> No employment contract says that you can't work on your own projects in your free time.
Some try. I don't think anyone believes that's enforceable. Unless, as noted in the post, you use company hardware.
I have, in the past, mixed company and personal devices - not laptops (I'm not that silly), but I'll have my personal accounts on a corp phone for convenience during the day, or blend accounts onto a single device if I'm in a beta for software or hardware.
And I've decided it's a bad idea that I will not be engaging in at any point in the future, for several reasons.
* Depending on the company, it's hard to get your personal account split out of the company plan. I merged my personal cell number into a corporate account... oh, 15 years or so ago, and it turns out it's a giant pain to split that out again. It took multiple signatures from owners of the company after I'd left for grad school, and it was just a pain.
* It is so much harder to separate work and personal life when you have mixed devices. Pick up your phone on the weekend, and... ooh, work email. Or messages. If you're not oncall, and not paid to keep up with it, it's a lot nicer to put your corp device down at the end of your week and pick it up at the start of the next, having entirely ignored it during the weekend (whatever that is for you).
* Policy at most corporations is that if a corp account is on a device, the company has some variety of admin access to the device for forensics, remote wipe, etc. I'd rather not wake up to my personal phone wiped because of some corporate reason.
So, yes. I agree 100% with this article. Work hardware is work hardware. Personal hardware is personal hardware. And the two should never be mixed, even if it's a hair more convenient to do so. The downsides just suck.
>But one day, a colleague spots Bob working on his project during work hours and informs his manager about this little stint
Bob's problem was using his work hours to work on his personal side projects.
While there is some truth to this, generally companies don't go after you unless they have a reason. Every company I've been at (before founding my own), my employer (who, among others, was a big4) wouldn't have blinked an eye for me programming side projects on my work laptop.
Licensing aside, which is its own hot-topic.
Some try. I don't think anyone believes that's enforceable. Unless, as noted in the post, you use company hardware.
I have, in the past, mixed company and personal devices - not laptops (I'm not that silly), but I'll have my personal accounts on a corp phone for convenience during the day, or blend accounts onto a single device if I'm in a beta for software or hardware.
And I've decided it's a bad idea that I will not be engaging in at any point in the future, for several reasons.
* Depending on the company, it's hard to get your personal account split out of the company plan. I merged my personal cell number into a corporate account... oh, 15 years or so ago, and it turns out it's a giant pain to split that out again. It took multiple signatures from owners of the company after I'd left for grad school, and it was just a pain.
* It is so much harder to separate work and personal life when you have mixed devices. Pick up your phone on the weekend, and... ooh, work email. Or messages. If you're not oncall, and not paid to keep up with it, it's a lot nicer to put your corp device down at the end of your week and pick it up at the start of the next, having entirely ignored it during the weekend (whatever that is for you).
* Policy at most corporations is that if a corp account is on a device, the company has some variety of admin access to the device for forensics, remote wipe, etc. I'd rather not wake up to my personal phone wiped because of some corporate reason.
So, yes. I agree 100% with this article. Work hardware is work hardware. Personal hardware is personal hardware. And the two should never be mixed, even if it's a hair more convenient to do so. The downsides just suck.