8 ms·

On the other other hand, ask for forgiveness not permission.

• WalterBright 4y ago
  More than one person has come to me with a story that they'd developed a side project without notifying their employer, and now that it was done and they were distributing it were worried their employer was going to claim ownership. I didn't have anything helpful to say. I've done side projects when I was working for Big Corps, but in every case notified management beforehand and got a written ok. Never had any trouble with it. When I've accepted job offers, I'd also provide a list of projects that were mine and had them sign off on it as a condition of employment. Never encountered any resistance to that, either. But these poor people were sweating bullets imagining all the bad consequences of their employer finding out. Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee, they'll say ok. Never heard of one saying no. And they'll appreciate that you asked instead of sneaking around. But be careful not to use company equipment.
  • zarmin 4y ago
    How about, thoroughly read your employment agreement (and everything you sign). > Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee That is a massive, massive if.
    • krick 4y ago
      Yeah, well, no. Realistically no one ever will fight or most likely even decline a good job offer over a typical employment contract, and no employer will ever change a typical employment contract specially for you, unless you are somehow preemptively assumed to be a very valuable employee, in which case you are most likely being hired for some very high-level (like, executive) position, so your contract isn't "typical" to start with. And this is far less likely than actually becoming a valuable employee just by doing your quite ordinary job for a few years. You might as well recommend fighting over your gym membership contract, of a bank contract, or a telecom operator contract. Right, it's your free choice, uh-huh. Either you accept it as is, or you go fuck yourself and workout at home, without internet, looking for a job where you'll be paid in cash (which also is far from being common). Again, unless you are preemptively perceived to be a very special customer (i.e. "expected to bring in a lot of money"), in which case your contract probably isn't typical to start with. And it is most likely your lawyer who negotiates over it for you anyway.
      • flir 4y ago
        I must have had half a dozen contracts tweaked over the course of my career. Small things, of course, like making IP rights more explicit and changing notice periods. I can assure you I'm not that valuable. Weird.
        • WalterBright 4y ago
          Saying a contract is "non-negotiable" is just another negotiating tactic. They're all negotiable.
      • WalterBright 4y ago
        How do you explain that I've negotiated lots of these "take it or leave it" contracts? The only contracts you can't negotiate are government job contracts and union jobs. Which is one reason I'm not interested in either of those job categories. > bank contract Haha, I once negotiated a large loan from my bank at an interest a full percent below their official floor. I'm not even very good at negotiating, some people I know are much better. > telecom contract Have you ever said the magic words: "that sounds high, can I get this for a lower price?" The salesmen are allowed to negotiate. The initial price they quote you is the sucker price. Every time I've been to the dealer for car work, all I have to do is balk at the quote and 10% comes right off. This is not a special skill. Anybody can do it. Fer gosh's sake, you're expected to negotiate.
        • shard 4y ago
          I'd love to hear your techniques. I haven't had success with trying to negotiate telecom contracts. When I balked at the price, the salesman would sometimes offer a contract with lower levels of services along with the price reduction. And typically, it's more costly per unit of service, so not much of a bargain.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      I do. Every word.
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        Everybody should. The number of times I would have been bitten if not for my bad habit of reading 'standard' contracts before signing them can't be counted on one hand any more.
  • toast0 4y ago
    > Just ask, in advance. If you're a valuable employee, they'll say ok. Never heard of one saying no. And they'll appreciate that you asked instead of sneaking around Yahoo told me I couldn't participate in the Netflix recommendation challenge (not that I would have done well), and then 6 months later praised another Yahoo employee who did well in it. #notstillbitter
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      Yah, you have good cause to be bitter about that.
    • hollerith 4y ago
      The decisionmaker who praised is probably different from the one who told you no.
    • egorfine 4y ago
      Have you got that "no" in written?
      • toast0 4y ago
        It was in writting, yes. I don't think I still have access to it: I don't keep archives of employer email, but I did use yahoo-inc email from mail.yahoo.com, as was allowed and sometimes encouraged, from time to time, and continue to have some access to old work emails through that; this chain of mail could be in there, but I'm not going to look for the same reason I haven't purged all that. It's too much effort and I don't care enough.
  • mhaberl 4y ago
    Doesn’t it bother you that you have to ask some manager if you can do something (a side project) in your free time? It sounds as you are their slave, and not an employee who works x hours per month for y amount of money. Imagine a baker that has to ask the boss if he/she can bake a loaf of bread at home
    • topkai22 4y ago
      If that baker intends to sell that bread they also may run afoul of non competes. See https://www.eater.com/2017/10/13/16459044/non-competes-chefs-how-do-they-work https://www.eater.com/2017/10/13/16459044/non-competes-chefs...
      • tuxie_ 4y ago
        It's their free time, they can do whatever they want with it. If there is something unlawful or disloyal well then you deal with that situation, but you can't tell someone "I will tell you what you can do in your free time just in case you may do something I don't like". Also, let's be honest, how much harm can a 1 person project do to a multi billion corp? It's a fallacy.
    • jhallenworld 4y ago
      Well I had kind of the reverse situation: I wanted to contribute to Cygwin, owned by RedHat. RedHat would not accept my contributions unless I got a signed release from my employer, IBM at the time. Well I tried to get this signed release, but all I got was the run-around. Nobody would bother taking the risk. It's one of the reasons I left.
      • WalterBright 4y ago
        It's a good reason to leave, if the separate project is important to you.
    • usrn 4y ago
      I've just been accumulating all my contributions for when I quit or come up with a good enough alias to contribute them under.
  • foobarian 4y ago
    It's complicated. If your contract says you can't do it, that means there is a legal path toward stopping you if someone bothers. That means someone has to care enough, which means that as long as you don't piss anyone off and don't get too much press you'll be fine. If you ask, it is in nobody's interest to say yes especially lawyers.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      And yet I never had any trouble getting a 'yes'. One of those companies was Boeing - as big and bureaucratic as they get.
  • AndrewDavis 4y ago
    Or, ensure that it is in your contract eliminating the need to ask. For example my employment contract states (I'm paraphrasing), anything I do outside of work I own copyright on. And anything I do for work is owned by work.
  • Asmod4n 4y ago
    I wonder if there is more than one country in the world where it’s possible for companies to own their workers like this. In Germany for example you can’t give away the copyright on something you wrote as a person. The only thing you can waive is the distribution part of your copyrighted works. What you do outside your work hours is only subject to the law, not an employee.
    • tuxie_ 4y ago
      This doesn't stop companies from putting it in their contacts to scare you though. I worked at a FAANG in Berlin and that clause was _the_ reason I almost don't sign.
      • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Unenforceable clauses are part and parcel of the typical employment contract in France. Non-compete are the one of the most common offenders. I have seen companies try to enforce hours while paying by the day - two incompatibles provision in French labour law. Most employers know they would lose if it came to the worst but they try anyway.
  • tombert 4y ago
    I might not have been a valuable employee, but I tried making a Plex clone in my free time when I was at Apple, asked if I could open source it, went all the way to the VP of tech to ask permission, just to be uncerimoniously told that it was not allowed, because they "really wanted me to be fully focused on Apple". I'm not sure I agree at all that they'll say "ok" just because you're a valuable employee; I think you might have gotten lucky at your BigCorps.
    • ncmncm 4y ago
      Apple will be Apple. But there are lots of other places to be.
  • dylan604 4y ago
    I always refer to the Apple=>Woz=>HP story where Woz went to his employer 3 separate times to seek their blessing and receiving an a-okay each time that his involvement with Apple was not going to be contested by HP. DOH!
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      One of the reasons why Woz is a smart cookie. Think of all the problems Apple could have had if he didn't.
      • dylan604 4y ago
        Woz is an absolute hero of mine, and if you're reading HN and he's not a hero of yours, then, boy, I don't know.
  • starfallg 4y ago
    It really depends on the organisation, but from my observation (I, myself, never developed any side projects worth releasing so this is based on what others did), most large organisations are not like that. Legal and HR specifically are very risk averse, so permission is usually denied by default, unless there is a overriding benefit to the company (or someone else to take the hit when things go wrong, a very cynical take I know). Ethically speaking, I would think that as a principle, employees should never agree to ask the employer for permission to do things in their own time, for their own purposes, outside of the area of the business. Employees are just that, employees, not indentured servants. There are duties owed by employee to employer (and vice-versa) but this should not be one of them.
• hodgesrm 4y ago
  It's a little more nuanced than that. Developing home nuclear reactors is an example where the approach might not benefit society at large. Edit: Comment is off-topic but I've heard this phrase so many times it's triggering.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• strix_varius 4y ago
  I would generally say, "ask for forgiveness not permission if you'll be fine walking back your decision later." Forgiveness often makes sense at work, at least for software engineers, and for modest decisions. Do things the way you think is best instead of getting blocked for weeks looking for permission. If, later on, someone comes knocking and wanting to change it, fine, whatever. However, taking the "forgiveness" route with more important / harder to change / expensive things - like building some addition to your house, building a software business separate your software job - is a recipe for disaster.