IBM To Kernel Maintainer: "You Are An IBM Employee 100% Of The Time"

[NateHubbard]

Poor guy. I can't imagine posting the "instruction" verbatim in the commit message is going to go over well with that manager, if it is verbatim and not paraphrased anyway. I hope IBM realizes they are in the wrong here and don't reprimand him over this.

I assumed he did that on purpose as a warning to anyone else considering an IBM position.

[darkbasic]

I assumed he did that on purpose as a warning to anyone else considering an IBM position.

Exactly, I don't think many would be interested in a job position at these conditions.

[kiffmet]

IMO That's a case for the labour court. A company must not dictate the circumstances under which employees engage in FOSS projects in their spare time, provided they respect the company's IP and trade secrets. Is the affected employee an US-American by chance? Something like this happening in central Europe is unthinkable to me.

[coder]

It seems in this case it may be a manager over reacting or so.

Pretty much. This sounds like a manager I had, in the past. It's clear that we're not getting the full picture, but I suspect there was some internal controversy over some change or aspect of the code, and the employee chose to put on their non-work hat to do something their manager or another team member disagreed with.

Whether or not that's how it actually went down, that sort of thing definitely happens, and it highlights one of the major pitfalls of doing open source development as a job.

Getting back to the tone of the manager, I don't know about Redhat, but IBM doesn't have a good reputation for management culture.

[coder]

So they're basically saying "Activities done during non-working hours are actually working hours".

Am I reading that right"?

In the USA, salaried positions don't have a strict on/off-the-clock distinction. That's more like something you find with hourly union-mediated jobs.

In any case, because the USA has at-will employment (again, speaking of non-union jobs), you can be terminated for (virtually) any reason, at any time. So, if you're doing things contrary to the interests of your employer (as they perceive it), simply doing it "on your own time" is no shield.

[coder]

So the guy should ask IBM a salary which is "100% of the time" and not just 8hrs per day.

Unless it's in your employment contract, there's no such thing as "8 hours/day, 5 days/week", or anything like that. Salaried positions don't pay overtime. If you get a salary and you're being overworked, all you can really do is quit.

[milkylainen]

Sounds more like an asshat manager working for IBM running high on a power trip.
I expect IBM to come up with a clarification rather quickly.

[numacross]

Unless it's in your employment contract, there's no such thing as "8 hours/day, 5 days/week", or anything like that. Salaried positions don't pay overtime. If you get a salary and you're being overworked, all you can really do is quit.

That depends on the country you're being employed in. In my country it's limited to 8h a day and 40h/week (5 working days) with anything over that being paid overtime. I'm simplifying of course, but it is limited.

[r1348]

Unless it's in your employment contract, there's no such thing as "8 hours/day, 5 days/week", or anything like that. Salaried positions don't pay overtime. If you get a salary and you're being overworked, all you can really do is quit.

Maybe where you live.

[Neraxa]

This is why we need maximum work week laws like they have in Europe, which creates a clearer delineation between work time and personal time and ensures there is significant personal time. It would also put limits on how long employers can ask employees to work and improve the dismal work life balance in the US.