- #31
rolerbe
- 103
- 3
Had a friend who worked at a Harley plant, but rode a Honda. Eventually the politely asked him not to ride it to work.
Purchasing a product made by your company's competitor
- Thread starter hammertime
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Companies generally cannot legally prohibit employees from purchasing products made by competitors unless specified in an employment contract. In the U.S., most employment is at-will, allowing companies to impose various conditions, but outright bans on personal purchases are uncommon and often seen as unreasonable. Many firms actually encourage employees to buy competitor products for benchmarking purposes. While companies can regulate the use of products at work, they cannot control personal purchases outside of work hours. Overall, unless there is a clear contractual agreement, employees are free to buy and use competitor products.
- #32
rolerbe
- 103
- 3
What a *Borek said:
- #33
Santa1
- 111
- 0
Why would a company fire an able employee based on him buying the wrong game console?
Are Microsoft that "aggressive"?
Are Microsoft that "aggressive"?
- #34
Moonbear
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
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hammertime said:
How would they know you owned it? Seriously. This isn't like a car you drive to work and park in the company lot, it's something you'd buy on your own time and keep in the privacy of your own home. You might not want to brag about it at work, and wouldn't want to have it delivered to the office, perhaps, but no reason you can't have it at home. If they're tracing your credit card purchases and snooping through your house, you have bigger problems than your job being on the line.
Though, from Microsoft's history, I'd be more inclined to think they'd encourage owning and using the competitor's product so you can figure out what good features it has, what makes it tick, and how to copy them into their own product without patent infringement.
