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Comment by geomark | Hacker News Reader

"The smartest find a do-nothing job where they could cash a check for showing up at the office and surfing the net all day (IT, help desk at large organizations) and devote their work time to their own passions."

I guess you can call that smart. But it is also dishonest. They are effectively stealing from their employer. Many people seem fine with that, justifying it with the notion that their employer doesn't adquately utilize their skills, or is stupid to trust them so deserves to be taken advantage of, or didn't know how valuable their IP was so it was ok to take it and start a company around it.

I've known quite a few people who did this, even a couple who went on to found billion dollar companies while on the payroll and using company resources.

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The employer and employee have an antagonistic relationship.

It's expected that the employer is going to fuck over the employee when it's convenient (you're naive to think otherwise).

You're putting yourself in an unfair (one-sided) position by deciding that you have to behave nicely towards the company.

I take it you have never been an employer. Or maybe you have been so you know first hand?

I think most people who have worked for a number of employers find a range of relationships. Some will take advantage, some will nurture, and with some you are sort of neglected.

Regardless, if what you say is true then as an employee your choices are to be honest and taken advantage of, or dishonest and taking advantage. Maybe there are more options, including some that don't involve being dishonest?

One-sided != antagonistic.

Also, the relationship has at leaast 3 parties: employer, employee, boss.

The employer doesn't know or care about individual employees, but may have a disposition towards or against bulk layoffs in various circumstances.

The boss does know the individual employee, and may personally like or dislike them (in addition to having some impression of their performance level).

The employee just needs to not piss off the boss, and not appear as deadweight (and optionally, impress the boss enough for protection from semi-discretionary layoffs).

Employers will not fuck over employees "just because". They're mostly rational enough to be predictable.

I wouldn't go as far as saying it is stealing. I've been in situations before where I would need to go to my manager and ask for work, anything to do. I was too young to realize I could invest my time in bettering business process around me with the software development I was learning on my free time. Some places are just built around having a lot of people not doing too much.

That's the point of contention. It boils down to the fact that the boss is paying you to work on his stuff. Instead you work on your own stuff.

It's a different story if the boss says spend your free work time doing whatever you want, or develop some skills of your own choosing. In my experience that's usually not the case.

I should be clear, by free time I mean time outside of work.

Let's say it is theft, under the rules of the system. But in a repugnant system, it's good, sensible theft. More people should steal. (Unlike the wage theft employers commonly employ, where they find cute ways to overwork their employees or garnish their paychecks.) We should look at ethics by the outcomes, not the technical terms used by a particular system.

...because employers are displaying so much loyalty to employees these days, right?

Stealing back from a thief is not theft.

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