Company cars in the US were very popular until the government started
taxing them with rules that were just too much paperwork to make it
worth it.
Now, when we travel via car on business outside our local area, we rent
a car instead of using a mileage allowance. Usually cheaper and less
paperwork.
Tony Thigpen
R.S. wrote on 3/23/20 9:50 AM:
I don't remember when I observed pagers in US last time, but it was
definitely after 2000, maybe 2002 or 2004. Earlier I observed many IT
folks equipped with the pager, not the cell phone. Note: it's nothing
wrong, it is just a difference which put my attention, like many other
things is US. Do you know you have differend curbs and pavements in
cities? Not worse, but different ;-)
Some of you write about private phone. Well. In Poland it is completely
unusual to use private phone for business. Maybe the explanation is
(was!) the tariff. Personally I have never had private cell phone. Yes,
I use it for private calls, I'm allowed to. In the past (2008, Lehman
Bros...) some beancounter wanted to make savings on the calls. After
analysis my boss took me to the conversation and obliged me to use the
cell phone ...more. Yes, MORE. My monthly bill was approx. 2-3 dollars.
Both: private and business calls together. Our company tariff were good.
Now I have Samsung S9 which allows to use two SIM cards, however many
coworkers still use two phones - private and business. Not to talk about
mobile app. developers - some of them have even 8 phones.
Back to the topic: it is completely unusual to use private phone for
company calls. Rather one gets the phone for that purpose.
Mobile phones are quite cheap nowadays.
The other difference I observed is company car. My observation is this
is popular in Poland and Europe, but not so popular in US. Obviously
company car is not so common as comany phone or company laptop.
Disclaimer: I talk about IT & financial niche, not about every business.
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