Shopify is giving its employees $1k to furnish their work-from-home setups (opens in new tab)

Last fall two regional banks merged, and they consolidated office space. A removals company was in charge of the move, and had a big sale. I missed the first weekend, but snagged 18 steelcase aria chairs - delivered to our coworking space - for $600 (and they took and disposed of 12 older chairs) These chairs' MSRP is $720 each.

Possibly one of the best bargains ever for me.

My office chair was $14 from Goodwill. Thrift stores are great places for office furniture. And when you're done with it, just donate it back so someone else can use it!

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

I bought a brand new one and it's fantastic. The used market for premium chairs in my remote part of the country is non-existent. I certainly would have bought a second hand one since they are so well built.

Yep. My small company bought us all second hand aerons for less than £300 each. Perfect condition (except for one which needed a wheel, which we replaced for < £10). When we were acquired and moved offices, a full new set of brand new Aerons were bought, even if you specifically asked to keep your old one.

Oh well, at least someone got a cheap desk chair out of mine.

I bought a refurbished Herman Miller Aeron today on Craig's List for $350, with same day delivery. It might just be a Bay Area thing, but Craig's List was crawling with them. I'm guessing it's all the failing businesses liquidating their stock.

I used it all day and I'm amazed I spent years in an $80 Amazon chair.

For those in the UK, I recommend Studio Modern (https://studiomodern.co.uk/) for refurbished chairs. I have only bought one chair from them (Mirra 2), but was originally recommended it by someone who has bought dozens for offices.

This. I bought a used Herman Miller Miira for $250 and when I priced it out it was 1200 new. Great chair and significantly better than the new $200 office chairs.

Any ideas on what the best clearinghouses online for used Steelcase or Herman Miller chairs would be?

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

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

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

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

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

If it's an expense program, then there could be policies and constraints which limit the types of purchases employees can make.

That could make a significant difference in terms of usage and spending of these funds.

There doesn't seem to be any official announcement of the program on Shopify's blog or social media so far.

It's probably best to assume that journalists are acting in good faith to uncover the full story and to discover details which might be relevant for their audience either now or retrospectively when people look back on these events in future.

Hopefully, however it is handed out, other companies start to think about doing something similar. I just hope this works out well for the employees of shopify!

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

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

Agree. Only heard positive things and the CEO seems like a pretty straight dude.

Shopify has become the default platform for eCommerce for people who have their own marketing channels (let's be honest, the main draw of selling on Amazon is they are a default shopping search engine). I've noticed a lot of "influencers" with strong brands have started shopify stores to sell clothing lines etc. If you can get eyeballs outside the Amazon search results, shopify is probably where you're directing them.

It's also possible that (too many) people treat this thing as a temporary distraction, throw their hands up in the air, and don't even try to be seriously productive; blame the conditions for no work getting done. Kinda like "github is down and I'm compiling and there's a group of visitors in the office..."

So it might kinda backfire on that front.

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

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

You're missing out on the #battlestation #setupinspiration trend. WFH is a thing, why not make yourself feel comfortable? A monitor arm and a vertical laptop stand save space. Add a (standing) desk with a nice surface, quality keyboard + mouse, and maybe a small desk plant.

For anyone in the same position I can vouch for IKEA MARKUS office chairs. Working from a dining room chair will leave your back sore after a few days. For desks I'd stay clear though, all the IKEA desks I've had have ended up with annoying wobbles.

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

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

The great thing about Herman Miller refurbs or used is that you can get parts. Sure, you can get a cheap office chair from target or so, but they'll last you a couple of years before the padding is compressed to nothing, parts are breaking, and it's time to throw it out. The Aerons are incredibly durable, and if something fails or I damage something, I can get replacement parts easily. I've gotten new wheels for different floors, replaced a small pad that deteriorated, and replaced the original hydraulic. I've had mine about 10 years now; who knows how long the previous owner had theirs. It's an investment for sure, but one I think holds it's value well.

(My wife has a Steelcase Leap, which I can say similar things about.)

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

Not at all the most important thing, but mechanical keyboards are going to be sold out so fast. There are tons of people who want them, but just don’t want to bug people in their office. WFH will change that. And it’s mostly small suppliers who won’t scale that fast. I imagine they use some Chinese parts, too.

Sadly the monitors I have at work are 1k each =(

If it's for work, see if you can get your company to order if through whoever they get their office furniture from. I know my previous company paid around $650 each for the Herman Miller Embody

Highly recommend it. I got mine on ebay for a little cheaper. I'd expect costs might go up though given the increased demand.

Real or counterfeit?

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

You don't need a 1k chair you just need a good ergonomic chair, that won't cause long term damage.

For me good monitor and good chair are above good PC. My PC being slow affects my employers bottom line, my chair or monitor being bad affects my health.

Monitor I guess is still habit from CRT days, when there was significant quality (measured in not damaging your eyesight) between good and average.

Which is why employer bought me 2 really good desktops, one for home and one for office.

Same. I bought a $10 stool as we had just moved (without any furniture) and I didn't want to rush into buying an office chair because I knew how important it was to get a good one. 7 years later I was still using the stool (though I added a pillow). Last year I replaced it with a dining room chair (which I had bought when my parents came to visit -- we don't actually have chairs in our house and sit on the floor, Japanese style). It's nice to occasionally sit back and rest my back, but I'm not necessarily sure that it's a good idea.

The main thing that makes the biggest difference for me is that my keyboard and monitor are at the right height. Which is to say that I have an external keyboard (elbow height) and my laptop sits upon a series of cardboard boxes so that the top of the monitor is at the same height as my eyes. I also use a trackball at elbow height that I can reach without moving anything unduly.

I've had a similar experience. I have a lightweight laptop that I carry with me to use wherever I feel most comfortable, be that at a desk (plugged into a monitor, or not), in an easy chair, on a couch, on the beach, in the woods... depends on where I feel most comfortable at the time.

For CPU intensive tasks, I've set up virtual remote desktops [1] that run on a heavy-duty machine or VPS, which I connect to over SSH or Chrome Remote Desktop. I can even connect to them using my phone in a pinch.

[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/virtual-builders/tree/master/ma...

Laptops are apparently much more ergonomical than desktops, if you use them right. I recently got treated for posture-related problems and on that occasion it was suggested to use a laptop(or similar setup) with both elbows resting on the table. So I got a cheap adjustable vesa mount for my monitor to lower and tilt it accordingly, and have had no issues since then.

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

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

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

I have done over 10 years and I use chair, monitor, desk, keyboard, mouse, coffee. That's it. Printer or scanner I have never needed. The total is probably $1k or just under.

I'm assuming of course that the $1k is for the office itself not for any other tech - i.e. that the employees have a laptop.

I have the Ikea hand-cranked version of a stand up desk, and a normal Ikea office chair. Those are by far the biggest expenses but I think they were under $500 together. A good screen is $250-$600 (I got a g-sync one because this is also my gaming space and my gaming rig feeds the same monitor). Unpopular opinion: more than one big external screen is a waste.

My office supplies are a good pen and a stack of printer paper I grab from the office when I'm there. I have never seen the need for a printer or scanner or any other office supplies.

I'd say $1k isn't exactly luxurious, but if we agree that anyone can do fine with ikea furniture and one external monitor then it's just right.

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

I guess it's just a typo, but imagining someone at Spotify in Sweden reading a mail by an NY-based journalist asking about a Canadian startup is hilarious. I wonder if this happens in reality.

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