Sounds a bit extreme, but OTOH this is what tradesfolk typically do - charge $100 to ring your doorbell and take it from there, since it does cost them money just to get to you.

Still, even if there is some sort of justification (moreso if the company chooses to locate themselves away from residential/affordable areas), I'm not sure how you would avoid abuse. Maybe just pay employees a fixed amount for each day they are required to drive to the office ?

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wongarsu 5 days ago | parent [-]

With tradesfolk you can choose who to call, and somebody from farther away will charge more for getting to your door. With workers that is not a consideration today (in most roles), but if companies had to pay for travel time it absolutely would be. But that leads to uncomfortable questions about moving. If you get children and move to an area with a better school, can and will your work now fire you because your commute got more expensive for them?

A fixed payment for office days would remove that, but then how do you determine the price of that payment?

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ghaff 5 days ago | parent [-]

I think my contractors have generally had a general service area. And, if you're out of it, they're probably not interested. Now, mind you, I often don't have a super-itemized bill. But I'm not sure I've seen a commute time/cost line item.

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HarHarVeryFunny 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I can't recall anyone ever putting it down explicitly as a line item, but a number of them will tell on the phone you there's a minimum charge for coming out. For some reason locksmiths seem to always do this.

	▲	ghaff 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I expect a lot of jobs that locksmiths do are pretty quick and easy for them. I went down a file cabinet lockpicking hole a couple of months back and ended up just drilling out the lock. I expect a locksmith could have handled it in a few minutes (if that) but if they had to drive 30 minutes to my house they have to collect for that somehow.