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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Personal projects at work
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Personal projects at work
2017-04-28, 8:45 PM #1
“I wish I had a job where I didn't have to do anything. I want to just show up to work and sit around until I get off work and can go home” Said the young adult a row behind me in the computer lab.
“I have that job, and that is what I hate most about it.” I responded to the bewilderment of the other students present.


Currently I'm the head of multimedia development at software company that produces point-of-sale and ticketing software for amusement parks and entertainment businesses.
Along with making brochures, fliers and other collateral I've worked on revamping the UX and UI of the flagship product to bring it up to date, and am in ongoing development for re-branding the company and creating a solid style sheet. However, I find that a majority of my time spent at work is staring into space waiting for an assignment, or approval to move forward on something else. I used to spend that time working on pet projects for the business aimed to boost the appeal of the company to a wider audience, but the lukewarm response from my higher-ups has left me disenchanted and I would rather not use my energy in dead-end pursuits.


So this is where I was coming from with my response. What got me was that everyone in the lab exploded into advice to work on my own projects. I countered that working on my own projects feels unethical.


Part of me thinks the problem is that everyone else in the room is lacking perspective because they are in their late teens to early twenties and might not have had the opportunity to land a boring desk job. I just hit 30 this year and in the last 6 years have had some extremely boring jobs that have all gone through long periods of inactivity. Through all of these jobs it has never felt right to work on my own art projects. I guess my main reason for posting is to ask if this is just me, or if there is a general feeling toward this. You all come from diverse fields, what are your thoughts and experiences with this kind of thing?
My blawgh.
2017-04-28, 8:56 PM #2
Your employer will end up owning anything you do at work, during normal working hours, or using their equipment. Your employer may also own anything you do in your spare time, depending on your employment agreement and state. Do not daylight. Talk to a lawyer before moonlighting.

Ethically, though, you're solid. Your employer violated the social contract first, by undervaluing your productivity and work ethic. You don't owe them anything.

Edit: Spelling. You probably are also ethnically solid, though. I don't imagine we get many liquids visiting this forum.
2017-04-29, 1:09 AM #3
I used to work in a group home, and after my duties I stole as much time as possible to work on homework. That was easy to rationalize though because the owner was a huge *******.

What Jon says is right though. Review the contract and speak to a lawyer.
2017-04-29, 7:26 AM #4
I've followed this advice, more or less: Don't do favors for the company because you won't get repaid.

But I try to be work well with other engineers, on a more personal basis, because help and knowledge should work both ways. But only on that level.

Now, when we say "spare time" in this thread, we are talking about pursuits outside the confines of the office/field?
SnailIracing:n(500tpostshpereline)pants
-----------------------------@%
2017-04-29, 8:04 AM #5
I wonder if my employer (Gouvernement de la Finlande) can lay (monetary) claims on some of my wacky high-larious Massassi Forum posts.
Star Wars: TODOA | DXN - Deus Ex: Nihilum
2017-04-29, 8:37 AM #6
Originally posted by Nikumubeki:
I wonder if my employer (Gouvernement de la Finlande) can lay (monetary) claims on some of my wacky high-larious Massassi Forum posts.


No.

Congrats! You can now cross that one off the list.
Looks like we're not going down after all, so nevermind.
2017-04-29, 8:41 AM #7
Originally posted by Jon`C:
Edit: Spelling. You probably are also ethnically solid, though. I don't imagine we get many liquids visiting this forum.


Why is this site so hostile to ethnically fluid individuals? I guess it's because Brian's a REPUBLICAN!

Seriously, though, I'm sure the lack of productivity at work also sucks a lot of your energy. It's strange, you would think that expending less energy means you have more when you're not at work but that's not how it works. At least not for me. Ethically, I don't see any difference working of your own stuff as opposed to not working at all, legalities aside. Under normal circumstances they would both be unethical however if there is truly no other work you could do that makes any sense for you to do in your position, go for it.
"I would rather claim to be an uneducated man than be mal-educated and claim to be otherwise." - Wookie 03:16

2017-05-01, 4:14 PM #8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeNDzbFv2f8
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2017-05-03, 1:21 PM #9
When I have absolutely nothing else to do, I work on non-profit personal projects that involve skills that might be applicable to my job down the road.
2017-05-05, 8:50 AM #10
Officially: Yes you shouldn't do personal projects during working hours. It's against your contract, etc, what everyone else said.


Unofficially: Is it impacting your work in any negative way? Could you implement what you learn from those projects in future work you do for the company? You could argue you're training yourself to use tools that might be beneficial to the company going forward. You might learn something from the project or be able to try approaches you couldn't ever trial for real work.


More importantly though, will your employer actually care? They must have a rough idea of what hours you actually work. Personally, I'd ask if I could go home if there were no more work or even just ask if they mind. If there genuinely is nothing for you to do for the company, I don't see why they wouldn't let you do whatever you want.
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2017-05-05, 10:14 AM #11
Originally posted by Ni:
Officially: Yes you shouldn't do personal projects during working hours. It's against your contract, etc, what everyone else said.


Unofficially: Is it impacting your work in any negative way? Could you implement what you learn from those projects in future work you do for the company? You could argue you're training yourself to use tools that might be beneficial to the company going forward. You might learn something from the project or be able to try approaches you couldn't ever trial for real work.


More importantly though, will your employer actually care? They must have a rough idea of what hours you actually work. Personally, I'd ask if I could go home if there were no more work or even just ask if they mind. If there genuinely is nothing for you to do for the company, I don't see why they wouldn't let you do whatever you want.


Story time!

Many years ago, there was a guy who worked for a small, regional hardware store chain. Every summer, he saw a crush of customers needing to build decks and fences, coming into his store asking for help. The customers didn't know what they were doing, they didn't know what to buy, or how much of it to buy. They came into the store, cash in hand, ready to pay a premium to make sure their project runs smoothly. Unfortunately, retail being retail, most of the people inside the store didn't know what they were doing either. The salespeople were floundering on big, expensive orders, and customers were leaving unhappy - well, more likely, they were returning and leaving unhappy several times, in order to buy the many small items they didn't anticipate needing.

This guy saw a great market opportunity. There's really no way to properly train retail workers to estimate decks and fences - but, estimating decks and fences is easy. Formulaic. It's easy enough that a computer could do it, as long as you know how big the deck is, or how many feet of fence you have to build. A software package like that would be a huge deal for hardware stores everywhere, and he could make a lot of money by writing and selling that software.

So, in his spare time, he wrote it.

Then he tried selling it to his employer.

And then he discovered his employment agreement, which he probably never bothered reading before signing, had a blanket IP assignment clause. Yes, even for retail workers, and yes, even for after-work projects. You see, unlike sensible jurisdictions like California, this particular region allowed employers to claim any IP produced by their workers, at any time, even if they are not being paid to do that work, even if that work was done in their free time. Our hero did too well selling the opportunity to his employer - they, too, recognized the opportunity, and exercised their ownership rights to the program. It became their backbone, their one competitive advantage against the much larger competitors who were entering the market around that time.

I don't know what happened to that guy, whether he got fired or quit on his own. All I know is that the he got nothing, and the owner of the company made millions.



The concern isn't that it's against your contract. The concern is that a successful side project can mean real dollars ($$$) and those dollars probably aren't going to go to you.
2017-05-05, 12:10 PM #12
Jon'C, I've hard stories like that before and have been pretty cautious about for-profit projects while working for other design based businesses, which has also made me question if a pseudonym would protect my work form a business with a similar contract to that of the guy in your story. My current job wouldn't likely have a use for anything I have, although the CEO owns a number of other businesses, and I have no idea if she would be able to confiscate any of my work for anything under her umbrella.

Ni, Something I've been doing to mitigate the boredom and make my time feel useful is to create files themed for my job with the intent to experiment with visual elements I can apply to some personal projects later. This works for my motion graphics, and graphic design skills, which are the base of my career path, but the things I want to do for larger projects involve character design, script writing, and editing short films which would be hard to justify to my bosses.

Wookie06 reflected pretty accurately what I feel about the whole situation. Often I spend the drive to work thinking about the contextual design work I might be doing at the office that day, but when I get to work I've built up all of this anticipation which is slowly deflated through the first hour while I'm trying to make myself busy and productive with no real aim or focused projects. After that the rest of the shift I just coast. Days like that I get home and have no drive for anything productive and waste the evening on video games.
Job security is nice though.
My blawgh.
2017-05-05, 12:25 PM #13
Originally posted by Phantom-Seraph:
Jon'C, I've hard stories like that before and have been pretty cautious about for-profit projects while working for other design based businesses, which has also made me question if a pseudonym would protect my work form a business with a similar contract to that of the guy in your story. My current job wouldn't likely have a use for anything I have, although the CEO owns a number of other businesses, and I have no idea if she would be able to confiscate any of my work for anything under her umbrella.


You need to talk to a lawyer now. Bring them a copy of your employment agreement(s).
2017-05-05, 2:33 PM #14
Jon is right. Speak to a lawyer, especially before you talk about anything you work on.

They won't know if you program something on your own time at home. But if you tell them you're coding something, you can't fudge any timelines. Which actually you shouldn't fudge the timelines, because it's unethical, but any contract like how Jon specified is unethical and amounts to legal robbery, and you're allowed to judge for yourself whether Hammurabi is an acceptable moral code.

Never lie except when your lawyer tells you to.
2017-05-05, 3:37 PM #15
Also, don't believe anything yourself, or say anything to your lawyer, until s/he tells you to. :P

(But that's probably more helpful in criminal defence.)
2017-05-05, 4:40 PM #16
Lol, people who lie to their lawyer are morons.
2017-05-05, 5:12 PM #17
Not if the client is guilty and the lawyer tells him that he only takes people who are telling the truth, and moreover, that the client ought not say anything whatsoever about the case until instructed to do so.

Plausible deniability.
2017-05-05, 5:30 PM #18
Originally posted by Reid:
Lol, people who lie to their lawyer are morons.


Conversely, suspects (guilty or not) who believe the statements made by police who are questioning them are... screwed.
2017-05-05, 5:32 PM #19
But I am sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread by confusing criminal law with civil. Ignore my posts.
2017-05-05, 5:49 PM #20
Sage advice.
"I would rather claim to be an uneducated man than be mal-educated and claim to be otherwise." - Wookie 03:16

2017-05-05, 5:53 PM #21
sage
2017-05-05, 7:40 PM #22
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Not if the client is guilty and the lawyer tells him that he only takes people who are telling the truth, and moreover, that the client ought not say anything whatsoever about the case until instructed to do so.

Plausible deniability.


Okay, sure, but you shouldn't do anything criminal anyway.
2017-05-05, 7:56 PM #23
  1. Everyone has a right to a lawyer
  2. Lawyers cannot necessarily distinguish between people who are innocent and those who are lying about their innocence
  3. No lawyer wants to do a bunch of research for a case only for his client to incriminate himself down the road. They don't just want to bill you, they want to win the case
  4. I am not talking about myself
2017-05-05, 8:00 PM #24
And, BTW, in the case of the anecdote from which I am drawing this experience, I know for a fact that this person was falsely accused and was innocent. The fact that the accusation was false didn't prevent him from potentially being radioactive material for his lawyer, so the lawyer proceeded with all the precautions I mentioned.
2017-05-05, 8:04 PM #25
In any case, even if you are facing potential criminal charges, more than enough lawyers are willing to play ball.
2017-05-05, 8:09 PM #26
That depends on how much money you want to spend on something so small as defending yourself against baseless battery accusations, and whether or not you think going with a sleezeball with billboards on the highway, rather than a local lawyer who is more selective with the clients he takes and is respected by the prosecution, is going to work out well for you.

Not everybody is O.J. Simpson.
2017-05-05, 8:11 PM #27
I rest my case.
2017-05-05, 8:11 PM #28
I think you might be better off being honest with a ****ty lawyer than lying to a good one. I'd trust their ability to lie more than my own.
2017-05-05, 8:14 PM #29
Wait, when did I say anything about how the client should lie (unless he really is guilty, which I have no experience in)?

I was explaining the behavior of the lawyer, given that he has no way of telling that you are not lying. They don't want you to unnecessarily incriminate yourself or muddy the case he is trying to build on your behalf.
2017-05-05, 8:18 PM #30
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Wait, when did I say anything about how the client should lie (unless he really is guilty, which I have no experience in)?

I was explaining the behavior of the lawyer, given that he has no way of telling that you are not lying. They don't want you to unnecessarily incriminate yourself or muddy the case he is trying to build on your behalf.


Originally posted by Reid:
Lol, people who lie to their lawyer are morons.


Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Not if the client is guilty and the lawyer tells him that he only takes people who are telling the truth, and moreover, that the client ought not say anything whatsoever about the case until instructed to do so.

Plausible deniability.


Unless I'm misreading something?
2017-05-05, 8:21 PM #31
I said that to explain the behavior of the lawyer that even innocent people will be able to hire. Because of the way lies work, they can't distibguish between you and the liars, so you end up following the same "plausible deniability" protocol.
2017-05-05, 8:29 PM #32
Ah, okay. Well don't hire a lawyer like that if you're guilty.
2017-05-05, 8:35 PM #33
Heh. Well at any rate I don't have experience in CYA legal stuff for something I did in a corporate setting, let alone a criminal prosecution where I was guilty.

To bring the thread back on track, I mainly wanted to point out that what your legal adversaries don't know about, cannot hurt you. Of course this gets complicated when you actually want to do something with the IP at risk.

It sounds though like Phantom-Seraph is either going to need to reach a legal agreement with his employer before he goes forward, or at least hire a lawyer to advise. At any rate, it's best to keep it hush-hush until legal counsel can provide a strategy.

His contract probably gives all IP to his employer.
2017-05-05, 8:41 PM #34
I just checked my graduate University's rules regarding IP, any University research related IP is split, with 35% going to the innovators. Not a bad gig.
2017-05-05, 8:42 PM #35
The other route is to line up another job, and threaten to leave if they don't release the IP for some work you went ahead and did when it technically belonged to them. This would require not being replaceable, and also being on good terms with the corporate owners (good luck if the company is publicly traded), and may not even work, especially since I have no idea what I'm talking about.
2017-05-05, 8:45 PM #36
Originally posted by Reid:
I just checked my graduate University's rules regarding IP, any University research related IP is split, with 35% going to the innovators. Not a bad gig.


Does that include stuff that is unrelated to research in abstract algebra? And is programming considered ⊂ computer science ⊂ theory of semigroups ⊂ math anyway?
2017-05-05, 8:45 PM #37
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Does that include stuff that is unrelated to research in abstract algebra? And is programming ⊂ computer science ⊂ theory of semigroups ⊂ math?


Nope.
2017-05-05, 8:49 PM #38
I hate to break it to you, but I am not sure 35% (let alone 100%) of research in pure math is going to amount to any IP. As in, you can't even legally own pure math, AFIAK.

In other words, you will never pay any of that royalty, no matter what you come up with.
2017-05-05, 8:53 PM #39
I think they might own a stake in a search engine algorithm you come up with....
Quote:
The name "PageRank" plays off of the name of developer Larry Page, as well as the concept of a web page.[12] The word is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.[13][14]
2017-05-05, 8:53 PM #40
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Does that include stuff that is unrelated to research in abstract algebra? And is programming considered ⊂ computer science ⊂ theory of semigroups ⊂ math anyway?


There's plenty of projects mathematicians can glom onto. I'm working on a software package with some chemical engineers which is potentially commercializable.
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