11–20 of 33 posts
If I wanted to work on my personal projects during the day I'd take the day off.
anyone who works on their personal side projects on company's times and hardware, risk that the results will become ownership of the company. it's also a bit dishonest and immoral tbh... I would check the employment contract asap.
It wouldn't be ethical to drive into the company office, then work on your side gigs using their computers, bandwidth, software, etc.
There's nothing unethical about working on personal projects while not at work. In a lot of US states, an employer can't legally stop you either, salaried or not, unless they can make the case that you working on your side projects directly harms them. That can be a hard case for them to make as well, since, typically, someone who practices their craft outside of "work" improves themselves in a way that benefits their employer.
When I hire programmers, I very much want to hear about their side projects. Not because I want to lay claim to them, but because I want to have a broader sense for what makes a candidate tick. All things being equal, I'd hire a candidate who works on interesting side projects over one who didn't as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this immoral? Genuinely curious. It seems the underlying assumption is that every second belongs to the company while you’re “on the clock”, but this doesn’t line up with many companies’ philosophies of “get the work done, time is irrelevant”.
If you are salaried in the US there is no clock. You can't have company time if the company explicitly isn't buying a set period of time. Firms tend to be unclear on this until it comes time for you to work outside of your 9-5 then they are quite clear on the concept.
If I can put up with work getting in the way of life (on call, no overtime pay, etc) employers can put up with life getting in the way of work (appointments, off topic research, etc).
Nine times out of ten it ends up helping them too. The research ends up being mutually beneficial. A healthy me keeps coming to work. The list goes on.
I just try to be honest and reasonable about it. So far they have too. Please let me know what needs to be done, and it will get done.
Downtime during working hours is time for self-care.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this immoral? Genuinely curious. It seems the underlying assumption is that every second belongs to the company while you’re “on the clock”, but this doesn’t line up with many companies’ philosophies of “get the work done, time is irrelevant”.
If you are salaried in the US there is no clock. You can't have company time if the company explicitly isn't buying a set period of time. Firms tend to be unclear on this until it comes time for you to work outside of your 9-5 then they are quite clear on the concept.
anyone who works on their personal side projects on company's times and hardware, risk that the results will become ownership of the company. it's also a bit dishonest and immoral tbh... I would check the employment contract asap.
There's a reason why the GNU project requires an explicit waiver from the contributor's employer for all contributions. Anything less puts them at risk of civil or criminal liability.
Sometimes I write code for myself that I later decide to use at work. That gets published to GitHub under some reasonable license then imported at work if it makes it through review.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are salaried in the US there is no clock. You can't have company time if the company explicitly isn't buying a set period of time. Firms tend to be unclear on this until it comes time for you to work outside of your 9-5 then they are quite clear on the concept.
interesting... here in Europe it always states how many hours employee needs to work daily, how many days per week and often times includes clauses for how much overtime hours and overtime pay is to be expected
Company time only exists when the company is paying for time, salaried employees are filling a company role not being paid for any specific period of time. If the company gets too specific about what time belongs to them they risk losing the exempt part of salaried-exempt and would owe back pay for any time over 40 hours that you may have worked.