This is usually a tax thing.
We have a policy that states, "company equipment can not be used for personal use". As without this company equipment can not be tax deductible. However, in the UK at least, it is a matter of economic policy whether a company makes any effort to in-force.
Thus I hit on what a I thought was a neat solution. Which was to deem it a sackable offence to expend any resource whatsoever including time or materials to identify if company property had been so used.
It's not that simple. The law recognizes that when signing a contract there is a power-imbalance between employer and employee. It would be different if the contract was written by the employee and signed by the employer.
Re:Contracts you should never sign
by BeFlatXIII on Friday January 27, 2023 @10:32AM
(#34547123)
That last paragraph of yours is key the your whole post. It’s a good illustration of how a large enough difference in degree becomes a difference in kind.
If you use the company car for a side hustle in catering, then that perhaps gives the company the right to fire you or charge you for damages. However, they do not get to claim any intellectual property (recipes you invented for your catering side-job).
I agree with that. In the pen example, they should bill you for the wear and tear on the pen (ball bearings and ink aren't free). In the computer example, same deal. Figure out what a flash memory erase cycle is worth, figure out what bringing the CPU out of its lowest power state costs per minute, figure out how many of each were used, and send an invoice!
Companies do include policies about how their equipment is to be used and for what and they do include how they think about ownership usually in your employment agreement or principles of employment policies. To write those off because “hey it’s only a generic piece of equipment” is perilous.
I suspect how you think about the analogy changes if you write the story on company letterhead or if you used the company car for your catering side hustle on the weekends.