Covert Paper & Pencil Programming for the Employed Startup Founder

If you find yourself needing to do these things at work, you need to find a new job. The relationship between you and your boss should be mutually beneficial. Skulking around at work having to hide things from your employer means you have the wrong job. Quit.

What I always find to be so frustrating is that I see co-workers doing non-work related things with the company's resources all the time: long personal telephone conversations, online shopping, reading sports or politics-related content on the internet (especially fantasy sport pools).<p>Oftentimes, the boss is aware of this and doesn't seem to mind. The people who do this are not the most skilled employees either. Yet, if I want to spend my "downtime" learning new technologies (which could actually help me do my work better), I feel like I have to hide it.<p>It would be nice if you could work on your own projects at work in the open as long as you weren't accessing internal company servers. I'd even be willing to bring my laptop in and connect it to the external-only wireless network if the company required that. When I can't improve my skills while at work, I feel that I'm wasting my time.

This article has to be a joke. Assuming you have a modern contract (non-compete, IP assignment), working on your startup at work is stealing from your employer. Doing a better job hiding your tracks doesn't make it right (or legal). If you are found out, you could lose ownership of all that work.<p>If you're going to work on a startup while employed elsewhere, you need better separation than this. Do your day job competently and quickly, then go elsewhere to work on your startup. Get up early, do your startup stuff, then get to work at an acceptable time. Or do it in the evening. But trying to mix the two while at your employer's office is a recipe for disaster.

I guess this has to come as a kind of brilliant idea while sipping a coffee between compiles. You may have that great idea for the magic algorith that will turn your startup into the next Big Thing. And if you still have 10 hours of work ahead, it may die a little... And probably you just can't code it in your office's computer, IP stuff and all.<p>Write down the code in paper, or write it down on your portable computing device (iPhone, Android, Nanonote, netbook) and when at home, go for it.

This seems mostly like a way to avoid creating evidence more than a way to avoid the legal problems of working on a side project at your employer.<p>Is the law simply that you cannot use your employers resources such as computer and internet connection to create your side company, or does the law state that you cannot also use time your employer thinks is theirs for your side project?

Well, that's unethical. How would you feel if you had employees who were doing such things while you paid them?

I read this and immediately assumed it was satire.<p>Then I read the comments... Really people?

#2 - Write down ideas so that you don't forget them.<p>Wow, truly great stuff.