Re: Contracting on the side...ethical?

[technical_writer -at- rte -dot- com]

I, too, made this part of my contract when I moved from freelancer to 
corporate captive last April.  My current employer agreed, as long as:
  o I fulfill my responsibilities to them, including OT when needed
  o I don't work for a direct competitor.
  o I don't pitch their current clients.
  o I don't undercut their proposals to prospective clients.

So far, there have only been two conflicts.  

In the first case, a firm was referred to me by one of my former clients 
for some marketing-oriented web editing.  This firm also was a potential 
client of RTE's for some process-control software.  RTE wasn't interested 
in the web stuff, since there wasn't any software involved, so they didn't 
object to my doing it on a freelance basis.  Unfortunately, the firm 
wouldn't pay more than minimum wage for the web editing, so I referred them 
to a college class that needed some real-life projects.

The second conflict involved one of my long-term freelance techwriting 
clients, primarily for user documentation and customer education materials. 
 They are also a long-term client of RTE's for embedded software 
development (no user docs required).  We have discussed rolling my 
techwriting services into their RTE account.  There hasn't been a specific 
project to test this on yet, so I don't know how it will work.  I suspect 
the client will have a terminal attack of sticker shock when they see the 
charge-out rate.  Ah, well...
 
Kat Nagel   Kat_Nagel -at- rte -dot- com 

Geoff Hart wrote:
> When I joined my current employer, I made it clear to both my bosses that I was
> doing occasional freelance editing, and that I retained the right to continue
> doing so provided that (i) it didn't interfere with my day job and (ii) that if
> there was the least suggestion of conflict of interest, I'd get their 
> permission before proceeding. It's worked well for me thus far.