and yet the company won't ensure ontime recompense, so I refuse to use it. When my nextel was and pager were taken I was told to get something and expense it, I decided I did not need to be contacted after hours, and I changed my home number as well, only notifying the human resources deptartment for emergency notifications ONLY. As for broad band, my employer did the same thing, went from paying for a connect and providing a PC to requiring their pristine laptop be used only for work and that no other activity take place on the connection. I then did not apparently use it enough , it was emergency use only, so that when I DID NEED IT, some BONEHEAD ADMIN had cancelled it. I never bothered to get it set up again and have required OVER-TIME for any after hours work since then. I do hardware support so its easier but the same principal applies, if they really want you to have it, someone will hand it to you :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If I were an official full-time virtual office employee, the company would pay for a second phone line and probably for broadband, and wouldn't provide me with a desk at the office. I'm not, and they don't , but they also don't pay for my car on the rare occasions that I drive to the office.
Back when I was supporting a group that really needed hands-on support, we had crappy little shared-cubicle desks with too much noise; now that I'm supporting a group of remote folks, working from home, our local office moved to a much better building, so the desk I don't go to is much nicer and a bit closer.
They used to pay for cell phones directly, including mine. They now make you get your own, and you can voucher business use up to some reasonable amount - back before we did vouchering on the web, the cost of processing a paper voucher was about the same as my typical monthly phone bill if I wasn't roaming much. My managers have let me keep the same phone with them paying for it directly, as long as I don't do anything that changes the contract too much (e.g. getting a 408 phone number instead of 415 might cause it to fall off the grandfathering list, and I'm not sure if changing to GSM would or not, but bumping the number of minutes up or down was no problem.) That'll probably all change when Cingular finishes buying AT&T Wireless.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Seriously, *NM*... wait, crap...
I'm head sys. admin for a large mining company based out of Northern Ontario, Canada. I don't carry a pager, I don't have/use/want a cellphone, and my IMs are my own. The company knows they can phone me for emergencies, same for the security company and heating company (high heat alarms). There was scuttlebutt last winter about giving us pagers, but when we started muttering about 50% raises for the inconvenience... it was dropped post-haste :D
They pay our broadband once every few months in acknowledgement that we VPN if needed / if we feel like it to check on things after-hours, and that we're available if needed from home. It's a fair trade-off. They also don't make us work without pay after-hours / extended hours. If we work past 4:30 or on weekends, we bill and get extra. It's that simple.
One of the 187.
Pagers on the other hand, are obviously a boring business tool, an annoying thing you're carrying around because the company wants to be able to tell you when to hop to it and do stuff for them. (That's not always true for things like Blackberrys and such, but pretty much.) If the company wants you on that kind of a leash, they can pay for it (plus pagers are really cheap these days anyway.)
Sure, back before cell phones it was actually personally useful to have a pager because my wife could also reach me when I was out, but they're basically a drag.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
As a sysadmin, I expect the company to pay for my cell phone/pager. I expect a decent computer to use. I expect to be able to get pens, paper, whiteboards, etc.
Now, imagine you're a plumber. You need to supply your own tools. There's about $1000 or so worth. The company might If you don't have a master license, you need to work as an apprentice for less pay with a master plumber. I think it takes 7 years to become a master plumber. If you switch jobs, you'll probably have to start over.
You're expected to wear steel toed boots. Most companies don't pay for that either. Are you working outside in the rain? Better get a raincoat! Cold & snowy? Get a parka. Because the company ain't getting those either.
Substitute electrician, HVAC for plumber above also.
If you're not the one driving the company truck, you have to get to the job site too. That might be the same for weeks or it might be 2-3 different places in a week.
Office workers have it easy.
That being said, if I had to supply my own computer, cell phone, pager, etc, I'd expect to be paid more. But I'm glad I didn't have to apprentice for 7 years before I could work w/o supervision....
I, and many others, used to have our cellular phone bills paid completely. Then, oh maybe a year ago, the rule was changed so only a set amount of our bill was paid. Recently it has been changed so that we have to pay our entire bill on our own.
Did I complain at first? Sure, going from paying $0 to paying $80 every month was lame, but I stopped complaining pretty quick when I thought about it rationally. The proportion of minutes that people spent doing work verse the minutes people spent using the phone for personal use definitely showed most people were just using their phone on their own (or minutes were going unused). We also get the corporate rate on our plans, which is cool and adds up fast. I'm sure there are some people that use it solely for work, and I'm sure that the company will work with them appropriately, but for the general employee that isn't the case.
Back when my cell phone was bought & paid for by the company I had no problem with my number being listed in the directory - it wasn't really "my private phone", it was "the company's phone that I could use". I also expected other people to have their cell number in the directory, and when I needed to reach them after hours & it wasn't there I bitched at them.
Now that it is "my phone" and "my phone plan", you know what? It is my personal number and does not need to be listed. The people that need to be able to reach me know how to reach me. Random people that 'think' they need to call me after work... can send me email or leave voice mail on my office line. I don't expect everyone else to have their numbers in the directory anymore either.
That does kinda suck though, when we really need to get ahold of someone but can't...
Is it a cut to my benefits? Sure.
Does it suck that I have to pay for something I didn't used to? Sure.
Does it make sense that if I use my phone for personal use -way- more than business use, that I should be responsible? Sure.
Do I understand how this affects the corporate bottom line? Yep, I'm glad we're doing this too. The less expenses we pay the more money we have for other things (or the more money the company keeps, which plays in to stock prices, budgets, blah blah blah)
As long as someone else is paying for it, you tend to think you need more technology than you really do.
NOT A LIFE.
*** I suffer from a colorful array of psychological problems
I'd say fine.
But no off hours stuff. If they ask why? Well, I don't have internet access/cellphone/whatever anymore.
A company shouldn't be burning your personal assets (cell phone minutes, bandwidth etc.).
So if they need you to do work, they should be providing the means to do so (that's why companies have offices).
I'd play hardball. Want me to do work? Provide the means.
Want me to be accessible via my cell phone? Reimburse me for the minutes you use.
Simple as that.
Shouldn't have to pay a company to do work for them.
I work for a Fortune 50 company that hasn't given raises to the rank and file in 5 years (our Board of Directors just got a 100% increase), continues to practice "drive-by layoffs" (~30k in the last year), has decided that employees will have to pay for their own communications (you can negotiate with your boss for a "non-guaranteed" reimbursement level), continues to reduce vacation accrual rates and other benefits (to provide us with "competitive" levels with the industry) and forget about training (except for the "check box" training that keeps the company on the good side of government types; diversity, privacy, ethics, etc.). Oh yes, my stock is worth 1/3 what it was 4 years ago and all my options are well submerged.
Needless to say, virtually everyone I know is watching and waiting for the economy to turn up and then the floodgates will open with departing employees.
I think the historic 5% voluntary turnover rate will spike real soon.
Bah!
:)
Now, for the more verbose answer:
Option 1: What's needed here is to play hardball without looking like you're playing hardball. Agree that, as a 'dedicated employee', you'll be available nights and weekends. Agree that you can connect from home to solve problems. Proceed to get the crappiest cell phone in history, with the most restrictive plan, and the least amount of minutes. Then, sign up for AOHell dialup, and be sure to dial the slowest server you can find. Drop your modem speed to 9600 or so. See how much they ask of you when you can only talk in 30-second increments, and it takes you hours to upload a text file.
Option 2: Argue that your company calls you more than they think, and weasel your way into an agreement wherein you contact your boss whenever you have to do work outside of hours. Be sure to put in lots of 3AM coding sessions.
Option 3: Stand up. Be a geek. Point out glaring inconsistancies in logic, including "So, if an employee dedicated to their company puts their own money out to support the company, then what does that make a company that won't put out it's money to support an employee?", and "I'm sorry, I must have missed a meeting. Are you on-call? Because that'll be great for my 11PM brainstorms.". One that's actually worked for me: "You want me to be able to connect from home? Yes. You want me to pay for it myself? Check. You want me to be able to do all my job functions from home? Yep. Alright, I'll do it! And I'll be happy to telecommute wherever possible! How's 3 days a week sound?"
Really, truthfully, this is just some schmuck hoping to squeeze a few more dollars out, and find someone who's too scared to say no. When it boils down to it, you were hired at a rate of pay, and the agreement there was that you'd do some services in exchange for that pay. If they're now changing that agreement, then they need to either revamp your services, or revamp your pay.
What's next? "Yeah, we want you guys to work 10 hour days... to be, yanno, productive, because you love MEGACORP". Or "We've decided that, in order to finance the executive bonus, we'll need to implement 10% pay cuts for everyone".
*sigh* They are right to start or stop services as they see fit. It's their money. They are NOT right to expect you to pick up the slack. Really, previous posts are right... they want YOU to pay for the ability to connect on YOUR TIME to do THEIR WORK. If you aren't receiving other bonuses (bonii?), then it just doesn't even out.
And getting an extra 5 minutes at lunch is NOT a bonus, people! You think that you have "flexible hours" because "no-one checks to see if I'm there"? Try coming in at 10 for a week straight.
Real bonuses? I get a day off every 2 weeks. Free and clear, and it's even my choice of days. As long as I don't skip an appointment, every other week I have real flex time. I need to stay till 8PM to do some after hours work? I come in at noon. I need to leave halfway through the day? I do. I decide to fuck off and take a 3 hour lunch? Done. Server breaks and I'm there an extra 4 hours? I take it off the next day. Need to work a weekend to do something? Scheduled, it's paid OT.
The price I pay for that flexibility is 9 hour days, no lunch (no time!), and unscheduled overtime isn't paid. I don't get much extra $ for travel, and the project I busted my ass on for a year which will save/make the company tens of thousands... I don't get a dime for. When it was review time earlier this year, I got (after tax), a whopping $20 CDN a paycheck. But, my time is more valuable to me than $. $ I can make anywhere. Time is gone as soon as it comes.
Besides, I do some side work that nets me the $ I need.
Cerv
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
if you look at the big picture, the company is trying to save $$. If the company is trying to save such small amounts of $$ (as the few k per month supplying those items) then they may not be in as good a financial shape as you thing. Time to start freshening that resume
I think there are two sides to this. The CIO is getting pressure from the CFO/CEO to reduce overhead yet maintain the services that the organization has grown accustom to- Do more with less. The CIO is in the middle and unfortunately, isn't creative enough to develop his internal soluion without shafting his employees nor articulate enough to elicit the resources from the CFO/CEO to support such programs. At some point, management, including the CIO, needs to realize that you are only paid for 40 hours, so anything above and beyond that requires appropriate compensation or benefits - leave early, come in late, comp time, team building, etc. Most importantly, the CIO should not ask his employees to do anything that he isn't willing to do himself. Yes, the duties of my IS department are the responsibiltiy of my team - I take call too.
My current company pays for broadband access. If they did not, I would not admit to having it, nor a cell phone and certainly not a pager or any after hours stuff at all. If they want the resource they have to pay for it. Go find someone who actually wants to pay you. F**k em.
Cell phone, broadband, whatever I need. In return I am willing to respond whenever necessary for them.
Working for a company as state in the article would make me ill. I'm not so worried about broadband - reasonably speaking, you'd have it no matter what, so who cares. But pagers, cell phones, and other means of communication?
You want ME to pay?
GO FUCK YOURSELF.
My reality check bounced.
>Frankly, I'd rather be able to do 30 sometimes,
/logging all my hours for my unpaid overtime claim in case they have a "reduction in force"
>50 others, and enjoy what I do.
So would I.
Where I work (yay, supposedly we're one of the top 10 place to work for) in theory, we are supposedly expected to work until the job is done. Oh, sure, if its done, we can leave early.
Now reality rears its head...my team is understaffed by 50%, and there is no budget to hire more people. Never mind that our Director makes a big deal at every staff meeting about how the company has so much money coming in they don't know how to spend it.
In the rare instances where one is actually done early and heads out...they get the evil eye from managers who arrive at 10:30A.
The deal was that we put in insane hours, and by now we should have been rich from those stock options and bonuses. When they start handing out the options and bonuses like '99, they can expect 60 hour weeks. Until then, I'm doing my job the best I can in 40 hours.
I would politely tell them to "Fuck Off".
If they don't want to pay for any of those business tools, don't expect me to use any of them for business purposes.
im in sales (the horror! a salesman!). my company pays up to $125 per month for a cell phone and $30 for DSL. everyone feels the 30 is too low and the 125 is way too much. but, since im in the field all day, the cell phone is way more necessary than the DSL at home which i rarely use for business.
just sharing with the group.
mDn
In my experience, when a company starts doing this, they are on the skids toward bankrupcy. Better get your resume updated. Job cuts are already being planned, you just haven't heard about them yet.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that part of the reason our job market and economy are shit is because employees feel entitled to things like a home broadband connection at the company's expense? If you think your employer should pay for your home broadband access because it is used occasionally for work, then in all fairness, shouldn't you pay for your office's net connection if you ever use it for anything not work-related?
Where I work, there are almost no more company issued cell phones. Why? Because the personal calls outnumbered the work-related calls by a ridiculous amount. I suspect the same goes for most company cell phones.
Since I was told I had to buy my own clothes, I just go to work naked. But I don't really go because that means I have to pay rent. I just live in the office.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
My company pays half of just about any employee's high speed internet access. And they gave us free routers!
For IT folks, they also provide $10 on cell phone bill if you provide them the number. I won't give mine out even when asked by my direct supervisor on more than one occassion, so I pass on the $10.
They also provide pagers if they expect you to have one. Mind you not nice ones, but hey!
They will also pick up any phone charges related to work even without being on the cell phone dole.
All in all, very fair for what little I use of my personal resources for work.
Of course I'm technically available 24/7, but our team works hard to keep off hours calls down. Those are the things we work hard on when we aren't on special projects.
Oh yeah, we are just one company in our conglomerate, and I can't vouch for the other divisions.
Your friend,
Tojo
Because they can.
Because the employees let them.
I live 10 time-zones away from the current client I'm supporting, which means their working hours are 6pm till 2am my time.
So, I have a full development environment at home, including legal copies of all the software I need, broadband access, etc. All paid for by my employer (actually, the PC belongs to me).
When the phone rings (never after 10pm) the meter starts running, every call, every email, every 'log on at 9 and check everythings ok' is billed for.
Why does my employer pay for all of this?
Because they want the work done, and I don't work for free.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Yeah, my pager is now inactive, and they recently told us they want us to transfer our cell phones to a 'personal plan' and they will give us a $40/mo 'allowance' to cover the basic plan....
:-P
Of course, my $39.95 basic plan is $42 with taxes and such... so, my solution?
If I *wanted* a personal cell, they've been around long enough, I'd probably have one by now. So, I chose to just not call by June 30th to have it transferred into my name (oh, yeah, and a 'new' contract on the phone I've had a year... $170 'early termination fee' if I change jobs within a year). If they bitch, thats their problem. Nothing in my employment papers said anything about me providing a cell. Now, mindless, I'm on call every other week, 24/7, so they can just call my home phone and leave a msg if they want.
Even if I got a personal cell, if its my personal property, I'm certainly under no obligation to give them the phone#. its *personal*, remember?
Oh yeah, and I have no clue how they planned on resolving, y'know... 500 free peak minutes... so if I make 500 minutes of free-minute calls to my siblings/parents around the country, and the work calls go over the 500 minutes, hmm.. now they pay for the basic plan, but how does that work??
Pisses me off, I've had this phone for a year and the only *personal* calls I made on it (until June, when I knew it was going away so I called my sister for an hour) were to call for a Pizza on my way home at 8PM after working 12 hours. Just because *some* people may have abused it, everyone gets penalized.. heh, or they do.
I'm not sure about the labor laws in other states, but in TN If they require you to have certain tools to do your job (in this case, net access) they're obligated to help you obtain those tools. If your job is to be a cable crimper, then they have to give you the crimping tool.
My guess is that if masq57's CIO spent as much time working on REAL issues, rather than micro-managing BS like this, they'd probably have fewer fires to put out from home anyway.
Nonetheless, to answer the question: I work for an MSO, and broadband internet access is considered part of our benefit package. When I was in a lower-level position, they paid for my pager, and I charged them for overages if I had to use my cell phone for business purposes. Now they still pay for my pager, but I expense all of my cell phone costs.
All that having been said, it's unjust for them to believe that they can take tools away from you and still expect you to be just as productive. On the other hand, it might be excessive for you to expect them to pay for all of your net access since you'd be using it for personal reasons as well as business reasons.
I'm happy to say that I recently started working for a Grandecom.com which is a bundled services provider (tele/catv/inet). Every one of our employees has the option to receive the services we provide free (provided you live in a serviceable area of course). I get 3mb/s cable inet, telephone w/caller ID and all kinds of other features, and digital catv + full premiums (about 30 different HBO/Showtime/Cinemax channgels)! This package would probably run over $130. And that's not the only benefits, so they aren't just using it as hiring bait. And I don't use any of it for work. Well, maybe a little, but only under my own free will. I'm not required nor expected to use the services for work-related functions. It is a very generous perk from a company that is showing that you can provide for your employees and keep outta the red at the same time. Grande up!
ASCII silly question, get a silly ANSI.
you sound like to much of an azz-hole to be an employee, you sound more like a boss, or a manager.
M somebody said that.
Some bussinesses care about you and some don't. First decide which your company is and then treat them the same way.
My company does not really care about me or my welfare. I provide them with a service and they provide me with money. When I thought I deserved a raise, I did not wait around to be promoted. I told them that I had another job offer and it paid much better than I was currently paid and they needed to match it (I took a pay cut to start working there because I was unemployed for six months before I started there).
They also wanted me to work a lot of overtime. I did it for about six months. I gained 10 lbs. around my belly, was tired and mega stressed. So, I told them I was not going to work any more overtime. It hasn't been an issue. I work hard, but I have firm limits now.
I'm lucky because they cannot replace me, but I also understand the relationship my employeer and I have. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If it is easier for them to not promote you that to promote you, what do you think they will do?
I say f*ck that. If they won't pay for your broad band, then don't do any work from home.
Oh there's something wrong with the server? Well I'll have a look at it monday morning when i get in to work...
Choose yer poison: Prophets or Profits
I once was on a project which had 40 hours a week of scheduled meetings (it was about four large companies teaming to bid on a government project.) While we were working long hours out of town, it _was_ really quite liberating, because it was obvious to everybody that with the full work week scheduled for meetings, nobody would get any actual work done, so it was ok to blow off any meeting where you weren't _really_ essential, except the 15-minute status&announcements meeting first thing every morning.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
My work provides and pays for my cellphone, but it doesn't really make a difference to me. I could care less about the little things. What matters is wether or not I am satisfied in my work and that I am financially stable.
My company screwed me over bigtime and management is taking credit for my own work. It's only a matter of time before I'm layed off, according to the information in their "secret" emails. I figure, why not have a little fun with it!
I gave my mom the cellphone number, and boy she can talk the battery till it is dead. Sometimes I just call to get the time even though it has a clock on it, or have information automatically dial numbers for me for only 25 cents! Later on I'm going to use it to report various company violations, break it and request a new one. I'm having too much fun desecrating this stupid thing. I should melt it in the microwave before I turn it back in. I'd love to see our telecom guys reaction.
My company pays for DSL and my cell phone. I'd expect them to, given the crazy hours I'm sometimes expected to fix something.
I'm sick and tired of these hip, "ironic" sigs. This is an actual, honest-to-goodness no-nonsense sig!
A decade or so ago, one of my friends had the recommendation that you should always have your own email, independent of your employers, so you've got continuity and people can reach you even if your job situation changes - especially so you've got an email account for your resume. It was good advice, as I found out six months later when I got laid off :-) These days, of course, the idea of not having independent connectivity and half a dozen email accounts seems old-fashioned, but back then it was important. I haven't done that with my cellphone (I suck at doing regular paperwork, and I've had the company-provided phone number for almost 10 years, and we're a quasi-stable company though we do keep laying people off.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
At that point, you need to start working hard to preserve corporate culture and prevent bureaucrats from draining the life out of it. Next thing you know they'll stop paying to bring in dinner when you're working late every night, even if it is only pizza and bad Chinese, and if they're especially stupid, they'll replace the Peet's Coffee with Costco stuff.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Chances are your CEO is expensing everything from his golf clubs to his vacation house in Mauii while expecting you to schlepp your own way to his fame and fortune.
Tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine-- sideways.
If your company demands that you be available AFTER HOURS for THEIR BENEFIT-- tell them to GET REAL and PAY HANDSOMELY for your time.
Cheap ass bastards. I HATE big organizations-- and I work for one of the largest in the world.
When i first started work i was happy enough to just be able to use the net all day. Of course as time went on i realised i coudnt do my job with out it. But it came in handy for those many weeks where i had nothing to do and i ran out of futurama episodes.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Any time you are asked to pay for something that benefits the company, it is the beginning if the end. It is time to update your resume and move on.
A classic warning sign is being asked to pay for office coffee, but having to pay for home broadband is much more blatent.
Dump that employer, or engineer a replacement for the new manager.
I work in a small company where the board of director pay increase was in total equal to 500K per year. The total of money spent for the employee is 5M per year. Yeah, they gave themselves a nice bonus there and it amount to 10% of the total workforce cost. Mind you in the workforce cost there is also hardware, electricity and so on. So it is even worse than described because not all those 5M are salary...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
First, I work for a lawfirm with about 18 people that is higly technological (And generally only has a problem maybe once a month, fo which I am the only IT person). They understand I have a pay as you go cell phone in my car that is HARDLY ever turned on (In fact only 3 people have the number) and that it istoo expensive for me to be receving phone calls on. I am in talks with them to get a pager that the systems would call if there is an issue, but overall they know that they can leave a message on my answering machine, and I will get it fixed ASAP when I get home and get the message. If I work late I e-mail the HR lady with my hours and come in those many hours late the next day. However I enjoy the fact that everyone seems so pleased and overall very happy with me that I could fix it sometime before work so everything was humming for them when they got in. I enjoy it when people are happy with me and gennerally the problem might only take an hour. Also for me it has helped when it came tme for a raise the owner said he loved my work and how fast (even if it was 3-4 hours after I got the message) and didn't mind me coming in late. My Schedule includes monday afternoons off because I usually work a few hours at night a week just so I can get stuff done, usually from home, but they don't care.Overall they understand that I might be at home and help them right away, I might get to it in a couple hours, or it might have to wait till tommorrow. But, anyway when i do fix stuff from home, they think it is fantastic of me and it reflects on me, and also on my raises.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
The correct grammer and spelling for the executive "bonus" is actually --> "Bone Us".
really, who gives a shit, what's it cost for a cell phone? $40/month, you will probably not want your company seeing the bill anyway. If you are hung up on some frill device, which you are either too cheap to pay for yourself, or can't afford, it's time to look for a higher paying job. Someone making ~ $70,000/year ($35/hour is the average rate) outta be able to afford their own dsl/broadband, cell phone, and whatever crap you should have. However, if they REQUIRE it, and you don't want to pay for it, then yeah they should pay for it. Stop complaining already. Who gives a fuck, for me, I don't give a shit about frills. I'm more interested in salary, options, and job satisfaction. I don't even take their benefits, except dental, as it'll probably be gone, changed, or my ass fired sooner or later.
It's All Politics
Most companies I know want their employees to be "business focused" - which is another way of sayting they want you to focus on the bottom line: cash in the bank.
If you are truly the kind of employee that they want you will apply that kind of thinking to everything you do - which includes looking after your own bottom line.
Your company will not want clients who dont pay. They will not want you to deal with clients who dont pay. That exec is your client. If he doesn't pay then as a good employee you should think about whether you want a business relationship with him.
Hmmm. I would have mod'd +1 Interesting, but I couldn't restrain myself from posting. But it is interesting, because it shows a different (and, apparently, unpopular) point-of-view.
I am also an employer, and I also do not pay for employee's broadband access. I view this as a personal luxury, not a business requirement. I run an IT services company and have one tech and two engineers on the payroll. I provide each of them with a toolkit, cell phone, a laptop with company-paid dial-up ISP, and a credit-card. Dial-up is sufficient for 90% of the work we are called to do outside of normal business hours. Yes, it might take a bit longer than broadband, but overtime is paid (and billed) based on actual time-on-task. But as I said, 90% of the time the speed of the connection has nothing to do with their ability to solve a problem.I do not require employees to have any Internet access. I do require them to have a POTS line at home so they can dial-up the ISP. There are policies limiting the non-business use of the laptop, credit card and cell. But I would only take action if there was significant abuse (which, thankfully, I've not yet encountered).
The number of times an employee needs to connect remotely from home does not justify the cost and effort of me requiring and paying for broadband Internet. Nevertheless, all three employees have their own broadband Internet accounts, but that is their choice.It is more important for me to provide dial-up than broadband. Dial-up can be used anywhere: a customer site, home, hotel room, etc. SSH, VNC and Windows Remote Desktop are workable over dial-up. I use it enough to know. In fact, I'm using it now from a Holiday Inn Express that doesn't have high-speed Internet.
On the other hand, if I had employees that were regular telecommuters, or lengthy after-hours calls occurred more frequently, I would reconsider this issue. Most probably, I would just give everyone a small raise to cover the average cost of broadband, rather than setting-up company-billed accounts (which, in my area, means paying significantly higher fees for commercial broadband) or having employees go through the trouble of expensing their costs. And I would explain it that way to new hires (i.e., "Your annual salary is X, plus an additional $60/month allowance to offset the cost of broadband Internet).--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
About screwing everybody but the folks with golden parachutes???
This is so simple. This is either a business or a charity. If it is a business, it is a capitalistic entity that works to make profit by selling a product or service.
The means by which one performs that function employs labor. Traditionally we pay employees to perform that labor. If your CIO is attempting to create a new tradition, whereby labor pays the employer for the priviledge of working there, suggest he start by giving back the company his wages and then some additional amount, say 15% of his wage, and set an example for a year or two just to work the bugs out of the concept.
By your CIO's logic, he should pay for the contents of his office, his secretary, and maybe that sweet stock incentive plan. We could expand this idea to research scientists, the physicist at Lawrence Labs could pay for their own supercomputers. Who next, maybe the public sector, Let's have Bush cover the costs of the Iraq war, and Cheney can cover those pesky Hallibuton charges.
Explain to him that paying for key infrastructure, specifically for the benefit of the company, should be done by the company. That with extraordinary service comes reasonable cost. This idea of "I expect you to devote your life to this company, oh, and while your at it, we'd like you to pick up the tab for the extranet..." would be rediculous if it wasn't so friggin obscene. Uh... to quote one of my favorite robots "You can kiss my shiny metal ass...".
Genda
As a fellow European who worked in the US for quite some time, I know that Americans indeed work long hours, but also live their live during that time. I mean: they arrange their insurance, health stuff, car problems, lottery stuff, etc.
.... as an employer I have to pay the salary of my workers if they get ill. And that is no problem. But I also have to keep on paying them, even if they can't work because of own decisions. And that can last two complete years. So, if one of those guys crashes his car with 200 km/h during holidays, I end up paying for his treatment, including two years of salary.... think about Skiing, Bungeejumping, etc... awww.
In Europe people work shorter, but also are used to dealing with those things in their OWN time. (their productivity also is higher)
It is true that overall employees benefits have been over arranged in Europe. As an employer myself, I do have quite a few frustrating experiences. Just a few:
If I pay one of my specialists extra because I think he outperforms the rest, I have to pay all specialists extra. Equal rights stuff. This effectively means that you basically can't reward people individually. You are always rewarding a group of people. Effectively this leads to job-titles you only find in Dilbert, because this gives you the possibility to reward individuals who care, work overtime when needed or just perform in an extraordinary way (like not laughing at a customer when he says that his core business runs on windows and such...).
Then we have lease car, like cell. phones, company car, house phone, broadband at home, parking expenses, lunch fees and such. This is terrible in Europe. Most of them are seen as taxable benefits for the employee. This means as an employee you pay taxes of 25% the showroom value of your lease car. No matter if you drive 104.000 kms a year for business and 10.000 privat...
Tax department thinks that lunch is allowed to cost something of 6 euros. That's not even gonna bring you a decent cracker with a decaf.... insane those tax boys.
The logic conclusion is that when the employee needs to pay all those taxes, they want to earn more. And so they should... So in the end, all the funny regulations just makes money go around, being taxed at multiple moments.
And the best of them
It just makes you (and us) outsource everything to places where the law is a bit more normal.
I get cellphones from our company, but we pay for the usage if its not for "customer contact". We used to have some other small benifits but they are gone. Im the sysadmin and no, my company does not pay for my broadband connection. But it doesnt costs as much here as I exspect it does for some of you, My 10Mbit costs me 35$ a month, and I could even get a 100Mbit for as little as 70$. But I do not need a 100Mbit. Basicly it all costs the same if its 0.5Mbit or up to a 10Mbit, it all depends on the location of your home. /One who works and lives in Sweden.
...if the firm requires you to use t for work, they should be willing to cover it's initial cost(s).
I don't blame the IT guy for not providing FTP - much the same way as I refuse to provide telnet access to one of our remote developers (an _old_ UNIX guy who just doesn't get the Internet). It's nuts from a security perspective, and there's no good reason to do it.
You'll have SSH access open anyway, right? That gives you scp and probably sftp for free. So why open other services that are less secure - it opens you to a wider range of attacks for no benefit.
Now, it's possible you also don't have SSH/SCP access. That's unfortunate, but that's a security policy decision that probably also has some justification.
I certainly don't blame them for not allowing FTP. I really wish non-anonymous FTP would just go away.
Is it excusively blackberries they want you to pay for, or do they want you to buy raspberries, kumquats, lychees and other fruit as well? If so, tell them to stick it.
We even hired back two guys that had left for "better" jobs. Their new employers fizzled and those two were hired back.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
My broadband, 4.0Mbps/384Kbps cable line is paid for by the company.
... they have changed the terms and conditions of your contract. I trust you are also making sure they change your salary. You might like to involve your union at this point.
This kind of attitude I can agree with and I really do like seeing this sort of spin in an employer.
I work to get paid. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but the main reason for me to work is so that I get paid and can buy those nifty things like food and clothing.
I give a reasonable amount of time for reasonable pay. I don't usually get in a huff about an extra few minutes on occasion because I realize that things happen. Just don't abuse that. Time outside of that, I would really rather be compensated. If I'm not, you might see me get a bit unhappy (and that's not a good thing. The lawyer in me tends to come out - I come by it naturally since I grew up around several not to mention that I grew up around buisness - my father was a president for a branch of the afl-cio in this area for several years and my mother was a buisness manager. Interesting pair, eh?)
Other than the pay, I expect to have the tools necessary to do my job. If the job requires that I have a laptop (wether that's so I can demo to people, if I have to do a little work on a trip, etc), then I expect that to be provided for the time which I need it. The same applies to internet connections and other assorted miscelany - if my job requires it, it should be delt with in some way. If dial up covers what I am required to do off-site, so be it. I'll use that for work and usually nothing more.
I enjoy what I do, but I don't do it for free unless I want to as a general rule (and I do occasionally do things outside of work gratis not to mention doing volunteer work in other areas on occasion). I don't expect unreal work conditions, but I do expect to be dealt with reasonably. Having said that, I salute you and wish I could say the same of several places I have known in the past.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
...the general opinion here's that the company's taking the piss - if you're going to ignore that, then don't read the rest of this thread.
I see you fell for the boilerplate-1950's era-management propoganda shpeal. Have unions screwed up? Sure, but thats a reason to make your's better, its not a reason to get rid of them entirely. Why don't we apply the same faulty logic to businesses: some businesses have bad policies, have screwed their employees and their customers. Therefor, lets get rid of all businesses!
How I miss those days... walking towards the time clock, thinking of what I?d do the next day, punching out and moving onto personal things for the evening and not having work come to mind until the next morning just after I punched in.
When one is a salary man, a bit more is expected, within reason (which is the key).
Nonsense. An hourly worker may be paid by exact number of hours, but a salaried worker has hours too -- just look at your contract.
Those who work extra hours without extra pay are unbalancing the books -- from the company's perspective a job takes less hours than it does, meaning in the future they won't budget sufficiently and people will be pressured into working unpaid overtime. If they don't, they won't get the job done (because the time has been underbudgetted) and they will be blamed (because the miscalculated figures say it should have been possible in the available).
People doing unpaid overtime are doing a disservice to everyone except their bosses.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Same here, we are expected to provide out of hours cover with no benefits or compensation. To do this we have to provide our on mobile phone, broadband etc.. The reason being ... their just cheap skints, Hell they won't even provide descent parking... That's reserved for management! and they wonder why staff turnover is so high, we'll I'm out of here soon so let the management try and admin the servers see how they do!.
I pay for my own broadband and cell phone, but my family also uses these things considerably outside of my work. If I never used those things for personal or side-job purposes, my employer would certainly be ponying up the costs. But because more than 50% of their use is personal, I pay for it myself.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Occasionally I might log on from home to check out the servers, make sure everything is working. But, I'm not interested in always being On-call.
I work to live, not live to work.
If that make me a bad person, selfish, what ever, Big f(*&ing deal. I love forgeting what I was doing Friday afternoon when I walk out those doors, and not remembering it till Monday morning when I get to my desk.
Will it stifle my advancement possibilities, probably. I don't plan on being CIO, The pay would be nice, but I like the simple life. Just my wife and me enjoying life for as long as possible. I don't need the stress.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
A number of comments have brought to light the varying work ethics of slashdotter's.
And for what? To be treated like a professional? Wouldn't you rather be compensated like a professional?
I count myself as a professional.. it says so on my business card.
I enjoy my job, I really do. It took some persistance but I finally did get them to pay for my broadband and cell phone. I don't get paid for overtime, but I am allowed to take time off instead which I never take. I rarely take my full compliment of vacataion time alotted to me. I put in 50-60 hours a week and I don't complain (though my wife does, until I give her my paycheque).
Why do I do these things without compensation? Because I like my job. I like seeing everything work smoothly. I hate downtime and how it can adversly affect productivity and the bottom line. Downtime, virus outbreaks, breakdowns, these all make me look bad. I take PRIDE in my job.
My job is not just a paycheque, as some people here seem to think. My job is part of what defines me, part of who I am. I know that people with my qualifications can do this job and would do it for less pay, but my employer understands that that person, while cheaper, may not take the same pride in his/her job as I do.
Let's face it folks, a lot of us are replaceable. We need to do things to seperate us from the rest.
To those who expect to be paid for every 10 minute support call after hours, you're in the wrong industry. You've obviously gotten into this because of the mythical big bucks, and you're taking jobs from those of us that love what we do and do these extra things because it's a necessary evil. I don't like after hour support calls, but I love my job more so I can live with it.
Suck it up, do your job and take pride in it.
That being said, yes, my employer does pay for my broadband, thankfully because out in the country I can only get satellite or wireless, and each is expensive. My employer didn't always and that was one of the things mentioned in the interview. However, because they saw the level of service I proudly provided, they made an exception.
tinfoilmedia
My company pays for broadband. They also provide a terminal server for the benefit of employees who cannot get or do not want broadband, and a modem pool, with an 877 number, for employees to dial in to.
www.wavefront-av.com
Employers who think you should undermine your own life and bank account for the sake of the company suck. It's not necessary to be "passionate" about what you do to do a good job. And, its unreasonable to expect a level of dedication to a company an owner may have.
In the past my employeer gave us a dialup account to our corporate headquarters that we could also use for internet access but they have since taken this away and replaced it with a VPN. They still pay for our cell phones and pages because they know that if they don't we will not answer our home phones if they call us.
I don't get it. Why do you work so hard? 50 hours! Do yourself a favour and find a job that doesn't require that many hours or move to a country that doesn't expect it! (Like Australia)
If you decided to finance a corporation with your time and money, that is your problem.
I am a professional, do not work for free, and do not lease my stuff fro free to anybody, specially a multimillion dollar corporation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Give us a brake and come down from your high horse.
Poeple like you that decide to sell themselves cheap in the pursuit of a carrier are a burden that the rest of the people in the industry have to deal with.
The consequences of not going the unreasonble extra mile are that you will not work for unreasonable companies. And fucked startups are included. I don't see why an startup seems to have carte blanche in the mind of some people to abuse their employees, and why employees seem to think that an startup requires to do stupid things like working 20 hours in a row for several weeks to no end.
Startups should have a business plan that forecasts how much work needs to be done and then obtain the correct amount of people to do the work. If they rely on the "professionalism" of people putting 80 hours per week they are abusing you, and you are an idiot for allowing the abuese (and paying for the privilege, fod goodness sake, give me a better example of a masochist).
I am pretty sure I earn more than most and never in my whole life I have allowed any of my employers to abuse me. If I work more it is because I am compensated properly then and there, not in a fictional future in which I may want to go with my son to the park (yeah sure, bring the violins).
Companies should provide for the means to do your work, otherwise you should refuse to do the work.
As plain and simple as that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are places where you are allowed that freedom and, since they are professionals, you are compensated for the extra work you put and of course all work related expenses are paid for, as it should be.
But I guess some people live in the last century regarding work practices (or even in the 19th....)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Agreement?
If one of the parts is getting the "ass end" of an "agreement" then maybe there is no agreeement proper we can talk about here.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If the amount of work to be done is such that you can't do it no matter how many hours you work per day, the "what it takes" nonsense becomes the irrelevance it is.
We are paid to work for a fixed amount of time. Look it up, it must be in your contracts.
If your contract says "whatever time as required for the work" then you have allowed to be abused, but that does not mean you should invite all of us to your masochist lifestyle.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... because the "emergencies" are not fixed at 16:55?
No. Accept it. Most things calssed as emergencies are just self inflicted pressure.
I can think of vey few jobs in which you can't drop everything and go home at 17:00.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
C1:Executives mysteriously disappear with details as to their entire financials posted to what is left of the company's web presence for all to see, with their sailboat being found 40 years later deep in the ocean.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Hey everybody. I have to be honest I am getting kind of sick of paying for my cell phone, internet access, and other equipment (i.e. pda, wireless access for my notebook etc.). And I am sick and tired of executives giving IT departments less and less and expecting more and more. I happen to work at a public school and while I have very strong feelings about getting what teachers and students need to create a productive learning environment I also need the tools to support everyone in my environment. I mean if I am expected to manage 7 buildings with 6,000+ students and 300+ staff and factuality I am gunna need things like a blackberry, a pda, a laptop and Internet access from home. I mean with the limited personal resources I have, I need to be connected to my entire organization so that I can respond to any situations that may occur. And to do that I need these tools. I think it is unfair to make IT managers pay for there own tools, I mean you would make a nurse buy there own bandages or a teacher buy there own desk. It's unfair, and to say IT people are not dedicated to there work is out rageous. IT people are some of these most dedicated employees a company will have. I mean even at a public school I have found my self-staying late into the night to get things operating for the next day. Have many other friends who work in the IT field who also have found them self's working late into the night to get there respective networks up and running. Now we are not spending time away from our family and friends eating junk food and loosening sleep for our health, we do it because we have to. We know that we are in responsible for the success of failure of our respective organizations. Companies need to wake up and realize that IT people are the workhorses of their organizations are necessary for their future success. In that recognition they also have to give the there IT staffs the tools they need to do their jobs and to do it well. Organizations who don't do this will have to learn this the hard way.
its hard not being a troll on this when i've had to do business with this type of person. the sad thing is that the project will fail 90% of the time. so you just shake your head, do your job, and hope its not you the boss vents on.
what a lot of 'take no crap' managers don't realize is the extra cost of being a 'take no crap' manager. i use to think i could run a project by the numbers. but experience has shown that if it takes people to complete the work, then the people need to be motivated, and shown reason for tasking requests.
If you are a good tech, you will never advance. You are too 'valuable' doing what you're doing. Besides, hasn't your management told you that, "Being a tech is where the money is" as they drive away at 5pm in their BMW, leaving you to work all night and drive home in your Nissan Sentra that the paint is peeling off with no air-conditioning?
IT is a dead end job. With golden handcuffs. And lousy managers who used to be incompetent techs. If they used to be techs or understand techs at all.
If you have a good manager, I assure you that you are the exception.
My advice - manage or own.
--
I think, therefore I am...
It took a bit of haggling, but my employer pays for both my cell phone (a plan with unlimited minutes + 1,000 text messages per month) and my 1.5/768 DSL line.
If the company needs to reach you and part of your job description is to be reachable then the company pays. If you are expected to work from home when "off" to meet emergencies head on in a timely manner then the company pays. I owned one, I paid for the things my staff needed to get the job done. The uniformity of always knowing I could email the corporate address of an employee or IM them, or phone them, or Text them outweighs the expense. My times important, my staff's time is important. If it is hit or miss to reach someone in a critical failure, the company losses money. Potentially they lose clients. So if the company you work at can afford the loss of their customers to save the money, then cool, they are doing the right thing. Most likely it is just being penny wise and pound foolish since they don't account for the cost that cutting this benefit will entail. Some CFOs just don't get the tech side.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Crystal Reports has done this for some time. I was trying to get prices from them a number of years back for a computer lab - they wanted one license per person who would be sitting in the class, so for a $75 class we were expected to pay $200 in licensing fees. Kinda nuts.
Damien
I also have a strong position to bargain from, so I grabbed RD0,s (one extra day off per month) generally adjusted to suit clients and overtime is a rare occurence (week end work requires days off in the following week - my requirement - and is strongly frowned upon - again my requirement).
Yeah we can bargain (twist the bosses arm with the mutual knowledge that it will cost them more than it will cost you to replace you), but don't forget it was not like that for us either in the begining. As a senior (with valuable skills) do you ever use your position to stick up for junior employees who are getting walked all over.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The day my company starts charging for broadband at home, I'm out of here!!! Right now the co. pays for a cell and pager which we carry once in a few weeks by rotation. Also, we have DSL connections at home to respond to issues. And yes, I have a co.-provided laptop so that the assholes can call me and ask me to work whenever required. Talk about work-life effectiveness! I don't know whether working as an IT-support guy with the #1 CPU manufacturer is a boon or a curse.
SUCK URRR!
Seriously, while the broadband is arguable, things like pagers and blackberries should be supplied by the company.
Seems to me this guy is simply trying to lower your salary.
Here's the pisser... after he saves the company some money at your expense, he'll get a bonus for saving money.
So you're a sucker if you pay for these things.
I doubt you own a company.
You're one of those guys paying $5/hour for "top notch professionals", expect them to supply their own car, their own tools, everything, and you don't give a shit about turnover, because as far as your concerned, employees are an expense to be endured.
Its part of the reason your girlfriend cheats on you, and the rest of your family won't talk to you.
Perhaps you were abused as a child?
A job is an economic transaction. I agree to give you my time in return for my time.
Its never more than that.
You can like it, you can love it. But in the end, both sides must get value. Your boss has to be able to make money from you, and you have to be able to live your life.
Its always about the money, and anybody who tells you otherwise is either trying to brainwash you or is brainwashed themselves.
Its always about the money.
So please don't justify yourself. You have the right attitude. You like what you do, but at the end of the day, its about money. If your boss can't accept that, they're either manipulating you or they're a whiny little skank. Either way, I'd find another job in that situation.
I work for a small ISP, and it took quite a while for us to be able to expense our telecom items. Recently we were allowed to expense our Cell fones and cable modem service at 80% (20% deduction because we use them for personal use also). This works out pretty well, but as administrators/techs/etc if they expect you on call the very least they should do is pay for your "leash". In reality even if you are salaried, you should still get some sort of off-hour/on-call pay just for being available at a moment's notice. If not, you are definately working for the wrong company. You can always do what one of our admins does, turn his cell off after 5pm. Horribly irresponsible, but he purposely will not expense it so that in his mind he doesn't have to be "tied down" to the company. There's a fine line between dedication and bloated-expectations.