Buy your own laptop?

I don't really see the big deal about buying a computer or getting one. Sure, it would be nice if the company gave out computers all the time - "go on this trip with these plane tickets, find a story, write down your notes with this pen on this pad of paper and use this tape recorder, and then use this laptop," - but in a day when nearly everyone has one, it's unnecessary. If we're cutting costs all over the place, company-owned laptops are a no-brainer, in my opinion.

 

Amen to that.

BULLSHIT! If the company wants product from you on the road, they better damn well provide the technology or reimburse you for using your own.

This is one slope I do not allow to get slippery at my joint.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

McDonald's doesn't hire you to make fries and then ask you to buy your own deep-fryer.

If a company hires you to do a job, then they have to provide the working tools for you to do that job. Anything less is just stupid on their part -- clearly, they don't care about getting the job done.

 

Or stupid on the part of the person who allows them to get away with it.

 

I bought my own laptop because this place getting one for me wasn't going to happen. It just wasn't, no matter how much I bitched or cried or whined. Wasn't - and sure as hell won't now - happen.

So it came down to a choice for me: Do I suck up and get my own, or deal with the stress of where I'm going to file when I'm on the road? Because I can't imagine my EE or SE would be terribly pleased had I told them I'll be sending a second-day story because, well, I don't have a laptop and I can't really find a place to file. And believe me, I went for a long time guessing my way through it - filing at other papers, a college library, the hotel manager's office, you name it.

I can part with part of the weekly paycheck so long as it ensures I'll have another one next week.

So I bought an eBay special. Total POS that has no phone jack, a half-ass ethernet port and it came with a wireless card - which happened to be made by a Chinese company sold through someone in Germany that's long been out of business. So I upgraded that to a Linksys, and the total cost was less than $400 for everything. Sure, it runs Windows 2000 and is slow as balls, but it gets the job done.

Yeah, I would've liked to take a stand on this. But reality dictates a different course of action. If choosing my job over an investment for my job makes me stupid, so be it.

 

I am just stunned there are shops out there that aren't providing laptops for those who require them.

To me, that's as basic as providing notepads and pens. How the hell are you supposed to do your job without one?

 

My personal laptop, which I had used for work many a time and owned before I started here, died late last year. The ME at our paper said they couldn't help me re: a new one. We're a small paper -- pretty much only cover HS. He said I could either buy my own or they'd stop sending me so far from the office that I couldn't just come back after a game to write.

I'm typing this from the new one I bought. I've not taken it anywhere for work yet, although I have done some work on it from home. I'm not sure what I'll do if/when the time comes that they ask me to go somewhere distant to cover something, and I'm forced to decide whether to use my laptop or tell them I can't go.

 

I worked at a 12K PM paper, and we got company laptops.

I really can't comprehend any paper that wouldn't do that.

 

Hustle, you're getting ... er, hustled.

If they won't provide you with a laptop, even one you have to borrow overnight from someone else, you don't cover the story.

Unless there was some preconceived agreement that you'd provide your own equipment, fuck your SE or ME (and I'm a SE myself) if they won't be pleased, tell them to provide the tools to do the job properly or you can't do it.

Tell them you can't afford a laptop, and based on the sad compromise you posted to get yourself one, that might very well be true.

It's ridiculous for them to put you in that position for work they demand. They're counting on you to cave so they can save a miniscule amount of money. Despite what some say, laptops are not a miniscule investment, especially for someone just starting out.

It burns my ass to see newspapers/companies put employees in that position. Thankfully, its never happened to me.

Seriously, you should confront them about this today (in a more measured way than my above post ). That's a totally unacceptable situation.

You too Rusty.

 

I know someone who had his laptop stolen at the Super Bowl a few years back...

His paper (a big one) made him pay for it (or at least a significant portion of it) because he was careless with it. He had the nerve not to put it away as he went to the locker room while writing on a super tight deadline under the worst of circumstances...

Remember that when you think about doing your paper a favor and using your own laptop.

 

My first job,a cheap-ass, tiny PM, had one company laptop that could be checked out.
If two people needed, and that was rare, we figured something out.
Since I had done some freelance work, I had a laptop and that's what I used. But that was my choice, I could have used the paper's, I just didn't.
Does your paper make the photogs buy their own cameras? It is basically the same thing. A tool to do your job.
At a minimum, you should have a company laptop that you could use, if needed.

 

So which is it -- the newspaper decides not to send you because you don't have a laptop, or you decide not to go because you don't have a laptop?