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Frankly I find working for a direct competitor in your off hours to be highly unethical and have no issues with employers trying to ban it in the contract. You'
by tensor 9y ago
Frankly I find working for a direct competitor in your off hours to be highly unethical and have no issues with employers trying to ban it in the contract. You're no more entitled to do whatever you want than you are to be employed. It's fair for you to want to work for direct competitors, and it's also fair for employers not to hire you if this is your demand.
- mikeash 9y agoWhat's wrong with it exactly? If I hired a flooring company to lay down some hardwood, I'm not going to tell them "now, don't go doing flooring for my competition for the duration of this job." What's the difference? You're right that it's fair for employers not to hire me if this is my demand. I never meant to imply otherwise. Employers can require all sorts of terrible things. Our recourse is mostly to either negotiate or put up with it.
- StavrosK 9y ago> What's the difference? The difference is that you didn't spend lots of money researching a better type of floor-laying and then have the flooring company come in to lay the hardwood according to your specs. If you had, you might want to protect that secret.
- ue_ 9y agoThen they should protect that with non-disclosure agreements, or realise that they can't survive as a business (or don't want to) without restricting the freedom of the workers to do what they want to outside of the time paid to the employee in the form of wage. I have little or no sympathy for businesses which insist on restricting freedom outside of those hours for which it pays me wage.
- StavrosK 9y agoI agree, I'm just playing devil's advocate.
- mikeash 9y agoIs "don't put down flooring for our competition during this job" really going to prevent that?
- aquadrop 9y agoWould you hire a lawyer who says "I'm working working for you for those hours you pay me, in my other time I'm working for the guy you're suing"? The problem is conflict of interest, I think working for direct competitor is very unethical (of course direct competitor is sometimes vague term, but that's another discussion).
- tensor 9y agoThis difference is that in any practical capacity if you are doing this you are almost 100% giving out trade secrets. It's almost impossible not to. Also, your analogy is wrong. It would be that you are a flooring company and one of your workers is working for both you and your competitor, and no doubt using any clever techniques or processes that you've come up with to help out your competitor. The software industry is big enough that you can definitely find secondary employment at a company that isn't direct competitor. That you want to apparently game multiple parties for your own gain seems like a pretty terrible thing from the employer side of the fence. Once the company I work for had an employee from a direct competitor apply for a job with us immediately after quitting. They were pretty forthcoming with offering us intel on the competitor, presumably within their contract. We still turned them down because if someone has that little respect for a working relationship with their previous employer you can be sure that they will do the same to you. People here often like to paint the picture of the people versus evil corporations. In reality, a job is something where you should have mutual respect between employees and employers. To me and many others, this is part of being a professional.
- mikeash 9y agoI think "mutual respect" means that, if a company doesn't want me giving out trade secrets, then they write a clause into the contract that says "don't give away our trade secrets, thanks." Writing in a broad restriction about how I can spend my non-working hours, just because they're afraid I might do something unethical (and probably illegal), isn't respectful.
- dschndstryr 9y agoIf you're just a code monkey this comparison would be correct.
- bbcbasic 9y agoMaybe the moral issue is beside the point? Why sign something that restricts you and potentially opens you to a suit if you can get it removed?
- schrodinger 9y agoI think the problem is that "competitor" may be very loosely defined.
- emodendroket 9y agoI can see that, but "competitors" is often defined so vaguely that it could apply to essentially anyone.
- lrem 9y agoIt becomes problematic when"competitor" is "anyone making or using software". As my country does not ban non-compete clauses, the most technical thing I can safely do off the clock is carpentry.
- lrem 9y agoIt becomes problematic when"competitor" is "anyone making or using software". As my country does not ban non-compete clauses, the most technical thing I can safely do off the clock is carpentry.