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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?
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.
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.
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
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Corporate Apologist vs. The Self Entitled Millenial !!!!!
FIGHT!