July 28, 2011 at 12:17 pm
How many of you get some form of compensation for having broadband at home so you can handle after-hours work remotely? Is anyone being provided with an air card or something similar? How about company laptop?
July 28, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I have had perks like that. Had the data portion of my cell phone bill covered as well, to cover company e-mails to my personal phone. (Was cheaper to them than issuing a smartphone or BB to me.) I've had laptops issued for remote access at a couple of jobs. Never had one cover part of the broadband bill, but it's not a bad idea.
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July 28, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I've had this vary as well.
Sometimes it's an allowance, sometimes you expense back some percentage of your bill when you use it. Sometimes it's provided.
I would ask, and make a case for the company to cover some of it. Air cards work OK, but they can be slow. Wouldn't want to RDP across one.
July 28, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I went ahead and asked. I can get a Verizon USB modem/aircard for free with a $50/month plan with 5GB cap which is fine for VPN work. Everything is relative 🙂 At home in Cool, CA I'm in a ten-acre parcel neighborhood with no DSL or cable available. The Verizon broadband network is way, way better than dial-up and even the Hughes satellite I used to have ( with satellite you can't VPN anyway on a residential plan ).
4G/LTE hasn't arrived yet, but I'm very satisfied with VPN/RDP responsiveness on Verizon 3G. When my son visits from Roseville ( near Sacramento ) he complains but then he has a Surewest Fibre connection -- it's all relative.
I'm volunteering to carry the air card and my own laptop when out of the office and not off in the mountains somewhere. I'll ask about a company-supplied laptop later. Lately I'm doing off-hours work totalling about 20 hours per week beyond normal office hours.
July 28, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Have you checked on microwave? Not sure about CA, but here in CO in a few places where we couldn't get DSL/Cable, there were microwave providers for reasonable broadband rates. Was in the 768kbps down range.
July 29, 2011 at 12:43 pm
I think the simple answer to this question is it all depends on the employer. I live in a metropolitan area and everyone in the "hood" has broadband. I know that if I were ever to ask for reimbursement they would look at me like I'm crazy.
Working from home is great when weather is bad or if you have to attend to a melt-down at 2 am. Sure beats running to the office at that hour.
I remote in all the time from home. In fact I've done major database moves from one COLO to another with great success....
Good luck!
Kurt
Kurt W. Zimmerman
SR DBA
Lefrak Organization
New York, NY
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtwzimmerman
July 29, 2011 at 2:03 pm
I see what you mean Kurt, but I think this whole topic is expanding in scope. From a disaster recovery perspective, let's say you need one DBA and one Systems guy on-call at all times. Right now we have just one System guy per week on-call -- they carry a phone. I can imagine many scenarios where what you really want is action towards recovery within an hour or less.
The phone call gets it started, but by itself accomplishes little. Carrying an air card ( or phone with hotspot ) along with a netbook gets you a lot farther. What if your on-call people are out at the mall or the lake? ( but still in a mobile network ). Here I can certainly see the employer providing the tools at their expense. In my mind this would extend to using such tools at home.
I realize most people with broadband in metropolitan areas don't have a specific GB cap on usage, so not much incentive to 'bill back' to the employer. But I think the topic is larger than that.
July 29, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Indianrock (7/28/2011)
How many of you get some form of compensation for having broadband at home so you can handle after-hours work remotely? Is anyone being provided with an air card or something similar? How about company laptop?
It depends on the employeer and the time.
You may have an employer that years ago was paying for Cell Phone and Broadband as well as providing a company Laptop. Most probably that same employer is now down to company laptop. As Jay Lenno says, "economy is bad!"
_____________________________________
Pablo (Paul) Berzukov
Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.
Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.July 29, 2011 at 2:37 pm
I hear you about the "economy is bad." I just read a Monster.com salary survey for Database Administrators. Out here in California is was showing a bell curve with about $80k near the bottom on the low side, about $95k near the top and over $100k on the high side. If that's true they can certainly compensate me for some equipment 🙂 Or I might just have to get "real busy with other stuff" on the weekends.
I guess you have to gauge your situation and also decide how many years the "economy is bad" argument holds water.
July 29, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I've only had cable modem a couple years now (remote area, can't get satellite nor dsl and only one cable company available to us that just happens to be the one company I never wanted to do business with).
my last job, they liked to say I was on call and that I had a time limit on fixing something (time limit to fix Any PRoblem is ridiculous, but, their expectations ran along the lines of ridiculous).
they didn't like that I had dial-up but that was all I would pay for and they would not reimburse any part of cable modem.
So I lived with dial-up like I would have anyway, and they lived with slower response. Meanwhile, they were handing out crackberries and pocket pcs to not-very-technical vp's and the like. go figure.
I don't expect any employer to pay a part of what I would have as a private individual anyway, but if they REQUIRE something that I don't have, I expect it to be footed by them.
I won't use my personal cell phone for company business except very rarely. If they require a lot of cell minutes, I expect them to pay for it. I should not incur expenses to do a job.
July 29, 2011 at 3:33 pm
My previous two employers paid a portion of both my cell phone plan and broadband internet. Recently I switched to Sprints mifi (all couriers seem to have this option now), and my employer is basically paying for the whole thing.
Chris Powell
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Elroy: Nope.
George: Then lie to me and say you're kidding.
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