6 ms·

To me the worst part is the `100% of the time` interpretation.. Seriously I thought my employment agreement mentioned only 40 hrs a week??.. Unless it has expli

To me the worst part is the `100% of the time` interpretation.. Seriously I thought my employment agreement mentioned only 40 hrs a week??.. Unless it has explicit clauses to mention to contributing to VNIC without IBM ID, this is just some one interpreting legal rule for their convenience or what they wanto make a stand of.

mike_d 6y ago
You might be an hourly employee or a contractor. Most don't. Your "employee handbook" likely mentions not causing damage to the company brand or taking any action detrimental to the company even in your personal time.
- gspr 6y ago
  Should be easy enough to fix with a statement along the lines of "this code is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by my employer".
  - mike_d 6y ago
    Definitely ask your HR department if they think that is sufficient.
    - gspr 6y ago
      Stupid jurisdiction if writing code on your free time with an explicit disclaimer that it has nothing to do with Company can be construed as hurting Company's image.
virgilp 6y ago
While working for the previous employer (multinational corporation), my contract had a clause that any work/personal projects that I do outside work must be approved, in writing. Doesn't matter if I only work on them outside working hours. Their justification was that the rest of the time is for me to rest/ I was employed full-time, so they were not comfortable with me e.g. working a second job & being tired at work. It does sound like a bit of an overreach, and I'm not sure how enforceable their contract really was, but the language was unambiguous and unsanctioned contributions to open source projects were definitely out of the question. (I'm currently working at a startup, they don't have this problem/ contributions to OSS are encouraged, I just have too much work to do already :D )
- hvidgaard 6y ago
  I think the argument is that you gain some specialized knowledge at work, so they want to prevent you from working on a competing product using that knowledge, personal, OSS or otherwise. At some point a lawyer probably reduced the sentence to simply require approval in writing for anything to avoid any expensive disputes.
  - virgilp 6y ago
    No, they had that one too, it's the non-compete clause basically (it extends a few years after your employment terminates, if I'm not wrong). Again, not sure it's enforceable, I'm not aware of them ever trying to. Probably they might if you were in a leadership position and tried to outright move to a direct competitor? But I never heard of it used for a "regular" employee so I basically ignored its existence.
- joepie91_ 6y ago
  Personally, at that point I would start demanding 24/7 pay coverage. You don't get to tell me what I can or cannot do outside of the hours that you're paying for.
  - jpcooper 6y ago
    You are right. Such demands are written in a contract. You either sign or not.
    - joepie91_ 6y ago
      In all honesty, this should not even be possible to require in a contract (and I'm fairly sure that it indeed isn't, in most EU countries), considering that employment contracts are negotiated from a position of power imbalance.
      - virgilp 6y ago
        I'm in the EU; I mentioned that I don't think the verbiage was really enforceable, but that can't stop them from putting it in. Fortunately it never came to be tested in a court of law :)
mnd999 6y ago
When I was an intern at IBM the contract basically said they owned everything you produce, whether you do it in the office or not. They seemed to take that quite seriously. I think it’s an IP thing, they view it as their IP the employee is contributing so it should be in their name. This was ~20 years ago but it seems not much has changed.
- kungito 6y ago
  The reason why they do this is because you could pretend your are working for them but actually do something else on the side during the time they are paying you. The only way to avoid is is by completely banning other work. It really makes sense from their side
  - vasco 6y ago
    You could, and then you either are still able to deliver an amount of work that makes them happy, in which case, why do they care - or you can't deliver an acceptable amount of work and they can fire you for performance. No need to own 100% of anyone's time.
    - mnd999 6y ago
      The third option is that you do something really cool that contractually they own. Be very careful with side projects under these types of contracts.
  - watt 6y ago
    This makes zero sense, and sounds more corporate slave-ownership. If you are going to pay the going hourly rate for 168 hours a week, yeah maybe there's something. But if you only pay for 40 hours a week, that's what you get: not a single minute outside of that. And especially not something the person did or invented at home.
    - mnd999 6y ago
      It's pretty common in the industry to have these type of IP clauses. I get the impression most people don't read their contract.

mike_d 6y ago

You might be an hourly employee or a contractor. Most don't. Your "employee handbook" likely mentions not causing damage to the company brand or taking any action detrimental to the company even in your personal time.

gspr 6y ago
Should be easy enough to fix with a statement along the lines of "this code is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by my employer".
- mike_d 6y ago
  Definitely ask your HR department if they think that is sufficient.
  - gspr 6y ago
    Stupid jurisdiction if writing code on your free time with an explicit disclaimer that it has nothing to do with Company can be construed as hurting Company's image.

virgilp 6y ago

While working for the previous employer (multinational corporation), my contract had a clause that any work/personal projects that I do outside work must be approved, in writing. Doesn't matter if I only work on them outside working hours. Their justification was that the rest of the time is for me to rest/ I was employed full-time, so they were not comfortable with me e.g. working a second job & being tired at work. It does sound like a bit of an overreach, and I'm not sure how enforceable their contract really was, but the language was unambiguous and unsanctioned contributions to open source projects were definitely out of the question. (I'm currently working at a startup, they don't have this problem/ contributions to OSS are encouraged, I just have too much work to do already :D )

hvidgaard 6y ago
I think the argument is that you gain some specialized knowledge at work, so they want to prevent you from working on a competing product using that knowledge, personal, OSS or otherwise. At some point a lawyer probably reduced the sentence to simply require approval in writing for anything to avoid any expensive disputes.
- virgilp 6y ago
  No, they had that one too, it's the non-compete clause basically (it extends a few years after your employment terminates, if I'm not wrong). Again, not sure it's enforceable, I'm not aware of them ever trying to. Probably they might if you were in a leadership position and tried to outright move to a direct competitor? But I never heard of it used for a "regular" employee so I basically ignored its existence.
joepie91_ 6y ago
Personally, at that point I would start demanding 24/7 pay coverage. You don't get to tell me what I can or cannot do outside of the hours that you're paying for.
- jpcooper 6y ago
  You are right. Such demands are written in a contract. You either sign or not.
  - joepie91_ 6y ago
    In all honesty, this should not even be possible to require in a contract (and I'm fairly sure that it indeed isn't, in most EU countries), considering that employment contracts are negotiated from a position of power imbalance.
    - virgilp 6y ago
      I'm in the EU; I mentioned that I don't think the verbiage was really enforceable, but that can't stop them from putting it in. Fortunately it never came to be tested in a court of law :)

mnd999 6y ago

When I was an intern at IBM the contract basically said they owned everything you produce, whether you do it in the office or not. They seemed to take that quite seriously. I think it’s an IP thing, they view it as their IP the employee is contributing so it should be in their name. This was ~20 years ago but it seems not much has changed.

kungito 6y ago
The reason why they do this is because you could pretend your are working for them but actually do something else on the side during the time they are paying you. The only way to avoid is is by completely banning other work. It really makes sense from their side
- vasco 6y ago
  You could, and then you either are still able to deliver an amount of work that makes them happy, in which case, why do they care - or you can't deliver an acceptable amount of work and they can fire you for performance. No need to own 100% of anyone's time.
  - mnd999 6y ago
    The third option is that you do something really cool that contractually they own. Be very careful with side projects under these types of contracts.
- watt 6y ago
  This makes zero sense, and sounds more corporate slave-ownership. If you are going to pay the going hourly rate for 168 hours a week, yeah maybe there's something. But if you only pay for 40 hours a week, that's what you get: not a single minute outside of that. And especially not something the person did or invented at home.
  - mnd999 6y ago
    It's pretty common in the industry to have these type of IP clauses. I get the impression most people don't read their contract.