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Ask Slashdot: Handing Over Personal Work Without Compensation?

Posted by Soulskill on from the donating-to-the-not-so-needy dept.

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."

29 of 848 comments (clear)

  1. Have you talked to anyone? by Igorod · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just curious if you've even breached the subject with your boss or whoever is running things? It's hard to say what you should do if you've not even asked.

    1. Re:Have you talked to anyone? by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Two facts that are obvious to anybody (with experience):

      1. The cost of maintaining the one off custom software will far exceed the cost of buying the canned software. Even assuming competent development. Risk is high.

      2. The boss doesn't have budget to pay for the canned software. He won't have budget to maintain the 'solution' hacked up by the new kid.

      He won't pay the kid for the software. That's a given.

      The question is: Should the kid find a new job if the boss if fool enough to accept the software under any terms? I say yes, such a boss will teach the kid only bad habits.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:Have you talked to anyone? by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My thoughts too, but it could go either way -

      "I have this stuff I wrote in my spare time, it would make everyone's life easier, wanna buy it?"

      Responses are probably going to be as varied as -

      • "Not interested"
      • "Sure, if the rate is reasonable and we get the code and copyrights"
      • "Wow, you know your stuff, there might be a promotion and more cash in it for you if you bring it in (might be)"
      • "That does sound useful, but now we're going to price out the commercial alternatives"
      • "Uh, you signed this piece of paper, we own your soul. Hand it over or get out"
      • "You used knowledge gained here, of our systems, to write this. Hand it over or get out"
      • "Huh, really, you did this in your spare time? So you can do this stuff? Well, how's about your task for the next month is to write an identical (but newer) version on our time and equipment so we own it?"

      I have personally seen "Sure, if the rate is reasonable and we get the code and copyrights", but the guy that wrote it was senior staff and had been with the company at least a decade. I have no idea how often the others occur, likely they're not talked about so often.

      Me, I like to keep any personal coding and company work in completely separate domains, so that there's no question of ownership. I also make sure that any contract I sign does not try to claim rights over stuff I do in my spare time. I'll sign limited non-competes (i.e. promise not to release competing products during the time I'm employed, this provision to end when employment ends), but not more than that.

    3. Re:Have you talked to anyone? by rsmith84 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Entitlement or exploitation? It's a fine line. Would you say the same thing if the terms were not monetary but instead based on the barter system and other goods were exchanged? I already have a military family background. I'm being practical. Why should one benefit at the other's expense without exchanging the means for the knowledge and expertise? They hired me and outlined my job description to the T. I abide by it. The fact that I have the ability to go beyond my job scope should be the merits used for salary negotiations. But as raises have been completely shut down for all non C-level people, what's the point of going beyond the scope? And don't feed me any of this greater good or terrible economy crap. The only way to get through a terrible economy in through self preservation and accumulating the necessities to weather the storm.

    4. Re:Have you talked to anyone? by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know understand why this is so complicated. Perhaps I misunderstood some part of the summary.

      If you've developed something useful on your own time, well outside of any contractual obligations or restrictions, then you now have a product to sell. The terms and conditions for sale or use are up to you.

      But if the boss didn't contract you to write it, they're also under no obligation to purchase it. So you pitch it, and now you're over a barrel if they know it's whatever they offer or nothing. If they say "no, we don't have the money", then you're just plain out of luck. You've gambled with your time and lost, unless you can then sell it elsewhere.

      Don't like that arrangement? Next time secure a contract with a well defined scope and terms for compensation before you start work.

    5. Re:Have you talked to anyone? by anomaly256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also make sure to read the nitty-gritty of your contract carefully. Many companies I've worked for try to sneak in clauses claiming they own the copyright for any and all code you write while employed by them on the clock or off, at the office or at home. I've had to ask for such clauses to be amended in the past. If you haven't been careful, they might just already legally own the software you wrote..

  2. Career by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's the diff between a job and career. People with careers invest their personal time because the reward is you get promoted for doing great work.

    1. Re:Career by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You must be a manager.

    2. Re:Career by vuke69 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You must be a fry cook.

      --
      Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
    3. Re:Career by mschuyler · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, actually he's right. It's all about attitude. Fry cooks are hourly, with extra compensation should they need to take an extra breath. Managers are salaried--whatever it takes ot get the job done.

      I've been a fry cook (literally), and I've been a manager. The fry cook is easier. The only thing you have to think about is the difference between over easy and over medium and whether you've got the wherewithall to even know the difference. A manager, particularly a front-line manager, has a lot more on his plate than eggs.

      Now I question this manager's motives. You don't go developing something on your own time with the expectation to be paid extra. Any company paying attention would have you sign an agreement anyway. If that's what he really wants, cool. Quit and sell it back to the company. But as it stands he's setting himself up for failure.

      In my own case I gave it away (a complete accounts payable and payroll system). As a result I got promoted and probably made close to twice what I would have otherwise. Sometimes you roll the dice and hope for the best.

      --
      How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
    4. Re:Career by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The smart ones stop working for the career and start working for the weekend.

      Having a Mc Mansion with an audi in the driveway and being $690,000 in debt is simple stupidity.

      I prefer to work 30 hours a week, and do what I want when it's time to stop working. I have built TWO cars completely by hand, restored 3 classic motorcycles myself and have seen far more of this country than any of the sad and lonely men I see in the corner office.

      They may have climbed the corporate ladder, but I actually raised my child by spending time with her, have actually built things that make very rich guys green with envy, and have seen things the man that wastes his life in an office working for a career will never EVER see in his lifetime. My wife and I travel to europe more than any rich person I know, I have ridden a motorcycle from Endbraugh to Paris.

      I have as cushy of a life as the executive. I live in a sane home that even has a real home theater (I built myself) in a sane neighborhood. My home cost $69,000 and is better built than most any home that was built for $500,000 - $700,000 today. Mine is real stone and real brick, not the fake crap that is on new construction. I drive a realistic $9,800 used 2007 honda civic as my daily driver instead of being a financial retard and wearing out a $75,000 BMW or Audi.

      In my experience, only an idiot works for his "career" and a "image", a real man works for his family and doing things that make him happy. The rich clients I work for have a nanny raising their kids, and they get to see them every other sunday. They never use the home automation and high end theaters I design and install for them because they are never home and always at the office.

      Working on your "career" is a very sad and lonely life, only fools chase that rabbit.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    5. Re:Career by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is quite possible to work more, make 6 figures and still be frugal. Not everyone making a good wage is an idiot in a McMansion, only most of them. Some people work over 40 hours because they actually LIKE what they do. And the money follows.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    6. Re:Career by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I was hired on, it was strictly for L3 related tasks such as advanced server administration, Exchange design and implementation, etc. 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.

      I'm more concerned with his statements (above). Is he getting paid for this "downtime". Personally, I don't want to work with people who are only concerned with "their job" specifically. I've been a Unix system programmer/admin for 25+ years at a variety of places. I've always done whatever was needed and helped whoever I could. I may have a specific job title, but my real job is helping the my team, co-workers and company be successful.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    7. Re:Career by crdotson · · Score: 5, Funny

      A) I did both.
      B) Nobody cares about your story OR mine, so why did you write all of that?

    8. Re:Career by AnonymousFryCook · · Score: 5, Funny

      Agreed

  3. No budget? by margeman2k3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > no budget to purchase one
    > all but guaranteed that I will see no compensation
    If they didn't have the money to do it, and you were told that you wouldn't be paid for it, why would you expect to be paid for it?

    1. Re:No budget? by freman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  4. Don't work "for free" by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most organizations are not deserving of free work on the part of an employee, regardless of hourly or salaried compensation. The only two times I can think of that might warrant some kind of uncompensated work would be where either a a company is in trouble and employees pulling extra effort might save their jobs, or where the extra work is likely to result in a better position in the company.

    I don't see either being the case in the way you describe it. If you can't do it on the clock or at the office, don't do it.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  5. How dysfunctional by bigredradio · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Wow, how dysfunctional.

    You have no interest in the success of your company and you would hold this project over their heads to get a short-term payoff.

    Sadly, if your employer was better to their employees, they might see the benefit it working as a team to make the company succeed.

    Seems to me that neither of you have each others interests at heart. A good place to work would be one where I am striving to help the company succeed and my company is sharing is that success. Sounds like you need a new job.

    BTW, you have added more work to your schedule fixing bugs and adding features to your "new system". Good luck with that!

    --
    Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
  6. Give it to them by geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You get promotions and raises by going above and beyond and making yourself valuable to the company. If you "stick to your pay grade" then that's all you'll ever be. When I look to promote someone I specifically look for things they've done to help the company/department. I look for innovation and drive. If you took the liberty to do it, you're reward is in the good faith you generate with your superiors. That will eventually pay off big when it comes time for a raise or promotion.

    A job title and description is not a contract meaning "this is what I do and nothing else." If you choose to do nothing else, you'll never be noticed.

  7. So why did you write the application? by SilverJets · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you write it to get compensated? Or did you write it to help your team?

    If you wrote it hoping to get paid and they say they won't pay you then put it on the shelf and forget about it.

    If you wrote it to help your team ...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 then hand it over knowing that you've done something to make your workplace a little better. Next time you have a performance review with your boss make sure it is discussed that you did this on your own time and that the staff are benefiting from it. It will only help your career to show your employers that you are willing to go a little further than expected.

    But, if you are one of those people that just work 9 - 5 and walk out the door at the end of the day not thinking about or not caring about your job (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, different people have different priorities) then shelve it and forget about it.

  8. Re:it is part of your job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly. Especially if you have "lots of downtime".

    I certainly would not look well on someone that does their job "off the job" because it is not in their exact "work description" then want additional money for it. If you want to be a contractor, be a contractor. If you want a salary, then you are not a contractor.

    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.

    If someone on my team acted like this, I would most likely have to fire them. I wouldn't even care about the code. They could keep it. The entire psyche of "not my job description" just irks me. A salesman, not an employee.

  9. My anecdotal experience by Tourney3p0 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We had a project that required scrubbing widget X from a file. Widget X was identified by headers within that file. It was absolutely vital that the content referred to by those headers was also missing, so simply looking at the headers was not good enough. People had to go through the file byte by byte to verify it, and it took a long time. No need to get into details (though it was fairly easy), I automated the task on my own time since I wasn't part of that group, and I provided it to them.

    About 6 months later, I had a 500 dollar bonus on my paycheck and I was bumped up a step in my pay grade. It was little, but I certainly appreciated it. At no point did I think, "I could probably double dip as a consultant here." Had they asked me to do it on my own time, things may have gone differently.

    Not offering any suggestions on what to do one way or another, but that's my experience.

  10. Hey dumb ass by Aighearach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a senior sysadmin should expect to write some in-house tools, yes.

    1. Re:Hey dumb ass by rsmith84 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You are correct in both aspects. The treatment is poor, the morale company wide is low since the new management team was put in place and I am well under market value for my experience and skills. @Aighearach - A sysadmin is not a programmer. The skill sets are different but are lumped under the general IT fog. I hardly consider writing a script that cleans up log files on my Windows and Linux boxes to be in the same realm as writing an application that handles the hiring process and workflow for HR.

    2. Re:Hey dumb ass by kiwimate · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You *do* deserve to be paid for time spent writing something if its on your own time; you don't give it away from free unless *you* want to.

      He already gave away the time for free, regardless of whether his employer pays for anything. You might think he *deserves* to be paid for it. I think he *deserves* to be paid the agreed-upon wage to do the agreed-upon work, and if he goes ahead and develops something extra, on his own time, unasked, without telling anyone, knowing full well that the employer has no current intention of paying for a package, then he's taken a gamble, and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose on a gamble. If you don't like the downside or risk, then don't make the gamble. Or hedge somehow, if you can.

      In this case - if you know there's little to no chance of getting paid to do this extra project, but you go ahead and do it anyway, on your own time, and then whine that you're getting nothing, I tend to think you are getting exactly what you deserve.

    3. Re:Hey dumb ass by InterestingFella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He said there was no other people working who could had done it, ie. programmers.

      The funny thing is he is even saying that he has lot of down time in work. Instead of being a total jerk jabbering about how his job description doesn't include writing software, but would still like the challenge (and did it), he could have used that down time to actually just write the software and help the company a bit instead of sitting around doing nothing.

      Seriously, if I were his boss and I read this, my head would implode. He even admits that he just sits around at work doing nothing. He then says this would had improved everything a lot, but gee, this closely related task isn't in his work description! And that is even without the fact that he then goes out and writes the software, and is now thinking about asking the company if they can pay money for it on top of the salary he gets. What a total ass!

      I would never hire anyone with such attitude. There are lots of sysadmins and programmers without work that have much better attitude. People who would actually care about the company and their work. If you want to be paid only for your job description, go do paid consultation work. Right, then you couldn't just sit around doing nothing at work time and get paid salary.

  11. Job Description? Seriously? by ajdub · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're looking at this the wrong way... You have obviously done the right thing by taking the initiative in the first place, but now, I hate to say, your attitude is all wrong.

    Here's how it works:

    1) You get some job
    2) You "beast" it. That is... you do what you're asked very well and you take the initiative to use the extra skills you have to wow everyone by changing everything
    3) You ensure that it is known that you are responsible for your work
    4a) They offer you a payrise or more responsibility and pay
    4b) They don't, you stick it on your resume and you get a better job somewhere else with a beamingly positive reference

    Do the right thing, make sure there are no problems of attribution and it will pay off in the end. Do not crap up your reputation by trying to strongarm more money out of them upfront. Keep a good attitude and it will pay off in the end. If I had tried to extract extra pay for going above and beyond every time I did so in my career, I can all but guarantee I would not have done as well as I have.

    Do interesting stuff, be unbelievably useful. The money will follow, it always does.

  12. Confused write-up, but... by kiwimate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I read this correctly:

    * you saw a place where some software could really help;
    * you knew they wouldn't buy it;
    * you were told they wouldn't pay you to write it; and
    * it wasn't in your job description to write it (side note: seriously?)...but
    * you wrote it anyway; and
    * now what?

    With all of this, I'm left wondering why you wrote it? You say you like a challenge, but was this the only way? You further write:

    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

    Well, hey there, genius - you said you weren't asked to, or required to. So, again - why'd you do it? What did you think would happen? What did you expect? Your whole story really confuses me.

    Oh yes, to get back to a recommendation about what to do: I don't have one. Your attitude is petty and small-minded, and I can't give any suggestion that would fit in with that attitude. If you had some decency, you'd go to your management and show them what you'd done, maybe get some kudos, and use it to boost your resume. Taking initiative looks good. If you had some entrepreneurial inclination, you'd start a small company and market it.

    But I think you'd rather just maintain a constantly surly attitude and fold your arms and huff "I'm not gonna get paid for it? Well, screw you". Squandered opportunities, dude. Sometimes you have to take a risk, you know?