Hacker News Reader

Comment by granshaw | Hacker News Reader

What's with all this "you get to keep your laptop" moves... do employees really use their company laptop for everything?

Protip: Have your own laptop for your own stuff – it'll save you from all kinds of headache down the line, and shield you from all kinds of potential risk

View on HN

They may not use them for everything but the laptops probably don't have much value for the company, not enough to make it worth having them shipped back, cleaned/refurbed, reinstalled, for new employees that may not exist for a while. The way it's framed in the letter is a little odd, but I guess they felt they had to say something other than "they're not worth our time".

Certainly probably costs more in 'helpdesk' time to collect them, make sure the employee returned all their employer supplied chargers, docks, etc and get them reimaged and back into rotation than it would cost to replace.

As someone that went through a similar 'just keep it' event. My personal laptop was already better, but my sister's sure as shit wasn't.

It is touted as a perk but mostly it isn't worth the cost of shipping + repurposing them. The concern is usually company data, but if you trust your employees to wipe the laptop correctly then there's really no problem with letting them keep it.

It's because they are depreciating assets. If you don't have plans to hire again in the near future, there isn't much of a point in holding on to them.

How do these companies ensure that the hard drives get cleared of company data? I would expect most companies handle information that is legally restricted and have an obligation to ensure employees don't keep a stray copy of customer information.

MDM remote wipe

realistically? I've worked in HIPAA environment before, with secured corporate laptop, access keys to various departments, etc. Any person walking in there with a lowly USB stick could walk out with private personal data and no one would have a clue. It's just theater. I suppose for some sort of legal compliance thing you might want a laptop back so you can check a box on some form that says you did your role in the theater. Sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com