> I am somewhat surprised at your stance above when it comes to what an > Employer seems to "owe" an Employee, or what an Employee has the "right" to > be able to do at the expense of his Employers time and resources. > > But then again, quite possibly you only consider this where other Employers > are concerned. Are you this liberal when you are the employer? See below.
I don't consider it being liberal, I consider it being fair. I once had an employee who was an amateur musician. He was even a pro for a while back in the early 90's - unfortunately the music scene shifted and his (heavy metal) band became an anachronism just as it was getting noticed. You know the lyrics in AC/DC's song "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution", where the singer says "Rock and roll will never die..." Well, I got news for you pal, it's dead! It died in the early 90's. I haven't been able to listen to top 40 radio for over 10 years now. But I digress. And no, he was not a band member in AC/DC. Anyway, I hired this guy because he was an electronics buff. He had 2 years of vocational tech schooling, in addition to building circuits at home and repairing guitar amps and electronic instruments. He told me of his quest to build the perfect noise gate, compressor/limiter, tube amp, etc. He would ask me my opinions about circuitry. And we would enjoy these discussions during lunch and breaks. Now if he came up with some music gizmo he invented at home on his own time, I don't feel like I would own the rights to it. I even let him borrow one of the scopes for a while until he bought his own. But if any of what he did required design time from me (other than tips and advice during lunch and breaks), then I would feel like I had some ownership of it. I have enough ideas and creativity to make my own fortune. I don't need to rip off someone else's hard work to get there. And if my former employee makes it big someday with an electronic music instrument gizmo, I'm happy for him. As for me, I'll stick to embedded computers and control systems for now. As far as ex-employees going into competition, that is on a case-by-base basis. If the former employee started producing DOS Stamp clones, then I would take action against him. But if he starts making his own design based on an 8051, SH3, or some other CPU we've never used before, that's nothing to get riled about, because he didn't steal my IP to make it. > By the way, what would you yourself do if your own little Company needed to > get a certain job done for a Customer, and you walked up behind one of your > employees who was supposed to be working on this job, and you found him > working on his own little project, on your time, and you realized just by > looking at what he was doing, that he had to have spent the last three days > working on his own little project? > > What would you really do? I'd fire his ass. That is not the same thing as working on one's own project on one's own time. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "JaMi Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Protel EDA Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "JaMi Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 7:37 PM Subject: Re: [PEDA] OT employer topics WAS: License Legalities * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
