We used to the see the office as not just a place to work, socialize and gossip by the water cooler, but as an abundant supplier of things like paperclips, staplers, paper and, of course, a desk.
Most Americans are not used to working from home, so it soon became apparent most of us would have to provide some of our own equipment to set up a home office. But how much has this cost us?
ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, a website which offers unique gifts, surveyed 3,000 workers to find out. According to the survey, on average, since they started working from home, Georgians have each spent about $150, to make sure they had the proper office equipment to carry out our jobs (compared to a national average of $181).
We’re not sure if workers in New Hampshire were showing off, or just came from a base point of being ill-equipped, but they spent the most: $350. Now, that’s a lot of paperclips. The better-equipped workers of Montana, however, have spent the least in the nation on office supplies, spending just $50.
View the results across America with this interactive map
The survey also revealed an overwhelming 85% of workers think their employers should reimburse them for the money they have spent on their home office set up. However, now that the investment has been made, nearly two-thirds of home-workers say they prefer the new set up, compared to their usual office.
In order of importance, the gear people bought the most were, perhaps unsurprisingly, laptops (35%), followed by headphones (30%) – these turned out to be crucial for all those Zoom meetings. 12% thought a decent chair was key to comfort, with a good desk close behind at 7.5%. Then there’s stationery, at 8%, and some even committing to buying their own printer 7%.
Over half (58%) of employees said they will continue to work from home for the rest of 2020, if their boss offers that option, despite 28% of them admitting that slow home internet speeds have affected their job performance.
“It’s clear that as new home workers, we didn’t realize how much stuff we’d actually need in our home office,” said Adam Freedman from ThisIsWhyImBroke.com. “Things we take for granted that are supplied to us by our employer, like desks and stationery, suddenly become really important when we’re working from our living rooms every day.”
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