My employer technically owns anything I create. Even outside working hours. They have even won cases where an employee patented an idea after leaving the company. The court granted the company the patent. Talk about screwed up. Obviously I'm not in CA but am in the US.

Leave.

Watson is cool and all. Don't get me wrong.

We did have several people leave before joining because they refused to sign the agreement. I know that it's my fault I signed the agreement. I'm also working towards your suggestion (38 applications so far this year) but the thing that scared me was the fact that they got ownership of something after the employee left. I can see if it was something they worked on while with the company and then left and tried to patent it. If it was something completely unrelated then I just lost faith in the legal system. I'm also probably risking being fired just by posting something like this, shrugs.

I think its technically only things "related to your day job" that are covered.

In California that's (essentially) true. Other states permit far more draconian limits on employee freedom.

He says he's from outside CA.

It's kind of a grey area. The court docs show that they have won. I don't know if they were directly related to the persons daily responsibilities. I think there was some wording about any thing that competes with the company but the company is in basically every market. Honestly, I just weigh the risk of weather or not I think they would actually even care about what I'm working on. I know we have people who make mobile games on the side and no one really cares.

If I'm not directly competing and stealing clients I think that chances are low that they will try to claim ownership.

Not sure I understand this advice. How to explain to my employer that I'm going to spend less time working because I have better things to do?

If you feel that your employer knowing about outside passions is going to be a problem then you need to find another employer.

The same way you explain to your employer that you have defined working hours, and will be working within them.

Thank you. I was reprimanded once for essentially "only" being at the office for the defined time we agreed I would be there. I spent some time racking my brain until I decided I wasn't being unreasonable.

There is this hyaundai commercial ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ8Klm8vPlI ) that hits home for me. "When did leaving work on time become an act of courage". It's so true.

I've always found it humorous that the clock hits 6:00 rather than 5:00. "Leaving work on time is an act of courage, but let's not get crazy!" Presumably he courageously started at 10:00 or took an hour away from work for lunch.

It's more about the appearance of working vs actually having work to do. I used to come in at 7:30 and leave at 4:30 because my commute was terrible other wise (2 hours each way). The few nights I stayed until 6-7pm I noticed the engineers that came in at 10-11am were all gone by 5:30pm but to most managers it looked like they were "working harder" than me when I left at 4:30.

Where I worked, official hours are 8.30 to 6. In Asia of course.

Is the official work week 47.5 hours?

In the U.S., while I think it's true that people tend to work closer to 50 hours, we pay lip service to the "40 hour work week".

Unreasonable employers happen. You have a variety of options including try to convince them to be reasonable, accede to their demands, try to be sneakier, or find a new job.

In our industry where it tends to be an option for us, "find a new job" might make sense.

I think his advice was for people who are so excited about their work that they cannot stop thinking about it on even Saturday evenings.

Don't let people decide if your other things are actually "better things to do", certainly not a boss, they're hardly objective. Simply state that like work, they are obligations you can't miss. I frequently have artistic obligations in the evening, and I make sure everyone knows they are unbreakable.

The work life balance is more of a necessity then a balance. You work to live while remembering to make room for the later. True balance is when the need to work no longer exists.

Or you just give up and code with a baby on your lap. Bigger problem for me is a work/sleep balance.

Babies stay on laps? What? Oh I remember now.

How does that play out when you're a parent with a spouse and 4 children?

The spouse and 4 children are part of the passion outside of work? :)

I have heard once you have children, you only have time for one hobby. True?

The best advice I was given when my daughter was born was to not only put away hobbies, but to remove them from view. Suggestions I was given where things like: packing up the game console and games and put them in the closet, donated the pile of books that I was never going to read, and clear desks/shelves, etc that contained unfinished projects.

The first few months there wasn't time for any of that anyway and then as I began to have time I took out the few items that I really wanted to use, but all the while I didn't have a constant pile of fun things around the house making me feel bad because I didn't have time to play with them.

Depending on the circumstances you will have different amounts of time, but most importantly is realizing that you will have less time and taking steps to adjust to your new role.

No kids yet, but this rings true. The burden of hobbies I'm not working on sucks more time than actually sitting down with a single hobby.

Very small children are mostly loud meat slugs and easy to care for while you're playing games. Then there's a phase where they're very active but not potty-trained or good at talking.

The next phase, when they are a little older, you can share your hobbies with them. Kids love to do fun things like hiking and camping and building stuff and playing games. That is awesome.

Not for me. I had 3 children; also did Scouts (involving the children), wrote (1 hr every morning before everyone else woke), moderated a game club (every Thursday 4:30), visit a shooting range. Once the children are older, it accelerated of course.

I assume you had to have good time management habits to pull it off?

Scouts was always a do-everything-at-the-last-minute thing. You just have to be present for the kids, that's the most important thing.

Regularly scheduled hobbies are the easiest to pull off. If you just try to find a spare hour, you never will.

How did you balance that with your job? Do you have a normal "9-5" or "10-6" type job? I always wonder how people carve out time for stuff with family and such in the early evening on weeknights when normal leaving times + commute mean I likely wouldn't get home till 6:30 at the earliest.

I told each boss "I work with the Scouts. I camp one weekend a month, and will leave work early on that Friday. The day will come when there's a rush at work, and I really need to stay late and get something done instead. On that day, I will go camping with the Scouts."

Being upfront about it like that got me a lot of credit somehow. It was never a problem.

Also, when they were around 12, I was a partner in a consulting firm. So I could make my own hours. That definitely helped out during those years.

Thanks for the details. I'm fortunate to work in a place where this is largely not an issue. I work hard and often put in time at night and on the weekend because I'm Type A, so I don't worry when I need to take time off because I know I've put the time in and deliver results.

That said, I've definitely worked at companies that want to have their cake (in by 8:30 or 9) and eat it to (leave no earlier than 5:30-6 with expectations of frequent late nights and weekends with 2 weeks vacation). I've simply lost all tolerance for that, and always wonder how others manage it in stricter environments.

At my "generic" workplace, core hours are 9-4. Everyone is responsible for getting 8 hours in a day, so a lot of people take advantage of the spread by coming in at 7 and leaving at 4 (w/ hour lunch break).

It depends on their age. When they're babies, you won't have time for sleep. It tapers off as they get older and go to daycare/school/etc.

Being 14 months into the experience, I'd say that you don't have any time for hobbies at first, but you're surprised at how much you don't really care. My family is my passion outside of work. I don't think of taking care of my daughter as work the way I would have thought about babysitting someone else's kid before I became a father.

As my kids got older and started playing sports, I eventually got to the point where I am now coaching one of their soccer teams. It has become a real passion, and I also joined a team myself (in my younger days, pickup basketball was more my thing). My wife helps coach, and she just started a soccer clinic/pickup group for Moms.

So I guess from my perspective, I would say your passions and hobbies and interests can be molded by having children, and become something you share and develop together as a family. From an outside perspective, we probably devote too much time to this sport (I would have thought so a few years ago), but it's something we all enjoy and have found ways to participate in together.

In that case you decide which is more important. Work or taking care of your family. Now I know having a job is part of the taking care of your family thing but you have to honestly weigh "if I leave work on time am I actually going to get fired". The answer is usually no.

Time machine?

Or find something you like to do with your kids.

From the OP: Of course, family comes first on this ladder

> That's the same damn thing.

Not really; a side effect of finding a passion that draws you out of work is that you reduce work but simply reducing work is not the same thing.

I understand that he was trying to be clever and thought provoking, but it was neither. Reducing work just by itself is a good thing. If someone doesn't have any passions, does it make sense for them to work 12 hour days in the interim? I don't think so.

It really isn't the same. If you have a habit you're trying to break, abstention is the most obvious tool and everybody goes for it (and everybody faults themselves or each other when it doesn't work). If you've ever heard the term "white knuckling", that concept can often describe this sort of situation. "I'll just suck it Up and stop"

But many self improvement advisors across a host of problems from overeating to addiction agree that the way to kick a habit is to crowd it out of your life. You don't have time to eat a cheesecake because you're going for a run or to a volunteer event or to the park with your kids.