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Ask Slashdot: Handing Over Personal Work Without Compensation?
rsmith84 writes "I'm the Senior Systems administrator for a small trade college. When I was hired on, it was strictly for L3 related tasks such as advanced server administration, Exchange design and implementation, etc. They have no in-house programmers, no help desk software, and no budget to purchase one. I'm a moderate PHP and MySQL programmer on the side and am easily capable of writing something to meet their needs, but do not believe I should be A) asked to or B) required to, as my job description and employment terms are not based upon this skill set. I like a challenge, and since all of my goals outlined since my hire date have been met and exceeded, I have a lot of down time. So I wrote the application. It streamlines several critical processes, allows for a central repository of FAQ, and provides end users with access to multiple systems all in one place. I've kept a detailed time log of my work and feel I should be remunerated for the work before just handing over the code. The entire source was developed on personal equipment off company hours. My question is: what should I do? If they are willing to compensate me, I will gladly hand it over. However, it's been mentioned that, if I do the project, it is all but guaranteed that I will see no compensation. The application would streamline a lot of processes and take a lot of the burden off my team, freeing them up to handle what I deem to be more challenging items on their respective punch lists and a better utilization of their time and respective skills. I'm a firm believer in not getting 'something for nothing,' especially when the skills are above my pay grade."
"since all of my goals outlined since my hire date have been met and exceeded, I have a lot of down time".
"The entire source was developed on personal equipment off company hours"
these two statements make absolutely zero sense when placed together.
if the guy wrote it and actually TESTED it on work time, then he owns exactly fucking 0 of his source code. he is considered a 'work for hire' employee.
of course, there is a chance that the administrators are too dumb to understand this. he could claim he 'registered copyright' (a phrase which has no actual meaning) and see if they will jump.
on the other hand, this is a 'trade school', which could in theory mean one of the diploma mills owned by hedge funds who are betting on the education bubble collapsing and betting against the student loans they pump and dump during day-time tv commercial hours. Im thinking ITT or DeVry here.
in that case, their corporate HQ will probably have some highly educated, experienced lawyers who will be able to run a truck right over any bluffing he tries to do.
lastly, im completely talking out of my ass. but it all sounded so good, right? right?
parts of it have some resemblance to reality, id wager.
I wish I had a job where: "all of my goals outlined since my hire date have been met and exceeded, I have a lot of down time."
At every SA job I've ever done, the work never ends, there's always more to do - I've never ended up with true downtime to let me pursue other projects.
And what does this mean: "do not believe I should be A) asked to or B) required to, as my job description and employment terms are not based upon this skill set."?
Outside of union work, I've never seen a job where you can say "Hey, that's not in my JD, so I'm not going to do it, instead I'm going to sit on my butt and enjoy my well earned down time". If it's something I could do, I'd do it. Otherwise I'd ask for training (or books), then do it.
But then, I've always worked in the private sector, never in education or government.
Lots of variables here. If you have a good rapport with your boss you can bring up the subject and say that you noticed a lot of time was being spent doing routine tasks that you think can be automated. Give him a business case where you can figure out how much money that software can save him in his budget each year either by reducing downtime, staff, ect. Then say you would like a promotion and raise where you split those savings 50/50 (or whatever) over what you are making now. If that's not possible say you are willing to do the job on a contract basis where you do the work at home and bill them when the software is delivered.
I was once an engineer at a company where we sent work out when we were busy. I saw how much they were spending to get these parts drawings made and I offered to do it for 1/2 the price at home. My boss refused. So I went to the job shop that was doing the work and offered to do the work for 75% of what they charged. Since I was familiar with the job I could get it done very quickly. The job shop accepted because they were getting paid for doing nothing.
In real business it always comes down to peoples motivations. What are your bosses biggest headaches? To get ahead you have to figure them out and how much it's worth to them.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
If you're not getting anything for it, release it under an opensource license - I've had this problem at work where they've desperately needed stuff that they didn't have time or manpower to do during hours, I've gone home and written it. We've come to the understanding that if they don't want to pay for it I will GPL it and they can have it free, with the usual constrains on GPL licensing.
Keep in mind that even though he developed it on his own time and with his own equipment, he still used a company resource.......knowledge of their processes.
It's very likely that his tool will save the company lots of time and money. It's also likely that it is of much less use to any other company due to specifics of the company he works for. Give it to them and turn it into some sort of career advancement -- a raise / promotion and possibly a job change to one that matches his skill set better. Initiative is rewarded in most companies (at least at that level.....eventually, it doesn't help).
(Please note: You made a blanket statement, and that elicited my initial response without regard to the greater context. I responded exactly to the statement that I quoted, and nothing more.)
It's always true when the one off app was written by a kid who's working as a digital janitor.
It's usually true. It depends on actual man hours saved / actual man hours cost. It's extremely difficult not to overestimate savings.
He is talking about 'help desk' software. Nothing new, just reinventing the wheel. Another data point on the kids competence (which isn't looking good from here).
That's not entirely clear from the summary. That might be true.
Also mySQL? What happens when an index blows on 'incident'? Never for important data.
That's criticism without a recommendation. What would you suggest? PostreSQL? SQLite? No SQL (pick any)? OOo Base? What is it that you would trust with "important data"? What is the threshold for "important"? What is your criteria for acceptance?
I've been unimpressed with MySQL, but this criticism seems quite shallow.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Working on your "career" is a very sad and lonely life, only fools chase that rabbit.
I disagree completely with the conclusion you come to. Some people are doing their jobs to do something good. They fulfill themselves, by doing those jobs.
There are idiots that climb the career ladder in a job they don't like, but saying that only fools chase career path is a closed minded conclusion.
Since we are talking ethics I'll use the real dollar amounts. I was right out of college in 1996. I interned for this company for 2 years and I when I was hired full time was getting paid $13.50/hr. I was newly married and I didn't want to spend 16 hour days in the office. We were a small office where we had a few permanent people and as jobs came in we hired temps or sent work out. This was standard practice. I saw this and went to my boss and offered to do the work for a fixed price at home where it was quiet. I took one job that was being sent out and I bid 200 hours on it at my regular pay of $13.50/hr and I'd have it done in 6 weeks. So fixed price. $2700 done in 6 weeks all to our company standards. He said no.
They send it for bid the winning bid was 8 weeks and I don't know the price. One of the drafters was moonlighting as well with this company and he gave them my name. They called and asked if I would bid the job. I gave them the same numbers I gave my boss. These guys were very nice old Italian guys. He laughed at me when I gave him the bid. He said he couldn't in good conciseness pay me so little. So he gave it to me for a fixed price of $5000 and 8 weeks. So in reality I have no clue how much they charged I was just guessing.
I have no ethical problems with this because I gave my company a chance to let me do it and save money. I also never signed a contract stating I wouldn't moonlight. I also never slacked at work in order for more work to go out.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Wow, that's remarkable. Your entire discourse is unfounded.
1. It's reasonable to take on some extra responsibilities. Writing a major application is pretty far beyond IT tasks, though.
2. The reason people take employers is for money.
3. He has an interest in improving his company's efficiency. Otherwise he wouldn't have written the application.
4. The implication is that he gets to go home early because he completes tasks faster than expected. And he states: "The entire source was developed on personal equipment off company hours." This is self-managing one's time pretty damn well.
5. This wasn't mentioned anywhere. You have no reason to hold any belief about the amount of time this person spends training others.
6. He demonstrated his skill set to himself. He's just considering terms on which to demonstrate it to his company.
7. While there's no indication he did due diligence in investigating existing solutions, there's nothing saying he hadn't.
In short, this person seems to be an employee in good standing, and he happened to create something as a hobby that would generally cost probably 30-100% more than he's making. It's reasonable to want more than a pat on the head for doing something like that.