'The factory chief laughed in my face': Irreplaceable employee creates a program to aid factory operations, gets fired and takes his intellectual property with him

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    Font - r/r/MaliciousCompliance Posted by u/Wintertodt Buy my program when you fire me? No? Okay. мос Long story short: I was employed at a rather large factory which is one of the largest plant based companies in the world, recently bought by an investment firm not so long ago.
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    Font - Anyways, I developed a program which was used at the factory, it could tell whenever any machines were not running, even if it was due to a manual stop or anything else. My program knew the reason why
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    Font - the machine was idling. This program made it so much easier for the entire factory, workers were happy because they didn't need to do any manual work and write down every time the machine stopped. Lead up to about a year ago.
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    Font - Factory appoints a new chief, all the old employees that were in a leader position was let go because it was time for "new blood to come in". There was talk a lot of talk about selling off parts of the factory,
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    Font - including machines and so on. This included programs that I had developed, including the program that identified whenever a machine stopped. I developed this program on my spare time, showed it to the old management and they liked it
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    Mammal - enough that they wanted to use it on every station in the factory. Every machine was to use this program, all that had to be done was for the program to be maintained weekly. This was around 5 years ago or so.
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    Font - When the newly appointed factory chief wanted to let the the old employees, me included, leave, it was not known that I was the person behind that program. Anyways, at my meeting with HR and the factory chief I said that I
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    Font - was willing to sell them the program and teach someone how to maintain the program. The factory chief laughed in my face and said it was company property and that it was simply "their program" and not mine. I offered to show them the
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    Font - source code and everything but it lead up to the point where if I was to tamper with the program before my departure, they would sue me. I was officially let go, 2 month countdown began and after 2 months I was free.
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    Font - After a week or so, they noticed problems with the program, it would stop loading, stop registering stops and it would mislabel stops. I knew that this was when the fun was about to begin. After a month, I was called in to the office and was
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    Font - told that "I had tampered with the program because it had suddenly stopped working." I let them know that someone had to maintain it. I was ordered to teach someone how to do that job and I told them "after you pay me for the program rights". They wouldn't budge and I was told to return to work.
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    Font - When I had a week left, I strolled around the factory floor for a while and noticed that no stations were running my program anymore. I asked some operators why that was and they told me that "it just stopped working, now we need to fill out forms every time the machine stops manually." I shrugged and told them to thank the factory chief.
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    Art - I left after that week, got a phone call about a month after I left where they begged me to sell them the rights and teach someone how to maintain it.
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    Font - I never sold them that program, instead I sold an improved version to another factory nearby, where I am now employed.
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    Rectangle - No-Spoilers Or just firing anyone who does such good work you set them apart from others and charge more for it. I really dont see the logic in it but then again people are dumb.
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    Rectangle - Henniferlopez87 Good on you. Unless it was the CEO who came forward and apologized with a nice sized check I would have done the same thing.
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    Font - Thelorddogalmighty People like you make my heart sing. Wouldn't the workplace be so much nicer for everyone if personal ingenuity were encouraged. The company just wants the job doing, if you find a quicker way to do it then you should have half the week off - but that will never happen because then they're not getting value for money... even though they are right?
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    Rectangle - skylarmt When I started doing some custom code for an old job, I made up a really short contract that said I would own all the code but in return they got a nontransferable perpetual free license to use it internally. Everyone was happy with that.
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    Water - Wintertodt OP I've only met the CEO twice and that was during town halls, he had no time to visit the factory when there was around 90 more all over the world. Also I don't think he'd wanna talk to me, I'm a nobody to him.
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    Font - Henniferlopez87 I don't blame you. That's just the level it would have taken me to sell and teach them the program.
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    Font - ZWQncyBkaWNr I used to work parts assembly and tied a magnet to a string to pick up screws that I dropped without having to get up from my seat. The company (which is a huge fortune 500 company that you've definitely used their parts, their technology is in literally every store in the US) threatened to sue me for not disclosing that I had invented something on company time. For a magnet on a string.
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    Rectangle - boobers3 While informing me that I was being terminated immediately They did you a favor, any company stupid enough to not realize that someone who is capable of automating their work flow is also capable of protecting their shortcuts is due to fail.
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    Workwear

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