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My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
61–70 of 186 posts
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#62I've always been particularly confused by the contract clauses which specify that all work of the employee during their time at the company is property of the company itself. Does this mean that if I develop some completely unrelated software in my spare time while working as a programmer at a large company, that the software I created at home also belongs to my employer? What if I was to write a book during that sam…
I dislike it (and most forward-thinking companies wouldn't risk scaring off people who are the type that work on their own time), however I can see the reasons. How do they know you did it at home, not during work hours? How do they know it didn't affect your work? If you're salaried, there aren't set start/stop times. How do they know they weren't paying you at the time you came up with the idea, or thought through…
Maybe your boss is paid to have some clues about how you spend your time at work?
Concerning the property of the tooling: if I bring my personal stapler to work, it's enough to taint everything I staple as my own property? how do we decide the property of the company paper I stapled with my staples? You can say it's reputed being the company property because you're on work time in company premises, but the whole principle of reputation is that you can bring a proof against (the stapled paper is your house insurance contract for example).
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#63Maybe don't sign these types of contracts? We are fortunate enough that even the most mediocre among us can hold out for the next employer that doesn't demand this kind of control over you, or start your own company. I don't give a shit what a company says about their culture of work/life balance or whatever. If I see blanket IP clauses unrelated to non-compete, or like arbitration clauses that remove us from civil c…
I basically did whistle my way out the door because of this. I worked as a contractor for a very large defense company. After a year, they offered me full time employment. I specifically asked if there was a "we own everything you make" clause in the employment agreement, but I was assured there was not. I went through about five digital form contracts, and when I got to the last one, it had the clause in there. I to…
Strong work. Not everyone has the will, nor the financial wherewithal, to do such a thing.
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#64With top talent, you never really employ it. You just sponsor it. If you fail to recognize this, people become demotivated and that talent is either meaningless, or turned against you. The problem is that employers, and almost all of them are this way, are do damn short-sighted. They'll pinch pennies on benefits, lay people off for the slightest reason or no reason, and burn hours of time on psychotic, all-consuming…
I wish this comment were further towards the top. Our system is clearly set up to pump the rewards for innovation into the pockets of founders, executives, and investors, but not so much inventors and builders. I don't think it naturally has to be that way.
What if people got nontrivial amounts of stock for their inventions, instead of the couple grand or pat on the back most companies dole out? Would that help reinvigorate the hard tech industry, which is losing people [1] to creating the next Instagram-meets-Yelp-but-for-kittens?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/silicon-valleys-y...
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#65Maybe don't sign these types of contracts? We are fortunate enough that even the most mediocre among us can hold out for the next employer that doesn't demand this kind of control over you, or start your own company. I don't give a shit what a company says about their culture of work/life balance or whatever. If I see blanket IP clauses unrelated to non-compete, or like arbitration clauses that remove us from civil c…
I basically did whistle my way out the door because of this. I worked as a contractor for a very large defense company. After a year, they offered me full time employment. I specifically asked if there was a "we own everything you make" clause in the employment agreement, but I was assured there was not. I went through about five digital form contracts, and when I got to the last one, it had the clause in there. I to…
I find nothing as pleasurable in this world as seeing people in the wrong get upset that they are in the wrong.
Thanks for the entertaining story! And sorry to hear of your mental anguish.
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#66At Microsoft we don't have these contracts. You are free to work on whatever after hours (with your own equipment and not using company resources).
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I basically did whistle my way out the door because of this. I worked as a contractor for a very large defense company. After a year, they offered me full time employment. I specifically asked if there was a "we own everything you make" clause in the employment agreement, but I was assured there was not. I went through about five digital form contracts, and when I got to the last one, it had the clause in there. I to…
Strong work. Not everyone has the will, nor the financial wherewithal, to do such a thing.
>Not everyone has the will... to do such a thing.
This may just be crotchety old man talk, but sometimes I wonder if the extremely protective child-rearing (particularly in schools) that seems to be abundant today will make future adults particularly susceptible to this kind of bullying.
If you never have to deal with this kind of social stress as a child, how can you possibly deal with it as an adult?
Perhaps getting bossed around on the playground is a good way to train the mind to appropriately deal with intimidation from employers, salesmen, etc.
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dislike it (and most forward-thinking companies wouldn't risk scaring off people who are the type that work on their own time), however I can see the reasons. How do they know you did it at home, not during work hours? How do they know it didn't affect your work? If you're salaried, there aren't set start/stop times. How do they know they weren't paying you at the time you came up with the idea, or thought through…
That's an awful lot of maybes. Maybe I was a good employee, met my deadlines, respected both company time and my own, and also enjoyed working on pet projects in my free time. It is absolutely absurd that a company feels entitled to my personal work because of "maybe."
> It is absolutely absurd that a company feels entitled to my personal work because of "maybe."
I agree. So don't work there.
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#69Hyper-aggressive lawyering by a powerful entity can be an early indicator of how they treat people and use power.
The important thing is to actually read and understand the agreements that employers expect you to sign.
Some examples of what would catch my attention:
* Restricting what activities you can't do on your own time, even when there's no harm to the company.
* Playing games with definitions (especially key terms like "Invention") and loose language (like "related").
* Requiring unnecessarily high burden of proof, for example advance description of all IP that you have created and want to exclude from assigning to the employer.
If you see something you don't like, negotiate changes. If the employer won't work with you to make an acceptable agreement, then don't sign.
Edited for clarity
Re: My Ideas, My Boss’s Property
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I was a good employee, met my deadlines, respected both company time and my own, and also enjoyed working on pet projects in my free time. It is absolutely absurd that a company feels entitled to my personal work because of "maybe." Organizations tend toward pessimism because people respond more strongly to shame, insult, and embarrassment (of themselves and others) than to victory, pride, altruism, and shared…
Organizations tend toward pessimism because people respond more strongly to shame, insult, and embarrassment (of themselves and others) than to victory, pride, altruism, and shared glory. My understanding is the exact opposite [1]. At least that what we were often taught in our teacher prep classes. I know that other research indicates that people are more loss averse than gain seeking [2], but I'm not sure that indi…
Yes, that is his point. My interpretation:
He is saying that more people on average will respond more directly and immediately to punishment than reinforcement.
The context is that organizations' behavior influence via punishment is a short-term tactic: in the long run, we would like to believe that reinforcement poses a net gain. However cultural influence results in short-term behavior control tactics from organizations prevailing, and little heed paid to the tradeoff.
One might also argue that it is cheaper in the short term to punish than to reward, and this further perpetuates the downward cycle as a staple of organization culture.