A former manager, who has not spoken to me for 5 years and who is still at the company I left 5 years ago has got in touch to ask if I could help update an IT project that I cobbled together about 10 years ago.
(I was not employed in IT but the couple of thousand or so lines of code wasn't that difficult and there was no one else to do it and at the time it made my and a lot of other peoples' work a lot easier!)
They don't expect to compensate me to help them and they are certainly not recruiting! The help would require about 10 hours to complete.
Also, when I applied for the job at my current employers, they asked for my previous employer for a reference (and copied me in to the request). They included my name, staff number and NI number and this lot denied that I had worked for them for the previous 10 years meaning that I nearly lost the job! I had to threaten solicitors action to get a simple - "yes I had worked for them"!
Now given the company making the request is one of the largest FTSE100 companies and my current employer is in direct competition with them, what would your response be?
(My preferred response would be go and procreate, but that would not be polite!)
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Tell them you estimate a day and a half, at £1200 a day or whatever seems appropriate to you.
Remember it's not your time they need (they would have just got somebody to do it) it's your knowledge (see Whistler v Ruskin).
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What Manatee said....
A chap I shared a flat with thirty years ago has found maintaining a legacy system contributes well as part of his portfolio of jobs. Partly an issue of old programming languages the youngsters laugh about and partly experience of why it's as it is.
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Now given the company making the request is one of the largest FTSE100 companies and
>> my current employer is in direct competition with them, what would your response be?
>>
Would your current employers be bothered if you did this work? If not just ask for the going rate, whatever that is.
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>>Would your current employers be bothered if you did this work? If not just ask for the going rate, whatever that is.
Yes, as we are in very stiff competition with them.
I made some very similar upgrades to a system that I implemented here so I don't really want to do it for them.
I suspect a defecting sales person told them about this amazing upgrade to a job management system that saves buckets of time and is more flexible and now they want the same!
I have decided that I won't be helping, I just want to be polite and tactful when I say no, (which is not my forte)!
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 12 Aug 16 at 14:55
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> Yes, as we are in very stiff competition with them.
>>
I have decided that I won't be helping, I just want to be polite and
>> tactful when I say no, (which is not my forte)!
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Just keep it simple when you reply. Say that you don't work for them anymore and your current employer wouldn't like it. Simple and straight to the point.
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>> >>Would your current employers be bothered if you did this work? If not just ask
>> for the going rate, whatever that is.
>>
>>
>> Yes, as we are in very stiff competition with them.
In which case No FM2R is right. You put yourself in a difficult position if you work for a competitor and your employer finds out, even ignoring the ethics of it.
He's also right about behaving professionally. When I left my last job, I considered giving a couple of clueless people a piece of my mind. I didn't. You never know where people are going to pop up and cause you trouble.
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I'd refer them to the court case between Pressdram and Arkell
You have zero goodwill to the company in question, and could easily tell them why.
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I'd tell then that since you wasn't deemed to be worthy of a reference you don't consider yourself suitably qualified to do any work for them.
Pat
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>> I'd refer them to the court case between Pressdram and Arkell
Following this week's comments from the bench, one wonders how long before 'refer to the answer in Crown v Hennigan' enters the legal lexicon?
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Don't be p***y with them, you never know what lies ahead.
Explain that you are employed by X and your first lotalty is to them. Thus you could not help without their permission. If your employers give authorisation then rates can be discussed at that time and you leave it to them to approach your current employer.
And then frward it to your boss and/or HR person and said you wanted it to go away but you saw no reason to be unprofessional.
Never hurts to be seen to be in demand.
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I am with No FM2R on this. You never know whathe future holds:)
However I would be careful on the liability issues. Can you protect yourself by working through an limited liability consultancy outfit?
What are the risks associated with failure?
What happens next time they want a not so trivial change.
Can you be sure that it is 'as you left it'. Nobody has changed any dependencies?
Is it fully documented? Is your memory as good as you think it is.
Are there any old scores that were never settled?
I remember declining a year 2000 opportunity with a previous employer, (that would have paid handsomely!), because therisk of failure would have run into consequential loss issues of 10s or maybe 100s of £M.
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All good advice thanks!
The program is a standalone Visual Studio (VB) that doesn't even connect to a database as the company wouldn't stump up for the database licence or some such technicality. It takes a lot of data and saves it to a unique CSV file for each new inquiry and these can be reloaded at will. There must be thousands of them now (50 files per day x 260 working days x 10 years). They were told to make nightly back ups!
I agree there are too many ifs and buts so I won't be doing it and yes, there are potential implications - not the least of which is that they would have a program that is as good as ours to help them make decisions with!
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 12 Aug 16 at 16:33
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"I agree there are too many ifs and buts so I won't be doing it and yes, there are potential implications - not the least of which is that they would have a program that is as good as ours to help them make decisions with!"
Just a thought if they knew this - might they (old Co) argue that they own the IP on this from when you were their employee and you have then used this for you new/current employer and competitor ?
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>> Just a thought if they knew this - might they (old Co) argue that they
>> own the IP on this from when you were their employee and you have then
>> used this for you new/current employer and competitor ?
>>
Nope, wouldn't have thought so.
No different from an IT bod going from one co to another and taking their experience with them.
New cos system was built from the ground up and fully documented and does things in different ways to get the results required using lending experiences from the new co.
Old co clearly know about our system from someone who left here and went there and want to do the same with only changes to their existing system.
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Zippy,
Just be careful. You're playing with fire on this in a number of ways.
If you haven't already done so, then I strongly recommend you advise your current company that you were asked and that you turned it down - and do so in writing, and copy HR.
This would be embarrassing as a minimum if it came to light any other way.
How you turn it down is up to you; I prefer it to be professional, courteous and along the lines I suggested above, just because that presents you in the best light given that we never know what will happen in the future.
But turn it down, and tell your employer you have done so. Really.
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>>But turn it down, and tell your employer you have done so. Really.
Have done!
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>>But turn it down, and tell your employer you have done so. Really.
As what Mark said WITHOUT doubt.
On a slightly less important note. If I get approached by a customer of another Builder, should I be doing some sub-contract work for that other builder, I inform him immediately. It's safer that way.
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>>might they (old Co) argue that they own the IP ............
Almost impossible, perhaps actually impossible. There probably isn't any IP here, never mind justifying any claims of inappropriate reuse.
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>> >>might they (old Co) argue that they own the IP ............
>>
>> Almost impossible, perhaps actually impossible. There probably isn't any IP here, never mind justifying any
>> claims of inappropriate reuse.
>>
"The program is a standalone Visual Studio (VB) that doesn't even connect to a database as the company wouldn't stump up for the database licence or some such technicality. It takes a lot of data and saves it to a unique CSV file for each new inquiry and these can be reloaded at will"
That certainly sounds like IP to me. Proving inappropriate re-use would be a tad tricky anyway.
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>>That certainly sounds like IP to me.
Who knows, though I doubt it.
However, programmers and similar are quite well protected because of their need to grow their experience and abilities and to market their skills and knowledge. Similar to consultants.
Otherwise, for example, an SAP programmer would never work again. Ditto project managers.
Its *Products* which can be problematic. So if the company decided to sell the tool as a product, then it can get tricky. but even then, for the company not the developers or project team.
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>However, programmers and similar are quite well protected..
At the moment, programmers have very little protection against claims of IP infringement. They basically have to prove that they've never seen or had access to the IP in question.
It's a minefield for the unwary.
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>> >>That certainly sounds like IP to me.
>>
>> Who knows, though I doubt it.
>>
I'm not saying it's patentable, I'm saying it's copyright - presumably of the OP's original employer. Ever chunk of code I've read at my last two clients has their copyright statement as the first line of the code.
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Every contract of employment I've had has specifically stated that as an employee I cannot 'moonlight' without their written permission, and an employer is hardly going to give you permission to help the opposition. Even if there wasn't a written clause it strikes me as being a very bad idea; so I'm in the politely decline camp.
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Zippy, walk - nay run away from this.
Software source code is intellectual property and is subject to (at a minimum) copyright protection. The algorithms in the code can even be covered by patent law.
Everywhere I have worked, my conditions of employment have stipulated that the rights to any intellectual property I produce while in employment belongs to my employer - even if it is developed in my own time and without use of company equipment. The chance of any of them wanting to claim ownership of something like a a simple script is practically zero but technically they could do so if they wanted.
In your case it appears to be code that your ex-employer relies upon, was written whilst in their employment and probably (at least partially) developed/tested on company time/equipment so a court would probably find (even without an ownership clause) that the original IP belonged to your employer at the time.
It now turns into complete nightmare because you are with another employer and the rights to any further changes/development will belong to them unless there is an airtight legal contract waiving those rights. If not, your current employer could charge a licence fee for the new code and even demand that they stop using the ammended code if they got into dispute. Your ex-employer could also cause problems if they decided to claim that you had used your access to the code/data to benefit your current employer.
Some of my work was entered as evidence in a $5 billion lawsuit by a company trying to hijack Linux.
It started in 2003 and is still ongoing.
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>> It started in 2003 and is still ongoing.
Only just ;-) What an amusing case that turned out to be. You couldn't make it into a move as it would be unbelievable.
As for Zippy... yes stay away from the previous employer but politely turn them down.
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What Would You Do? - Manatee
