[pkteison]

Monetized: Management must approve. Doubt they do, haven't asked.

Hobby: Not allowed to do anything similar to what employer does. Got an official opinion from legal that employer programs, working on a videogame mod is programming (although employer does not program videogames), so therefore I'm not allowed to work on a videogame mod. I'm not certain the employee manual agrees with the official opinion from legal, but I'm not really in a position to be able to disagree.

So, well, no side gigs. It's just something you have to agree to for this job, and it's a good job, so such is life. Maybe you could do it and hope they don't find out, but they have clear documented grounds to fire you if they do, so why risk a good job?

At least there isn't any non-compete. If I don't like the rules, I can always quit and go work somewhere else. Before this west coast job, every prior programming job I had was on the east coast and involved some sort of non-compete agreement (they tended to be slightly limited, like you can't work at these 5 competitors or you can't leave to work for a client, but 'slightly limited' can actually be highly limiting when those 5 competitors are the best employers for your specific expertise).

[simplecomplex]

> Got an official opinion from legal that employer programs, working on a videogame mod is programming

Don’t trust anything the company lawyer says. They work for the company, not you. They will lie to you to protect the company.

“Everything you do is property of company” has never held up in court and is just legal bullying. If you’re not actually stealing company IP and using it at a competitor it’s all BS.

video game mods? Unless the company is a video game studio that’s a croc of shit.

[pkteison]

This actually isn't the "all your base are belong to us" situation. This is "we will stop employing you if you do [x]", not "we will own [x]". That's a much, much, much lower bar. They are legally not required to have cause to fire me, so being right doesn't help.

So, sure, I would own the videogame mod if I did it on my own time with my own resources. But I could also be out of a job. Being right but unemployed doesn't sound comforting - I like the job, and they've been up front about the terms, and I'd rather quit if I find them sufficiently unacceptable than risk being fired.

Edit: It actually looks like moonlighting is officially protected here, but conflicts are still disallowed, so I guess it's possible it could end up in court debating whether programming is a conflict. I already have the opinion of one side in writing (yes, it is a conflict, they claim), but at least it might be debatable.

Still, not particularly anxious to end up in court arguing that somebody should be forced to continue employing me after I did something they told me not to do on the grounds that they shouldn't have told me not to do it... complicated mess.

[newdaynewuser]

I had a coworker who for whatever reason asked legal department if he could write a novel. They, of course, said he can but most likely the company will own it.

Having friends who are business lawyers, I asked them how is this fair. They said 90% of the time people who ask these questions are time wasters, and legal departments are so used to it that they send generic canned response initially. If someone is serious they will continue conversation, hopefully, also get their own attorney. Or they will just do it like most of the founders we read about.

[icedchai]

Why would you even ask if you can work on a video game mod if it has nothing to do with your employer's business? You can do what you want with your own brain, on your own time, with your own equipment.

[pkteison]

I have an employment agreement which their lawyers believe says otherwise and I like my job.

[icedchai]

That's fair, but I'd simply ignore it. You will likely not be discovered working on a hobby project. If you are, nobody will even care enough to follow up. If they do follow up, you will likely get a "talking to" and still keep your job: a slap on the wrist. However, because you bothered to talk to their lawyers, you've now brought attention to yourself...