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Comment by iExploder | Hacker News Reader

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.

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There's absolutely nothing immoral about practicing your craft outside of "work hours."

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.

I agree with you, but my interpretation of the comment you're replying to is that they're saying working on personal projects _within_ work hours, "on company's times and hardware", is "immoral". They didn't say anything about working on personal projects outside of work.

I like your interpretation better than mine, though I'm not sure it changes too much of what I said.

That's in part because what I consider to be "immoral" is likely different than the OP. I could be an anarchist that believes the only moral act is to undermine my employer. Or I could be so dedicated to my employer that I'd consider merely thinking negative thoughts about them immoral.

In the end, it's not about what's "immoral", it's about what's legal. Which, of course, depends on where you live and how smart your lawyers are.

It's not immoral at all, but I agree it is very dangerous. My job at the companies benefited immensely from what I learned when working on my personal projects, and naturally the other way around. But of course I never brought my code at the company (although I had in a couple occasions done the opposite in emergency situations with the company knowing, a few days I never billed them for but contributed to a good raise afterwards - dear old times when handshakes were often enough). Bringing your code at the company today is very very dangerous, and i mean just bringing it in, not working on it during company time on company's hardware. Don't do that.

Many employment contracts are phrased in such a way as to say that the company owns ALL your creative output. Whether that's enforceable depends on jurisdiction, so hire a good lawyer before working on that side project, disclose it to your employer and get it cleared by their legal department.

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.

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”.

> It seems the underlying assumption is that every second belongs to the company while you’re “on the clock”

this assumption is correct for vast majority of employed people

you would have to refer to your specific employment contract. for me personally it always stated the amount of hours I'm expected to be working per day or month.

spoken gentle-human's agreement is one thing, what is written in the contract is another and always legally binding...

I would like to hear someone tell their boss they spend 1 or more hours every day working on a personal project on company's time, if its not dishonest it should not be a problem and will be met with praise and compliments I'm sure...

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.

This is my thinking about time.

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.

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

Yeah if you interview in the US for a tech job typically they will tell you that they have "occasional" overtime. I've seen occasional range from a couple times a week to a couple times a year, always unpaid. You are being paid for filling a role, not a specific set of hours. People talk about how "my boss doesn't care so long as I get the work done" as a benefit but it's actually how the salary arrangement is supposed to work legally speaking. Many roles are misclassified as salaried-exempt (You are paid a salary, and exempt from the overtime laws) in order to step around overtime, there are specific requirements around it like you having enough ability to influence your work in a managerial or creative capacity.

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.

how does one measure how much work can employer extract from employee if position is 'filling a role' as opposed to having an agreement for amount of hours per day?

The minimum wage always applies, so you'd have to pay at least [168 * $7.25] $1218 per week if you wanted someone to work 24/7 365. Had the minimum wage kept up with inflation that would've been somewhat of a limiting factor. The primary limiting factor is "at will employment", that is a doctrine where you do not owe your employer any notice when you wish to leave your job. So if they tell you "Work 100 hours a week" you can tell them "no" and leave without legal consequences. In practice there is a informal understanding that you will provide a employer with two weeks notice when you leave, and they will often give you a poor professional reference if you do not oblige them.

Another wrinkle is most workers aren't really aware of the legalities of salaried work, you'll see people making statements like the OP here about "company time" for example. Originally the arrangement was designed for people like CEOs and executives of companies where it wouldn't make sense to track hours as they had a stake in the company, but it has been expanded mostly to side step things like mandatory overtime pay.

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