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Slashdot Asks: Should an Employee Be Fired For Working On Personal Side Projects During Office Hours? (quora.com)
An anonymous reader writes: I found this article that talks about whether an engineer should be fired if s/he is working on a side project. Several people who have commented in the thread say that the employer should first talk to the person and understand why they are working on personal projects during the office hours. One reason, as many suggested, could be that the employee might not have been fairly compensated despite being exceptionally good at the job. In which case, the problem resides somewhere in the management who has failed to live up to the expectations. What do you folks think? Let's not just focus on engineers, per se. It could be an IT guy (who might have a lot of free time in hand), or a programmer.
Not for yourself. You want to work on your projects, do it on your time. Why is this complicated? It's not.
If you are creating new content, inventing a new gadget, etc....and you do it on company time, you may find that you DO NOT OWN what you have created.
Many if not most employment contracts/agreements have verbiage that states that anything you come up with on company time, belongs to the company.
They may not fire you, but they will now own it and you won't make any $$ on the side for it....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Different people have different arrangements, I'm sure a lot of people here are strictly 8-5. But in my world I'm expected to be available and on call around the clock based on the specific function I perform (it's a lot of hurry up and wait). So I may be working at 11PM, but at 2PM I may be free. I do not get paid any extra for overtime. So who is to say that I'm on company time?
While the simple answer might be that I should always be on task during work hours, I strongly doubt my bosses would like me to just abdicate when a job finishes at 11PM and needs my attention but doesn't get it until the next morning, nor do they want to pay for another person to do it (even if that were remotely possible, which it isn't). So if I'm dicking around in the middle of the day, and I'm at the office just to maintain office hours, it should be assumed that I'm simply not on company time right now.
...One reason, as many suggested, could be that the employee might not have been fairly compensated despite being exceptionally good at the job. In which case, the problem resides somewhere in the management who has failed to live up to the expectations. ...
What sort of clap-trap is this excuse. If an employee tries to use it, I'd consider it more evidence that the employee should be fired.
.
Bottom line: if you don't like the management of the company, then leave. If you are doing side work on the job, that is the equivalent of goofing off.
Quit your whining and get back to working the job you are being paid for.
I for instance work for the government in IT and during holidays when the non 12 monthers are out, I am basically a paper weight at my desk all day. So I take online classes, work on a few outside client minor jobs, Test and run random network crap remotely from my house or just read a bunch of sports websites. I mean what is the difference between working on a side job or doing nothing at all while I have nothing to do?
A few minutes here and there? I'd say no.
Days at a time? Heave-ho!
Salary? Office hours?
He should be fired for working on an unauthorized personal project using work equipment, because that says 'he is just too stupid'. The hours don't enter into it. How hard is it to securely terminal server to your home computer? Which would change the issue from stupidity to sneakiness, but that's another discussion.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You're getting paid during office hours to work for the company, not to work on your personal projects.
Also, to basically everyone reading this: you're also not paid to read Slashdot - GET BACK TO WORK!
#DeleteFacebook
The code belongs to your employer. You do not have the right to distribute it without his consent. Not in your name and not with a licence you're choosing. It's his code, because he payed for the development time.
Paid by hour, fired.
Paid by performance, no problem.
I'm confident that my participation in the daily scrum meeting is in no way harmed by my Uber gigs.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Can an employee be fired for watching porn on company time? Yes.
Can an employee be fired for reading novels on company time? Yes.
What makes working for another employer on company time different in a way that doesn't cost them their job?
Ken
the answer should be no.
Hard to answer this generically. My company works on federal contracts. Mischarging our time is a federal offense - you better believe i'm going to be fired if I'm caught doing so.
I am not a number - I am a free man!
By that logic I should fire my company for making me work after hours and weekends on their projects.
If you're an hourly employee, its different. If you are a salaried employee you are paid to do a set of tasks and projects. If you complete those that's really what matters. If I need to work on side project for 20 minutes at 1PM and then need to work on a work project at 2AM it all works out in the end.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
I was at a job where I was left with nothing to do for 2 weeks straight. If I have no work to do, I will do whatever I want. In my college days and shortly after, I was doing tech support calls...I was perfectly capable of walking someone through how to restart a modem while writing software to do whatever.
Assuming there is no conflict of interest, it should be treated the same as reading a non-work-related book, listening to music on a personal device, or take ng a nap.
In some situations these actually improve overall productivity and should not be discouraged.
In other cased they are a symptom of dissatisfaction or boredom, and the employer should try to address those issues.
In other cases they really are just stealing time from the employer or they are setting a bad example that outweighs any benefit to the company and disciplinary actions, up to and including termination, may be justified.
In short: It depends.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Written warning or some other disciplinary action sure, especially if the company has a "don't work on your stuff on our time" policy. Depends on what the person is doing to. On my downtime I write music or wire guitars. I wouldn't want to get fired because I spent an hour doing something other than "work". But if my company had a policy that says "Thou shalt work only on work projects" then I can't fault the company for firing me. But really, firing is quite harsh. I would think a warning or 'stern talking to' would send the same message.
Should an employee be fired for sitting and watching Baseball for a few hours on the company dime? How about watching the Flintstones? Playing Internet Poker? Those are all non-productive items as well, so why would you expect special treatment because you are doing something "techie" which does not help the business?
Companies should have discretion because they are _PAYING_ the person to be on the job earning money for the company.
If you disagree, go start up your own company on your own dime and allow people do work on whatever they want. Lets see how great your startup is before and after you are drained of capital.
Why do you think slimeball startups hide how they piss away money until it's too late for investors?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Daylighting. Some companies (Google, for example) embrace it, while others try to stamp it out.
Does the employee contract state that working on outside projects is not allowed, on company equipment and/or on company time?
Does the contract state that anything external that the employee works on automatically becomes IP of the company (good luck with trying to enforce that in some countries)?
The employee contract usually defines responsibilities for both the employee and the employer. Using the employee contract to enforce behaviour on the part of the employee can be problematic if the employee has a good lawyer versed in employment law on their speed-dial, and will often result in a shit storm for all parties that does nobody any favours (except for the lawyers).
In most cases, working on outside projects will be grounds for some kind of disciplinary process, but if the employee is valued then asking them why they are daylighting. Look at whether they are completing projects/meeting targets on time, and whether you are happy for the employee to walk away.
As a senior engineer I'm expected to keep an eye out for technology that may be useful for the company. I set time aside to poke around, see what's out there, and play with new stuff. Some of this may end up being only of personal interest, while some of it may end up being useful for the company. Until I have a look at it, I won't know.
I'll spend half a day on something on my own responsibility, a morning or an afternoon, before I seek buy-in from my boss to proceed further.
...laura
If the employee spends 2-3 hours on a personal project in the middle of the day, puts in 11 hours total and records 8 hours of work, not necessarily a problem. This *can* lead to other issues, like fielding an unusual amount of personal calls throughout the day.
If they are spending 20-30% of company time on a personal project (time), that is a problem. Emphasis on company time versus personal time. No matter what the scenario is, it fits when described as company vs personal. Working from home, I split company time up into 3 larger slices - mostly to fit around the morning and afternoon kid dropoff/pickup.
Except maybe commissioned work?
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
Sometimes I find that doing something other than my job for bit, increases productivity. There are days where I just can't concentrate. If I can get my brain into work mode by doing some other project, in the end it benefits the company. I went through a phase where I would read a chapter of a book, then work for an hour, repeatedly, all day. I found that I was more focused during those hour period than a typical day, and I spent almost no time at all trolling /. and other news sites. Boss said as long as I get my job done, he doesn't care. The problem arises when your side project makes a lot of money and you spent company resources/time on it.
No, they shouldn't. Many employers expect employees to be available outside of work hours for emergencies, critical tasks or to meet deadlines.
I check my work email frequently outside of office hours, which is essentially unpaid work. So if I take time during the day for personal projects I feel it evens out.
At the end of the day, as long as the work is being done to the quality, scope, budget and timeline as originally planned then who cares how or when it gets done.
I see my salary as a compensation for work completed, not my ass being in a specific seat for perscribed hours of the day.
The way you ask it, it sounds as if you say: Should I be fired if I used the time the company pays me to do something else, like sitting in a bar or doing my second job.
The answer is "hell yes". There is no reason not to. It is called company time for a reason. Even in socialist Europe you will be fired for that.
I can turn the question around: If you hire me to do some work in your house, would you be ok if I cleaned the next doors swimming pool during that time?
The way it is asked has nothing to do with IT. Just because you add "on the Internet" does not change anything.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It depends on the facts of the situation. Ex:
1. Service company where contract stipulates you can only bill while meeting customer requirements.
2. Service company where contract stipulates you must be "butt-in-seat" for 40 hours.
3. Product company where the person is goofing off.
4. Product company where the person is a solid performer, maybe even at the top and produces consistently good results.
WRT...
#1 Absolutely.
#2 Depends on the optics (such as are they keeping it on the down low) and whether the contracted work is getting done before "play time."
#3 Probably, almost certainly.
#4 Very tough call because most people only are productive a few hours out of 8 anyway according to most studies, so you may be harming your company while following the book on something that objectively isn't harming the company in the least.
Now throw in other variables like intended license model. For both types of companies, an employee writing code under a permissive license can be a real boon. It can help win new contracts, it can be gobbled up and added to the closed source product if relevant.
HR likes easy ethical scenarios. That's why I love playing devil's advocate during them. One example was when HR asked if it was ethical to offer "bribes" if requested in foreign countries. I gleefully said that it depends on the country, as there are plenty of countries where a white westerner who has a stick up their ass about local customs may be found dead in a ditch on the way home from the office.
You sign a contract, you must abide to it. If you have to work 8 hours a day, you must "supply" them to your employer in whatever form he allows it (along a day, week, month, year-span, eventually they must add up). If you work on a schedule, the same applies: that schedule is theirs.
We engineers have a highly intellectual job, so for some reason, at some point closely after we first start our adult life, we feel our jobs are harder and should be somewhat different than normal "day jobs". What we forget is that our day job (which we sometimes do at night, because well, we work better depending on a lot of mood modifiers, that's intellectual work) is just under the same type of contract any other job, and thus legally, it's pretty straight forward.
If an employer wants to enforce that, all they need is an enter-exit system, just like factories. If a company has this, you can pretty much be sure they will be nitpicking on everything you do that they can, in a legal fashion, state is breach of contract. This can go from procrastinating to other more interesting things ending in "ing" (even some very disgusting ones), but the ones employers care the most are those that end in "cha'ching!" - basically everything that involves the entering or prospective entering of money in your pocket and not theirs.
The real problem is people still allowing their hard intellectual work to be offered as a time-lease of their brains. That's why most CS grads eventually look into startup or freelance work: they want a job that eventually pays them for features, which they can do in their own schedule (the former being a super-intensive first phase of work then no work at all when they get paid that big unicorn bonus, the later being whatever schedule they feel like for above average pay, but never explosively big in order to have month-long vacations, like startups).
Anyone who works on unauthorized personal projects should certainly expect to be subject to firing. But as a supervisor I would make the decision to fire based on what is best for my employer. That depends on a lot of things.
I don't believe in automatic zero tolerance responses. The question for me is whether the company better off booting this guy or disciplining him. Note this intrinsically unfair. Alice is a whiz who gets all of her work done on time and to top quality standards. Bob is a mediocre performer who is easily replaced. So Alice gets a strong talking to and Bob gets the heave-ho, which is unfair to Bob because Alice did exactly the same thing.
But there's a kind of meta-fairness to it. Stray off the straight and narrow and you subject yourself to arbitrary, self-interested reactions.
Now as to Alice, I would (a) remind her that anything she creates on company time belongs to the company (even if we're doing open source -- we get to choose whether the thing is distributed) and (b) that any revenue she derives from it rightly belongs to the company. But again there's no general rule other than maximize the interests of the company. I'll probably insist she shut down the project immediately and turn everything over to the company, but not necessarily. I might choose to turn a blind eye. Or maybe even turn a blind eye until Alice delivers on her big project, then fire her and sue her for the side project revenues if I thought we didn't need her any longer. If loyalty is a two-way street, so is betrayal.
Sure, you may rationalize working on a side project as somehow justified by the fact your employer doesn't pay you what you're really worth, but the grown-up response to that is to find a better job; if you can't, by definition in a market economy you are getting paid at least what you're worth. If you decide to proceed by duplicity, you can't expect kindness or understanding unless you can compel it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I know an engineer who (along with 3 others) was left on an empty floor while they waited for a project to start, it was a couple of months.
When the project started, management found they had disassembled all the cubes on the floor and constructed a maze. The only way into the actual work area was crawling under a desk.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It should be positively encouraged. I also believe offices should be furnished with beds, so we can take a nap when we want. And we should all have an additional computer with an up to date graphics card and 4K monitor that we can install Steam on.
This seems reasonable to me. What say you, fellow programmers?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If you're stealing 2-3 hours of time from your employer every day, sure, you should be fired. But if you're an exceptional employee otherwise, such that you provide the equivalent of 8 hours a day in 5 hours, then a deal might be worked out.
But to just be doing it without asking is stupid, thus the complaints from other employees. Some corrective action is necessary.
I can entirely see how a company would initially see this as a problem. They are paying someone to do a project on the side that will likely never bring any money back to the company. In many companies, theres a policy that says anything you create while on the company dime or while utilizing company facilities, equipment, etc, is the property of the company since they have in essence paid for it by paying you.
I've seen people pushed out for this before and I've seen the same companies struggle to fill the hole they just created. The person provided a significant benefit to the company and was efficient enough to not really need to focus on anything company related for a few hours of the day. During this time, the employee did several side projects, some for small monetary values, others for free. It would seem easy from a business perspective to just assume that maybe they should just cut hours back if the employee doesn't need a full day to complete the tasks. This would provide the time for the employee to do these projects but this typically also comes with a reduction in salary.
The aforementioned employee saw their own work as highly valued since their salary was very satisfactory for the required work. However, when management stepped in and said they were reducing the number of hours the employee would work, and to reflect the "reduced work provided to the company" a reduced salary as well. The person was expected to continue performing at peak efficiency as they had, with a shorter day and a smaller salary. This was understandably taken as a perceived reduction in the value of this employee.
I think its important to mention that this person, largely enjoyed their position and did it exceptionally well. They had never had a bad evaluation, never been written up in 10 years despite having worked on side projects for most of it, and never let the side projects interrupt their daily duties. I think the side projects really provided a good creative outlet for this person and it helped motivate this person throughout their day.
Anyway, the person was pretty pissed off about the situation and stayed on maybe 2 weeks after this change before quitting. Management had a big "oh fuck" moment too since the person had a lot of knowledge that wasn't always well documented. Took them a year and a half to find a schmuck that was willing to try and work in the reduced hour position and he lasted all of a few months before being fired for not being able to perform the duties (big shock). So they decided to contract it out and pay a shit ton more than they used to.
While it presents an ethical dilemma, I think the greater perspective on the matter must be taken. Physically and mentally healthy employees are always going to perform the required tasks better than people deficient in either. Sometimes all that is needed is a good self driven but compensated outlet to provide that and I think we will see this to be much more true in situations where true UBI comes to fruition.
Structural, or one-off? During a busy period or while he would otherwise be staring out the window? For money, or as a hobby? After having been warned not too, or as a first offense? Doing something that will ultimately take business (not just hours) away from the company, or completely unrelated?
At the lower end of the scale, I don't see much difference between an engineer hobbying around a bit on a lazy afternoon and, say, a female employee rushing out to pick up a sick child from daycare unexpectedly. On the other hand, if someone is structurally working on his own stuff, intended to compete with his current employer, and has been told numerous times not to...
There are several factors to consider, including, in no particular order:
1) Is he otherwise getting his job done?
2) Is there a conflict of interest?
3) Is company policy clear on the issue?
4) Can his side work benefit his employer?
There are many other factors, too. My company's policy is clearly spelled out: we are allowed to have side jobs and businesses, as long as there is no conflict of interest, no misuse of company property, and as long as they don't interfere with getting our work done.
We have found that side jobs and businesses tend to produce useful things that are then imported into company work. It's a win-win for everyone, under the right circumstances. The company benefits, and the employees benefit.
Should an employee be fired for viewing slashdot at work?
Wow, the number of utterly heartless, black and white thinking people on this thread is amazing.
It totally depends on a variety of factors, although I agree that 'insufficient compensation' isn't one of them.
First and foremost, is it impacting the job that you're being paid to do? If not, then who cares? Hell, if it's something interesting it may even open up an opportunity for the company to branch out into that other thing if the employe was interested in sharing that other expertise.
If it does impact the job, then the usual things come into play like past performance, corporate policies, etc. Maybe they have an important underlying reason for doing it (eg: Designing a custom 3d-printable artificial limb for a family member who lost one in an accident). Maybe they're just an asshole who thinks the rules don't apply to them and don't want to do their job. It should be a judgement call based on as many relevant factors as possible including attitude, past job performance, exceptional circumstances, etc.
Funny, I am on an on-call rotation, which I am rarely ever compensated for. So companies want to be able to invade your lives on a whim, and want protection.
There is no employee/employer balance. And I think, if you're salaried, shouldn't your schedule be flexible. Now if you're not doing your work, that's another issue. But so many of us do our share and someone else's.
I've written several technical articles for magazines. While I do all of the writing at home, I certainly develop test cases and demonstrations at work.
My recent subjects are:
...and I have a few things in the queue.
All of these topics are useful at work, and all either grew out of or into work-centric projects.
My employer also provides $0/yr education budget, so this is my way of keeping myself up to date in a manner that I consider reasonable and fair.
I've had no objections so far on this activity.
And I say this as someone who's worked on personal projects on company time (both with and without their knowing).
Ultimately that right resides with my employers who are paying me.
More realistically it depends on if my boss is a jerk and/or if I've been working up to THEIR standards (and that's the key)
It's no different than my surfing on the web while waiting for a compile to finish and posting on slashdot (looks over shoulder) or working on some personal app (I can claim I'm enriching my skill set by doing both).
I once worked at a company where a guy ran a PRIVATE BUSINESS from his cube (and would take calls for work/contracts during office hours...successfully too). He got sacked even though he put in good work because of it.
You know, I'm not sure this is an American problem so much. Disclaimer, this is purely an anecdotal and based on my personal experience but since moving from the UK (where I'm from) to the US about seven years ago I've noticed the opposite. I could just be lucky and have a good employer but I worked for a couple of firms back in the UK where firing was their first resort and the two companies I've worked for in the US have the opposite approach, a much more pastoral approach to employer-employee relations. As I said, this could be just me getting lucky in the US and unlucky in the UK but thought I'd chip in since I have an observation :-)
I have had managers waste my time in endless, useless meetings at the same time I was staring at a looming hard deadline. They knew I would have to makeup the time wasted sitting in meetings.
Is that not theft of time the same way a personal project is?
Truth is: When in that situation, I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom and never return to the meeting. Sometimes pre-arrange an 'emergency call' to have an excuse for my whole team to leave.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yes, of course. There should be disciplinary actions against employees who work on personal projects without permission on company time and on company equipment.
If you're at work for 80 hours a week, you have 88 hours when you're not at work, presumably sleeping, bathing and cooking. If you are lucky to only work 40-50 hours then you have closer to 120 hours a week to yourself.
I think it's really smart when companies offer some form of 80/20 rule. But usually that 20% is worked out to not interfere with the existing schedule, and before work begins a project is proposed. Google calls it a "creative side project", which is distinct from a "personal project". A project that doesn't necessarily have a direct market potential or doesn't cover your current area of expertise can fit in as a "side project". But the duration you're allowed to work on a side project is bounded, and you have to have some kind of results at the end, even if it's just an essay on the failure of it and what you learned from the experience.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
By that logic I should fire my company for making me work after hours and weekends on their projects.
That's called quitting... You are free to do that do that if you want to...
If you're an hourly employee, its different. If you are a salaried employee you are paid to do a set of tasks and projects. If you complete those that's really what matters. If I need to work on side project for 20 minutes at 1PM and then need to work on a work project at 2AM it all works out in the end.
Not according to current labor laws. Non-exempt employees can be required to work some overtime, it is just that non-exempt employees have to be paid for it (unlike exempt employee that must be on a salary). Similarly both exempt and non-exempt employees are allowed to refuse to work more than 72 hours a week or when statutory safety time limitations are reached. About the only "real" difference is are the required extra pay for overtime for non-exempt employees and the minimum salary and job duties required to be classified as exempt.
Now how your employer feels about your ability to continue collect a paycheck from them in the future, that is another issue entirely. The most of employment law that doesn't have to do with discrimination mostly just proscribes compensation for work already performed, not the future employment continuation...
Often working on two jobs (esp on salary) can create an implied conflict of interest which in most cases can be considered a "just-cause" reason for termination which would preclude unemployment benefits, although an objection for a specific situation might mitigate that. Either way an employer could fire you (in most at-will employment states). That is why it is always best to get a mutual understanding of the job with your employer up front rather than rely on anecdotal ideas about "salaried" and "hourly" employees.
Wow, the original post on this one....Thanks for bringing to light where the Software Engineering profession is going. Now if the side project was for the company who is paying your salary, then maybe you have something to stand on. If it was not and for you own monetary gain, then yes, they have grounds for termination.
By the way, the former is called actively participating in you companies' success and good business ethics. The latter........, not so much.
The entire article's response to the question is based on the premise that the guy that is 'daylighting' on the job is an exceptional worker and gets all of his jobs done in a fraction of the time it takes his peers. The author gives an example of a programmer that does 50% more work than his peers, but doesn't get any bonuses, promotions, or pay increases when performance reviews come about. So, that employee starts putting out the same amount of work as his peers and then spends the rest of his time doing his own things. Most people are not that far above average. The entire argument is worthless outside of a few exceptions.
The answer to the question is simple. If he is not doing his job, he should not be working for the company. He is hired to develop software during business hours. That is his job. He is not hired to 'complete 4 tasks per day' as the article describes. This whole article seems like it is trying to shift the blame on to the employer, instead of forcing the employee to take responsibility for his actions.
By that logic I should fire my company for making me work after hours and weekends on their projects.
If the company refuses to properly compensate you for your after hours work, yes you should stop working for them.
I've worked on personal projects on company time. There are times when it's feast or famine in the workplace. During down times (meaning any or most other busy work has been done), I have used some of that time to work on personal projects. As an example, one of those personal projects was to make a web app to create and hold my gaming group's D&D characters. During that time, I taught myself AngularJS, Firebase, Bootstrap, and jsPDF. Since that time, I've built 2-3 other web apps for my company using what I learned then, and was able to offer those solutions because of how I used that down time. I learn better by having a project than by reading a book.
Whether what I did was an appropriate use of my time or defensible, is probably separately debatable. But you never know what you are going to learn, or how it might apply to what you do for a living when working on little projects that you are passionate about. As long as you never, ever, let it get in the way of your work or output. The job always comes first.
That said, I've never worked on anything that I thought would make me a millionaire or give me reason to leave my job. I love what I do, who I work with, and who I work for. I'm very loyal. Part of that loyalty was earned by allowing me to pursue little things over the years that interested me. It could be argued that perhaps there was no concerted effort to afford me that freedom, but no one looks over my shoulder, runs through my browser logs, or demands an accounting of my time; because like I said, my work is always done.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Work for the company and work for yourself. I'm compensated fairly well, and I put in a great week of work and long hours for my employer, however, that doesn't mean I won't take a couple hours here and there to work on my own projects, even at work.
If your employer can't tolerate the fact that you might take an afternoon to work on a separate project, then it's a bad work environment and bad work culture. On many occasions, the work I've done on my own time, have transitioned both into the IT and Engineering realms for my past employers.
In fact yesterday, I took a hour off to code for one of my own personal projects instead of continuing to work on what I had started the day off with.
My manager and the company owner, know I do that all the time and they know I work on my own projects even at work, and as long as I finish their work and I get what I need to get done, and on time, they couldn't care what else I do and that's how an effective work place functions.
If you treat your employees only as a measurable commodity, entering into no acknowledgment of their worth, individuality, and personal potential, while attempting to mine every second of their time like a greedy, annoying crow, or worse, if you attempt to sit on those things and repress who they are, then your employees will not be loyal. This is inevitable.
When the first even nominally better opportunity (which might not even be better on grounds of pay, since everything else at your place sucks so bad) and they'll be gone. Because you made them hate you.
Which you deserved.
Sane employment is pleasant, goal seeking and reward-rich. For everyone. Not based on counting drops of sweat and screaming when the count is short. Balance liberty against compassion in tension as you encourage your employees to chase your goals and their goals. Otherwise you run the risk of just turning out to be considered another reviled prick.
I've run several very successful businesses. I'm not guessing here. Happy people do better work. Period.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
... says the guy posting on a forum during work hours.
Im brushing up on my 6502 over my lunchbreaks, maybe working up to a c64 game or demo, but i dont do that during any other part of day. Given I work in games , i recognise theyd have first dibs on anything valuable. in reality I have a long way to go before that would likely happen .
If an employee is working on a non-approved side project while they should be doing more boring work thats not cool. I would say if you have downtime at work check with your employer first and find out how they would feel about you making better use of it. Nowt wrong with asking ?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Employees should be mostly focused on their role while at work. This assumes you're in a job where you're required to be on the clock during a certain timeframe. But whether you're hourly or salaried, you are to be focused on work while at work. While I understand there are slow times, and occasional needs to tend to personal issues, by working on a side project you are changing your personal frame of reference. You will be slow to return to the actual work. I've asked some employees to avoid multitasking to avoid the same problem between multiple actual work projects.
While you're off working on your side-thing, what initiative aren't you taking in your job? What problem aren't you pondering to solve at work? What project that you've been procrastinating on are you avoiding by doing your own thing?
I support employees being empowered to do things like this by their employers and managers, it can be part of good management, but never assume.
As far as compensation, you're paid whatever you negotiated for whatever you produce. If you are unhappy with your compensation because you think it doesn't reflect your potential, go get a job that will allow you to realize your potential. I don't owe anyone for their potential if I don't plan to use it. Again, good managers will, but no one owes it to you.
So if I work off hours and you don't pay me for those hours, it is just considered part of my daytime pay.. what then? Don't I have a right to recoup those hours at a time that you don't need me anyway?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Can an employee be fired for watching porn on company time? Yes.
Can an employee be fired for reading novels on company time? Yes.
Can an employee be fired for doing their job exceptionally well without a single violation of company policy? Yes.
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.
Can an employee be fired for watching porn on company time? Yes
I'm a pornography director you insensitive clod!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
He should be fired for being too stupid to not get caught working on side projects during working hours.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Maybe it's just the kind of jobs that I had, but over the course of 40+ years I don't ever recall being in a situation where I could honestly say, "I know everything about every topic relevant to this job; I've built all the job-related tools ever needed; there are no job-related skills left to acquire."
Certainly there were times when I could say, "None of this job-related stuff is as interesting as this widget I want to build for my own use," but that's something different.
Seriously is this even a conversation? I have caught people doing this, and let them go. And then they had the nerve to come back and ask for the code off their COMPANY laptop. And the funniest part, they had actually used company naming conventions for the code as well, so it had our company name all over it. Company time, Company Laptop, Company Property. Pretty simple concept.
It may be worth noting that depends on the nature of the work, whether the claimed "personal project" is the type or work the employee was hired to do.
Suppose a person is hired to write technical training manuals. The training manuals they write typically belong to the employer, absent an agreement to the contrary. If the same technical writer builds a ship in a bottle, that work would belong to the employee, again assuming no agreement to the contrary.
Of course varying circumstances can affect things too. If an employer directs their employee, as writer, to build a ship in a bottle on company time, on company premises, using company materials, for use at a company event, that ship probably belongs to the company.
At my level, replacing people costs money. It would be expensive to pay a recruiter to come up with someone like me, that someone may not be as good, and that someone sure wouldn't know the code base, and would be less productive for a long time.
If I'm underperforming or something, my employer would save money on average by trying to work with me, rather than giving me the boot and hiring a replacement.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Here in the US (north central part of the country), I've never had a real employment contract. It's been based on assumptions (I do what they say, and they give me a specific amount of money), with some side agreements. It never seemed to be a problem.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I knew a whole bunch of people who spent most of their work time doing day trading. Others ran businesses from their work office.
Some of those businesses included office supply, an Internet Dating site, one was running a porn site from work, another was running their gun business.
In their defense, it was a shitty place to work for.
... says the guy posting on a forum during work hours....
Perhaps your work hours, but not mine. Don't presume everyone works 9-5 weekdays.
A lot of companies expect you to do more than Y hours for no extra $X...
There has to be give and take... I'm expected to do 40 hours a week, sometimes i do 30 and sometimes i do 50, my boss is fine with this so long as the work gets done and he's happy that if work needs to be done outside of normal hours he can ask me to do it. Similarly, i'm happy that i can take a morning off or a long lunch to do my own thing sometimes. It balances out, the work gets done and the staff are happier and more flexible.
On the other hand i worked for a previous company that demanded i sit in the office even if i wasn't working, keep to strict lunchtimes, never be late arriving but often be late leaving, they frequently demanded that i work extra hours for no extra pay, often tried to contact me when i took pre-arranged holiday, or expected me to spend a lot of time travelling to other locations for work. It was all take and no give on their part, so i started working to rule (arrive on time, leave on time, ignore emails/calls out of hours etc), looking for another job and fairly quickly quit that job and moved on.
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Making you sit through stupid meetings isn't a theft of time. Making you work extra hours to do your job in a timely fashion because management is idiots is.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
In the UK it's actually much harder to fire someone than in the US, due to the various employment laws, although employees need to be aware of the law and stand up for their rights.
In the US you can generally fire someone at any time for any reason... In the UK you have to have a justifiable reason, and except in cases of gross misconduct you have to have given the employee both verbal and written warnings as well as having given them a chance to improve (ie in the case of incompetence).
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I agree that the salary excuse is a very poor one. Other than that, I am shocked by the tone of most of the responses here.
An employment contract is generally drafted to give the employer the necessary tools to manage the employee. It does not mean that everything written there should be the way the business is run day-to-day. Essentially, it's a two-sided deal, while it seems to me that most people here think that once you have signed an employment contract, you should accept being treated the worst way the contract technically allows and expect the employer to own your ass.
It does not need to be like that. I am sad that is the way it is in lower-paid jobs – people are not cattle and should not be treated like that. It almost seems as if many people here have had some kind of a traumatic experiences at work and now want everybody to be treated like that, in perpetuity.
I work in a company where the rule is, more or less, "make yourself useful to the company". Cannot think of what to do, or just have ran out of your productive energy? Why not play a game of pool on the employer-provided pool table. Everybody knows that you cannot be productive for eight hours a day. As long as the job gets done, the employer is satisfied.
Now, legally I know the employer could take all of that away. The company probably pretty much needs that power, since you cannot really draft "the atmosphere shall be relaxed" in the contract. However it knows very well it can only recruit the talent it needs because of these perks (and it has been able to recruit people who fit the culture shockingly well – we have more than 300 employees, and it still works very well). If it tried that, I can assure you the current talent would also leave the company very fast, and I'm sure it would be less productive, not more. Also, my employer couldn't care less about whose equipment I am using. Why should it? It's not like doing personal stuff causes the computers to wear out very fast.
It's all about total compensation. I know I could have a job that pays at least 10-20% more if I accepted a much less relaxed atmosphere and less perks. It's a whole spectrum, but I would not work long-term for an employer who treats their employees as cattle for pretty much any price. I have found that most employers are very satisfied at the performance they get from me and, as a result, do not whine. (Only once I had a Russian boss who did whine. I pulled some strings and got moved to a team whose boss was more than happy to have me.)
Having said that, I wouldn't run my own business from work. Hobby projects go in the same category with playing pool. As long as it won't distract from your duties, go ahead. There's a certain level of performance that the employer expects. If he has a problem with what I achieve, he can come and talk to me. If he is happy with what I achieve but is disturbed by me spending time on other things? I will tell him (truthfully) that I doubt I could achieve more long-term by pretending to be more hard-working, that this is how I work and that if he cannot tolerate that, then I'm also not happy to work in that company and offer to resign amicably, as companies tend to prefer that to firing people.
If we're devolving into stories like this...a project of mine was once suspended for about a week because of a contract dispute with the customer. During this time we were told explicitly not to work on the project, not to work on any other project, but come to work and stay there during working hours anyway. And this was early 1980s so I don't even think Usenet was much of an entertainment source.
Most employment agreements are such that the company owns it even if it is outside of normal hours. So inventions you come up with on your own time are not yours.
And one of the key reasons Silicon Valley grew up in California is a law that, in effect, says:
- As a matter of the state's compelling interest:
- If you invent something
- on your own time and not using company resources
- and it's not in the company's current or expected immediate future business plan
- you own it
- regardless of what your employment contract says
- and employment contracts have to include a notice of this.
Result: People who invent neat stuff their current company won't be productizing can get get together with a few friends, rent a garage across the street, and build a company to develop the new stuff. So companies bud off new companies, doing somewhat different stuff, like yeast. And the opportunity to get in on the ground floor attracts many other skilled people who might not be as inventive, but still wnt to be some of those "few friends" of the inventors.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In general, if you do something on your employer's time and/or using resources provided by said employer than you can be pretty sure they'll own it in the end.
That is, even if you're doing it off-hours, if you use a company provided resource, then it'll still likely end up belonging to them.
Best bet - just avoid the whole scenario.
BUT if you find yourself with too little work (due to cyclic cycles in the industry, or between projects, etc...) you can always reach out to your manager and work something out. Just be sure to get it in writing and signed off by legal and any execs at a high enough level that they can't change the agreement easily. If you're employer won't do that - or if you as an employee won't do that - then all bets are off and it's just best to avoid using company time or company resources to do anything outside of company work.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Suppose you have a cleaning woman in your home (that's the most likely employee anybody has). She cleans everything to your like, but you discover that, when you are not at home, she spends some time watching your TV. Or she leaves early.
You fire her, and hire a new one. She never does less than her time, and spends the whole time cleaning, but the end results are less satisfactory. Many things aren't really clean. You fire her too.
After some further trials you find one that cleans perfectly. If she has spare time, she uses it for extra chores like deep cleaning the backside of the fridge, and never misses a date. Regrettably, in six months' time she leaves you to set up a cleaning business.
Now you wish you had kept the first one.
Convert cleaning woman to engineer, If she's doing side work on 'your' time, and also doing her job properly, then you aren't giving her enough work. If she's not doing her job properly, it doesn't really matter much why, you should fire her. Anything else is a recognition that you cannot properly evaluate her work and so you are incompetent as engineers supervisor, and should fire yourself.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The last IT place I worked had a policy, which you had to sign and accept on hire, which stated the company owned ANY idea you came up with during your time as an employee, and they meant away from the office too. They meant they owned the idea if you came up with a better software product OR came up with a way to have your dog mow your lawn for you.
OWNED!
The company was not kidding. We asked them if this meant they owned my invention for cleaning carpet, making a TV antenna out of Cat 5, etc. And they said yes, well, the company will own it but they didn't want these ideas so *cough* they would opt to not take ownership. And we should be grateful!
Now I know you would ask, why would anyone accept this bullshit? Because roughly 200 people, including myself and a bunch of other engineers and analysts and technical employees were all part of an acquired company, and we had to choose to sign off on this crap and keep our jobs, or walk.
Some did walk. The new company fired a lot of other people before the ink was even dry. NOT a happy place to work. In the end, the only ones left were people too deeply important to fire, or people who had spent years on proprietary programs that would not transfer to any other employers. I got laid off after automating my job. That was the only way to get rid of me. I miss the money but not the place.
And all my ideas are now belong to me!
Sig for hire.
Is this another millenial joke? Like they don't understand when you are hired by a company you work for them during office hours and not for yourself? Seems like people need a lesson in work ethics... Yes, you should be fired, and no, you don't need a reason (you can guess) from them on why unless prohibited by law. Don't do it. If you want to work on something on the side, work on it "ON THE SIDE!" not during work hours.
It does not matter what your Software Engineer does at any particular time. Software Engineer is a professional job exempt from overtime rules for a reason: the thing that matters is whether he produces an appropriate amount of quality work.
Do you have any idea whether his work gets done? It doesn't read like you do. That's the question you should ask as you decide whether to keep or fire him.
If you want this IRS exempt employee to work for you by the hour rather than by the task or by the mission, you have that option. It's called "consultant" and you'll pay twice as much or more -per hour-.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I found the clairvoyant! Someone who knows that the poster wasn't on break or posting from home.
The Corporate Apologist vs. The Self Entitled Millenial !!!!!
FIGHT!
If the employee feels under-paid, he/she should find another job or find a way to get promoted. Other than that, if I find my employees doing side things on the hour I will fire them immediately without second chance.
The employment vs income is a fair agreement and is backed up by law. Nobody forces an employee to sign employment agreement. Usually its the employee that wants to sign a lot more badly than the employer. So if he doesn't think the agreement is fair, he shouldn't have signed it. Once he did, he's expected to work for that employer during business hours and nothing else.
So the question I have is it a bias against the technical staff because they are not perceived as the same class as other employees?
In most companies it seems quite normal for Sales or Marketing staff to have side gigs, or "many irons in the fire" and it's something that's usually viewed as initiative.... But if this same view isn't taken for under funded or under compensated then I think we have a problem.
Personally I think job flexibility to disappear for 30 minutes all things being equal is the most I would ask for a side gig, and I feel the need to over communicate such issues. I recently left a government for an IT Startup when the side gig blew away the offerings of the government job.
The other litmus test, not necessarily fair, is feedback from your immediate boss/lead. If they feel it's inappropriate, then you decide if it's worth staying or not. But don't violate their wishes or protocol. It's not worth it.
My bias is I think HR/Management rarely values IT staff anywhere near what they value their more "business" orientated staff such as Marketing, Sales, Accounting or Logistics.... In those cases I don't break rules, but I rarely feel the "love". I've been outsourced and let go too many times for slim margins and failed management...
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
>Non-exempt employees can be required to work some overtime,
No one can require you to work. Even in prison, where labor is paid under minimum wage (and that's a supreme court case waiting to happen), they cannot force you to work. The punishment is torture, in the case of prison.
Okay, Non-exempt employees can be required *as part of an implied contract of continued employment* to work some overtime...
Basically the law allows for not accepting overtime work requirements as a valid condition of dismissal. Of course nobody can *force* you to work, you can always quit and they can pretty much fire you for any reason (unless it is specifically protected by the law). In fact, I have quit a job before because my employer required overtime (and if I had not quit, I suspect I would have been fired). I know many folks who have done this do and I'm sure this has happened many times to many people over the course of history and apparently for the most part, it is perfectly legal.
Thanks for spreading bullshit!
Always happy to do that on the internet...
Wat. It's like you're giving legal advice on the Internet, complete with citing laws from the Dept of Labor, and then saying "IANAL and I know nothing of employment laws".
People who take legal advice from the internet pretty much get what they pay for, right? Is this your first time reading posts on the internet or "Wat"?
Obviously, what's allowed from company to company varies so check with your manager/HR department. Personally, I try not to work on personal projects during company time. The only exception is writing my novels which I do on my phone (not using company computers) and during my lunch break. I can jot out a quick two to three hundred words while I eat lunch and then my phone goes away and I focus on work-related activities again. Other than that, I strive to avoid working on personal projects during company time or using company resources.
(This doesn't count taking a 5 minute break to make a personal call or look up something I'm personally interested in. I'm talking more "project" level activities like coding a website or writing a book.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I worked at a company I partially owned, and we gave our star talent the chance to work on their personal projects on days when there was no company workload for them... but we fired one for working on his own projects when we were busy.
I was the lead developer on a timesheet project, and that told the story. When you have no tasks assigned, letting the person do something fun kept them at their desk during business hours, and when they have tasks on the board the timesheet must match the output.
I think its a very good idea to be sure policies are set in writing for everyones protection.
If a company wants unbridled and uncontrolled employees doing work not to the benefit of the company and pay them for it, well ok. I doubt there are many companies that could survive a situation like that.
There should be written policies of what company resources including time are used for, and in the event of violations appropriate disciplinary actions (also defined in writing) should be applied.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Your a fucking idiot. Just for the record.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You are lucky if you would in a place where you can just 'take a day off'. I have to plan my day activities a week ahead of time. Other activities I must attend are planned for me. A lot of my OT are for unexpected events. There is no flexibility left in any day for the next week or two to just 'take off'. There is no one to replace me if I do, and I am discouraged from letting any of my day obligations drop. This is just the reality of a real work life.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If objectives are being met, it doesn't really matter. Jobs can lack the challenge or sometimes they have plenty of down time.
Fear is the mind-killer.
I think it's easy to fall into the trap of "But your employers are the ones paying you!". And that is a good point, but not the whole story.
I think, depending on the situation, it can absolutely be okay. For example, some years ago, I worked for a large company where between long stretches of activity, we'd also get some downtime, sometimes even for a month or 2. Now that's not to say that NOTHING was going on. But for the moment, all the big projects were completed, and there were absolutely no other deadlines. At first it would be nice, but very quickly I'd get bored out of my mind so I'd start working on personal projects.
During these times, there would literally be nothing else for me to do. It was maddening. There's only so much slashdot and only so many kitten videos that can pass the day. By the time more big projects started coming down the pipeline, I was RELIEVED! The team would bang on those for a few months, and the cycle would repeat.
It helped that no one knew this is what I was doing, and my personal work looked exactly like my regular work. However, I'd check my inbox regularly as well as the ticket queue, and I'd immediately jump on anything that came through. I _always_ gave absolute priority to my work over my personal projects.
If it's okay to browse the web while things are slow because there's literally nothing else to do... Why not personal projects? Like browsing the web, just don't let it interfere with your work.
Now if you're working on personal projects INSTEAD of doing your job, that's a really shitty thing to do. However, it's probably worth talking to that employee before outright canning them to make sure you have a good understanding of the situation rather than just jumping conclusions.
That's ok, you can work on your own project, we will just replace you with a robot :)
This is the tale of the lazy worker. It's what employers use to teach employees to hate and spy on one another.
There was an employee in our organization who spent 80% of his and his teams effort working on projects that did not address the bottom line. The employee cut "drug deals" and over promised under delivered my entire time in the organization. In the the "Snake Oil Salesman" was run out of town on the rail.
First offense, reprimanded certainly. If someone is good enough to finish their expected work load quicker than expected, then working on other stuff that benefits the company is appropriate. Personal projects should be done on personal time, and not using company resources! As a principal engineer at a tier-one company in the 1990's and 2000's I often had time after finishing my "work". That's when I was thinking and studying ways to improve our software and processes. When I got home, I would work on "personal" projects after dinner and playing with my cat.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Every employer under the sun has a policy about intellectual property. Many, in fact, claim rights to any monetizable technical output an employee produces, whether during business hours or not, on the grounds that engineers can have a brilliant idea at any hour of the day, and that's why they're paid the big bucks.
Don't feel you get paid enough? Leave.
Usual rules don't apply to who possesses a three-digit Slashdot UID
Nothing breeds poor work or lack of loyalty more than cheap wage increases. A smart company will keep its critical workers during hard times even if that means they simply read books or even watch TV for months at a time because when you need them you will really need them and find them shockingly hard to replace. If you have a group of 30 workers you will find that two or three really carry the load.
Seriously, this is a joke right? If some guy thinks he's a good enough golfer to maybe make it on the pro-circuit but just needs practice time, should an employer pay him if he goes golfing during working hours? How is this any different than someone 'working on a personal project'...it's assumed to be an 'IT/programmer' project here I'm sure but why does that have to be the case? It could be an invention for a new toilet or something. You're at work, you do work for the company. In fact ANYTHING you do while working for the company during company hours is likely the company's property anyway and/or if not at the direction of your manager it's grounds for being fired.
I struggle to understand the mentality of someone that even needs to raise this as a question? What have they been taught growing up that makes them think that working on 'personal projects' during work hours & not being fired for it is a 'management issue'? Hell, if a person has that much free time on their hands they have a choice of sitting & twiddling their fingers, collecting a pay cheque for a cushy/easy job or going to their management, throwing out an idea of something they think would be valuable to the company and asking for support to work on it.
Would your cleaning get fired if she was doing her laundry at your place while getting paid?
keep to strict lunchtimes
I had an interview at a small company (20ish people) and they said that everybody must take an hour for lunch between 12 and 2.
I made it clear within the interview that this was lunacy and left them to it.
When my dad went to work he could come home at the end of the day and forget about it for evenings, whole weekends. So yeah, in that case I would say 'duh' to the work day not being yours. But these days you are expected to respond to work in evenings, on weekends. I very rarely get a weekend off and I don't get paid for any of this. So perhaps you can explain to me how I am supposed to understand this. After working the entire weekend without taking some time for myself I would quickly burn out, nor do I think I ever gave my work carte blanche access to interfere with my personal life. So save me the smugness please.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
My legal rights on the matter are defined by what I can realistically fight.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Barnes and Noble likely knows Linux Journal very, very well at this point. http://www.linuxjournal.com/co...
I engage in my own salary and benefits discussions, as does everyone I know. I am all for personal accountability and responsibility. I have worked my ass off to become an asset to whomever I choose to work for. Not accidental, not hand out, hard work for decades. It's not my problem if you can't negotiate a fair wage for yourself, lack the ambition to change jobs (I moved out of State 3 times for better prospects as a _single_ parent), or simply lack the talent to get a better paying job. NONE OF THOSE ARE MY FAULT! THEY ARE YOURS!
Be responsible for your own actions, or lack thereof. Cry for pity to someone who didn't bust their ass to get out of poverty.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
If you have downtime (waiting for the CI system, etc) at work to do something like this, then do something that does not use work resources (in most cases, a computer, but in other industries could extend to industrial/manufacturing equipment, etc).
Specifically, design. On your own paper (or tablet, etc), using your own pens. There will always be problems to think through in any personal project.
No matter how small an infraction, the employee should be fired first. It's the only way they learn. Next time they're employed by you, they'll know better.