Who Doesn't Have A Home Computer?

[Anonymous]

I don't have a computer at home. Why would I need one? I have my smartphone and I have an iPad Pro. Everything I need to accomplish in my personal life can be accomplished using those two devices.

I mean, technically I have my old laptop from college in a closet somewhere, but it's at least 8 years old.

The better question is, what kind of rinky-dink employer would think employees should supply their own devices for work?

That's a huge security no-no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I question any agency or company telling people to do work from a personal laptop in the year 2024. Most companies have citrix based solutions to permit this but still very strange in todays age.

+1 if you want someone to telework you need to supply a laptop. That is standard practice now. I don’t have a computer at home outside my work laptop, but since it is a federal laptop I don’t typically use it for personal things outside of work I honestly just use my phone outside work hours. And then my husband has a laptop with monitors for his work, that laptop is technically ours but his company reimbursed him for it. So we consider that our home computer I guess but not really - his work computer so I use it rarely. No need to as my smart phone has everything I need most of the time

[Anonymous]

I didnt have one until last year. My childs school had some virtual learning days and the chrome book they supplied was weak and I realized there were some personal things I didnt want to do on my work laptop (therapy) so we bought a home laptop. It is shared between kids and parents. I would never consent to using it for work though, that is the entire point of buying it for personal use.

So, its not terribly uncommon to not have a personal computer (phones and tablets generally suffice). And it is horrible form for a workplace to expect you to use it for professional things if you do. If they expect her to work remotely they need to provide the tech.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a computer at home. Why would I need one? I have my smartphone and I have an iPad Pro. Everything I need to accomplish in my personal life can be accomplished using those two devices.

Out of curiosity, how do you deal with storage and backups? Or do you have nothing in digital form that is worth storing?

I have multiple desktop and laptop computers at home that I use all the time. I couldn't really conceive of not having that stuff in 2024, but I work in IT. (I also wouldn't want to carry a work laptop back and forth every day--we have networks for that.)

That said, it's fair that the employee noted in this thread either doesn't have a computer at home or doesn't want to use it for work. I know people who don't have cell phones, and many of us who have them would never allow the numbers to be given out to people at work. Either the employee goes to the office and works there, or the employer needs to provide the employee with the necessary hardware to work at home. Including the Internet connection.

[Anonymous]

Is this person young?! Does everything on their phone? I don't get it. You gotta have your own computer. I will not do any personal things like banking or research on my DOD government machine it's unprofessional and irresponsible to not have your own computer in 2024.

[Anonymous]

This is the company failing, not the employee.

Employees should not need to provide their own phone or computer. That is 100% the employers job.

That said, dh and I have one personal laptop at home (and actually it is his gaming laptop lol). Otherwise we use our employer-issued computers for work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this person young?! Does everything on their phone? I don't get it. You gotta have your own computer. I will not do any personal things like banking or research on my DOD government machine it's unprofessional and irresponsible to not have your own computer in 2024.

So if you think they shouldn’t do personal stuff on a work computer it stands to reason that they also shouldn’t do work on a personal computer, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't have a computer at home. Why would I need one? I have my smartphone and I have an iPad Pro. Everything I need to accomplish in my personal life can be accomplished using those two devices.

Out of curiosity, how do you deal with storage and backups? Or do you have nothing in digital form that is worth storing?

I have multiple desktop and laptop computers at home that I use all the time. I couldn't really conceive of not having that stuff in 2024, but I work in IT. (I also wouldn't want to carry a work laptop back and forth every day--we have networks for that.)

That said, it's fair that the employee noted in this thread either doesn't have a computer at home or doesn't want to use it for work. I know people who don't have cell phones, and many of us who have them would never allow the numbers to be given out to people at work. Either the employee goes to the office and works there, or the employer needs to provide the employee with the necessary hardware to work at home. Including the Internet connection.

My DW is like that. All her photos are in iCloud, and does t really keep documents. I’m the one who stores the local backups of photos, saves the tax returns, copies of resumes etc. I mean most is also in iCloud Drive but depending on all our family documents on a subscription service we pay for feels ephemeral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this person young?! Does everything on their phone? I don't get it. You gotta have your own computer. I will not do any personal things like banking or research on my DOD government machine it's unprofessional and irresponsible to not have your own computer in 2024.

Can you imagine looking up some weird rash or side effects from medication, now it’s part of the federal records (unlikely unless lawsuit but still).

[Anonymous]

I have a personal computer at home. I cannot do my work in it.

[Anonymous]

I honestly haven’t used my laptop in years. I save documents to the cloud, and I can access everything from my phone or iPad. I have a crappy little Chromebook that I probably couldn’t even work off of if I need to use it. My big laptop is collecting dust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly haven’t used my laptop in years. I save documents to the cloud, and I can access everything from my phone or iPad. I have a crappy little Chromebook that I probably couldn’t even work off of if I need to use it. My big laptop is collecting dust.

It’s great until it isn’t, switching vendors, without a PC is almost impossible. There is no way to adequately. Manage files on phones and tablets, so if for some reason your cloud account is vulnerable, when you need to switch away, you’ll have to quickly buy a laptop, set it up and link it to the services in time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a computer at home. Why would I need one? I have my smartphone and I have an iPad Pro. Everything I need to accomplish in my personal life can be accomplished using those two devices.

I mean, technically I have my old laptop from college in a closet somewhere, but it's at least 8 years old.

The better question is, what kind of rinky-dink employer would think employees should supply their own devices for work?

That's a huge security no-no.

Because it's 10 million times easier and more efficient to answer emails and process work orders on a laptop than it is on a phone.

You ever been in a doctor's office? What do the admins use? A phone or a computer?

Also, since you haven't had a laptop for 8 years, I presume you are either unemployed or employed by a 'rinky dink' employer. Which is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a computer at home. Why would I need one? I have my smartphone and I have an iPad Pro. Everything I need to accomplish in my personal life can be accomplished using those two devices.

I mean, technically I have my old laptop from college in a closet somewhere, but it's at least 8 years old.

The better question is, what kind of rinky-dink employer would think employees should supply their own devices for work?

That's a huge security no-no.

Because it's 10 million times easier and more efficient to answer emails and process work orders on a laptop than it is on a phone.

You ever been in a doctor's office? What do the admins use? A phone or a computer?

Also, since you haven't had a laptop for 8 years, I presume you are either unemployed or employed by a 'rinky dink' employer. Which is it?

I don’t understand what work orders you’re processing in your personal life.

[Anonymous]

I save documents to the cloud, and I can access everything from my phone or iPad.

You are awfully trusting of cloud service providers.

I mean, I guess you could set up a properly redundant backup system, with multiple providers and regions, but I'm guessing that you haven't, since it would be very difficult to do this without an actual computer.