When telework means out-of-pocket
When Karla Swatek decided to telework for a San Francisco publisher, there was one caveat: She had to pay her own way.
"It was made clear that where I lived and worked was my choice," says Swatek, who wanted to telework from La Jolla, California. "If I stayed in the Bay Area, the company would have provided me an office. But since I wanted to live in Southern California, it was my decision and my own dime, which meant I'd be paying for everything from office set-up to travel."
Even though it meant money out of her pocket, it didn't take long for Swatek to decide. In 1997, she began working from her home office in La Jolla and commuted several days each month to the company's offices 450 miles away in Northern California.
While telework is gaining momentum among some employers, it's not without cost to the employers -- and sometimes, the workers. Some employers aren't willing to foot the bill to set up their teleworkers' home offices -- especially considering what the employer already paid to set up the corporate offices.
Swatek's employer, business book publisher Berrett-Koehler, even offered Swatek $500 as a moving allowance -- but only if she moved "north" from La Jolla to San Francisco. She tried to negotiate the moving allowance as a home office set-up stipend -- but to no avail.
For Swatek, the decision to telework amounted to several thousand dollars in expenses. Since the company was on a Macintosh platform, Swatek paid $1,400 for her iMac and an additional $2,100 for a Compaq Presario laptop she used for travel and personal use. She dropped around $100 for a pair of Ikea file cabinets, a bit more for a chair, and $20 for a used desk she later refinished.
Like other teleworkers with the company, Swatek was permitted to expense office supplies from the local Office Depot and had a corporate FedEx account number. The company reimbursed her for long-distance calls made on the only item it did provide -- an old phone it no longer used.
An upside to paying her way was not having to return pricey furniture or computer hardware when she quit. When Swatek left in 1999 to launch Swatek & Davidson, a business book publicity and promotion firm, she provided her firm a "very short list" of returnable items, including some stationery, the phone and a used printer. In the end, the company told her to keep it.
"Having my own setup really did uncomplicate the letting go," she says.
» posted by abennett
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