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An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

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Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#91

Post by embwbam »

bsharitt wrote: post #86
gurgus wrote: post #11

That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…

I was considering taking a job recently(would have been 100% remote) that had the same kind of vague "everything you do is ours" clause(also had a similarly vague non-compete) in the contract when I received the job offer. I brought it up and mentioned I can't sign this contract because these issues. The most I could get out of the guy was, I can't think of it every getting forced so sign the contract and don't worry…

What I usually do in this case is redline the contract and sign it. (Meaning, edit the clauses you don't like in an obvious fashion. Tell them you've done this.)

They will often not want to go to the trouble of going back and forth with the contract and will just accept it.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#92

Post by janwillemb »

pjc50 wrote: post #83
gurgus wrote: post #11

That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…

The ambiguous IP clause is very common in UK programmer employment contracts. I've had two experiences with it. Most recently, I was able to insert a clarifying clause that said "work not related to company's business and not done on company time/equipment doesn't count". Previously, I was working at a startup that didn't have this clause and employed a number of people who were Debian developers in their spare time.…

Quitting a job is a major, life-changing event for many devs and the question is whether such a clause in the contract is worth the trouble. That said, I disagree strongly with these intellectual property clauses in dev contracts.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#93

Post by throwaway212017 »

willstepp wrote: post #18

I interviewed to be a Gigster about a year and a half ago, and was accepted, but the more I considered it and saw how gigs were distributed (at that time mostly via Slack messages) I got a bad feeling, like I was a dog in a pack, fighting over meat scraps. It was then I realized the gig economy is not all sunshine and roses. All that to say, this doesn't surprise me, that Gigster doesn't have its workers best interes…

It hasn't changed. Gigster PMs seem to be in charge of staffing projects, but the strategy for connecting developers with projects is vague. They seem to look for either people they have worked with before, or people who are active on Slack (so if you are, for example, an Android dev, the advice is to be active on the Android Slack channel). PMs as a group hoard information on projects: devs have almost no visibility into the current set of available, unstaffed gigs.

Another issue I feel I should bring up: Gigster has problems paying out on time. The contract specifies net-15 terms for payout, but I've personally had a payment delayed for a month beyond that, with no visibility into why or what was going on. I often see complaints on Slack from others of payouts delayed that long, or longer.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#94

Post by ryandrake »

ransom1538 wrote: post #72

I get the whole 'this isn't fair argument.' But these contracts impact peoples livelihood so I will attempt to help. First, don't respond to HR with a complex set of legal questions. They wont know the answer and will push back -- corporate attorneys will charge astronomical amounts and these questions could even get the board involved -- which the CEO usually doesn't want to do. My suggestions: 1) The strike: Print…

I've actually tried that cute "Strike out clauses from your employment agreement you don't like and sign THAT document" tactic with several past employers, and each of them pulled me aside my first or second day of work and gave me a stern and clear "Sign it unmodified or GTFO" talk. In my experience nothing in an employment contract is in any way negotiable. I don't even bother anymore--it's futile.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#95

Post by __jal »

StavrosK wrote: post #39

My standard reply to "oh we've never asked for someone's IP even though it's in the contract" is "great, then you won't mind me taking that term out, since you weren't using it anyway". Remember, if it's in the contract, it's what's happening. Let no amount of promises persuade you.

Yep. I've done similar. Once, I'm pretty sure I dodged a bullet, because the person I was talking to went from sunny and gladhanding to really frosty and stiff in one sentence. (To be clear, I doubt it was some calculated IP grab effort. I just took the demonstration to mean that any future conflict resolution would be a mess.)

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#96

Post by theli0nheart »

dqv wrote: post #90
theli0nheart wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Could you explain how the way he framed his questions was disagreeable to you? From my reading they were perfectly reasonable.

>So gigster can do something really awful and I can't seek damages? The implication made here is that the writer believes that gigster is going to "do something awful". The over all tone of the writing is offensive rather than defensive . In other words, the email is not written like he wants questions answered, but rather that he'd like to jump to conclusions. The responses to his inquiries leave much to be desired…

What he wrote was a statement of fact, not of opinion. Gigster can in fact do something really awful and there is no recourse. In any contract negotiation, sometimes you need to be clear what the problem is. If you, as a party to a contract, indeed feel like there is zero chance that other party will do anything to injure you, will keep to their promises, and has your best interests at heart, what is the point of the contract in the first place?

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#97

Post by geofft »

janwillemb wrote: post #92
pjc50 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ambiguous IP clause is very common in UK programmer employment contracts. I've had two experiences with it. Most recently, I was able to insert a clarifying clause that said "work not related to company's business and not done on company time/equipment doesn't count". Previously, I was working at a startup that didn't have this clause and employed a number of people who were Debian developers in their spare time.…

Quitting a job is a major, life-changing event for many devs and the question is whether such a clause in the contract is worth the trouble. That said, I disagree strongly with these intellectual property clauses in dev contracts.

Yes. That's why collective action is so important: a company can avoid the loss of a single employee much more than the single employee can afford the loss of a job, but a company can't avoid the loss of even a single department quite as easily, let alone all employees of a certain type.

It's insurance for bad management decisions, effectively. It's useful for all the reasons insurance is useful.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#98

Post by koolba »

nraynaud wrote: post #85
koolba wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I give a similar reply when being asked to remove an interest penalty clause for late payment. " We always pay our bills on time so there's no need for that! " " Great! In that case you don't have to worry about every paying it either so we'll leave it in! "

Here in France the minimal penalty rate is set by law, and it's mandatory to put it on every bill, with the payment terms now. It's part of a crackdown on big companies crushing the smaller ones with unreasonable payment times.

What's the min penalty? The usual one I add is something along the lines of:

"Late payments shall accrue interest that is compounded 1.5% per month or the maximum amount allowed by law, whichever is less..."

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#99

Post by danjoc »

donmatito wrote: post #52

"We never had a problem with this clause before, why would you want to change it?" Oh do I hate this line. But it's a two-way street. I'm very fortunate that for one of my first freelance gigs, I read the contract and specifically pointed out that I would be using personal/open sourced code snippets, and that I might want to reuse/open source some of the code I produced for them (only snippets with general interest).…

>I'm going to hold every other employer to the same standard "I never had a problem with this request with any other employer, why would you want to refuse?"

I love that! I'm totally going with that next time :D Also, I'll probably throw in something like, "I'm surprised you say nobody else has mentioned it. This problem applies to anyone using open source code, which is basically everyone. Do you really want to hire developers who pay so little attention to details?"

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#100

Post by knorker »

paulgb wrote: post #47
knorker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. Because with tens of thousands of employed engineers sometimes employees actually go "hey, I can improve this open source ad network search engine whose mission statement is to take business from google", and that is why they can't have nice things without getting a quick approval first.

The "quick approval" iirc involves emailing a VCS diff for every pull request for manual inspection. Google is a great employer but this is something I don't miss.

It's not as bad as that. It was never "every" and it's been improved a bit not too long ago too.
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