
Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents - chrisbennet
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/132387/engineer-refusing-to-file-disclose-patents
======
UseStrict
Upper management probably all patted themselves on the back after cutting the
payouts. They'll tout that they "saved the company thousands, every year." In
most industries innovation is key, cutting engineer pay for what is
essentially voluntary work is setting themselves up for obsoletion in the near
future. I don't blame the guy for "not remembering" what his boss was talking
about.

~~~
throwitaway2
"Innovation is key" is a mantra that sounds good, but it's not true. It's what
people _want to believe_. It's like saying you need to constantly buy lottery
tickets so you don't risk being a poor retiree.

If you have established a business and you bank on "innovation" your
likelihood of anything from a net loss to catastrophic failure is actually
quite high. In the long run, most companies fail anyway, whether they attempt
to innovate or not.

Case in point, those companies that did survive in the S&P 500 since its
inception don't strike me as particularly innovative:

[http://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-1955-v-2017...](http://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-1955-v-2017-only-12-remain-
thanks-to-the-creative-destruction-that-fuels-economic-prosperity/)

~~~
sacheendra
3M, Dow, DuPont, Boeing, IBM, J&J, Lockheed, Monsanto, and lot of others on
the list do quite innovative stuff. Its the just that failures get publicized
by the news cycle as a waste of money and successes do not.

~~~
arcturus17
Or the probably bad reading of Clayton Christensen that concludes that big
businesses simply _can’t_ innovate.

------
cygned
> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he
> generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the
> property of the company.

If I had such a clause in a contract, I would turn down the opportunity. Maybe
I am missing something obvious here, but I don't see the point of this.

Even worse, this:

> any and all intellectual property

sounds to me like one couldn't do anything creative in their spare time. Even
a picture painted would belong to their employer.

~~~
smnrchrds
> Even a picture painted would belong to their employer.

Taken at face value, it's much worse than that. All the family photos he has
taken, that novel on the back of his mind he wanted to write, that poem he
wrote for his wife's birthday, the all belong to the company now. If he made a
personal sex tape for his and his wife's enjoyment, the company can request it
and sell it online or upload it to PornHub at their sole discretion.

There is no way in hell I would ever sign such a clause, unless there is
literally life and death on the line.

~~~
harlanji
All coding job offers in California that I’ve received have come with an
appendix which invalidates such clauses. It’s a major reason to work in Cali,
if I understand correctly. In practice, if I’m working for my salary then I
don’t have energy to innovate on my own, beyond conference talk demos that
take a few weekends max.

~~~
pmiller2
That’s because it’s against the law in California for a company to claim
unrelated IP done on off hours with personal equipment. Don’t think they
wouldn’t try it if they could.

------
mikekchar
Rule number one: don't piss off your programmers. Programmers produce things
that are largely unintelligible to management. The whole reason we have
arguments about processes is because _we can 't measure the productivity_ of
our programmers. It's difficult to even measure the quality of the work
without getting other programmers involved. Even if there is a serious bug,
how do you determine if it's due to bad luck, sloppy coding or sabotage? If a
previously exceptional employee stops being exceptional right after you
stressed them out is it because they are being stroppy or because they are
stressed and can't perform?

Do not piss off your programmers. They can sink your boat either because they
are stressed out and can't perform or even just because they are pissed off.
If your company policies involve pissing off your programmers, you are in a
pile of trouble. The real answer to this guys question is: If you can't fix
your policies so that your programmers are happy, then find another job. This
one is done.

~~~
malux85
Exactly! It made me so angry reading this post that they clearly value the
engineer and his ideas, but they are unwilling to compensate him - even before
the cuts the payouts were very low.

Instead of trying to fix the problem, he asks how to squeeze the engineer.
Unbelievable.

If said engineer is reading this, reach out to me.

------
anoncake
> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred
> of code/documentation on these ideas.

A smart engineer is not stupid. Who knew?

~~~
the_arun
I smell serious Privacy concern just in this statement. Could company do that?
I wonder why that engineer still working for that company if he is so good &
company is playing all these tricks.

~~~
mhuffman
A lot of your privacy goes away as an employee!

You will notice here[1] for example, that cameras can be put in workplace
bathrooms in many states.

All of your work accounts and work hardware belong to the company and it is
your problem if you put personal information on them.

[1] [https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-
state](https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state)

~~~
tomalpha
That's an interesting and informative read, however one line did catch my eye,
and increase my background level of despair at the general maths/stats level
of the wider population:

> An overwhelming majority of employers, 48 percent or so

~~~
thyrsus
I agree; the most charitable inference is that the 48% inluded the largest
employers, and thus covered "an overwhelming majority" of _employees_ \- but
it would have been so much better if they had said that specifically, and as
it is, such an inference is pure speculation.

------
tntn
So I know the ownership of IP produced on an engineer's own time is pretty
dicey (even in California, where it depends on whether the work is in the same
field as the company, or something), and most of the time employers seem to
have some claim to ownership over all work done by their employees.

And yet loads of people employed by companies work on open source software,
write blogs, work on their own stuff, etc and companies don't seem to get
involved. So what's the situation here? Is it something like companies legally
may be able to assert ownership over work down by employees of their own
volition on their own time with their own equipment, but mostly choose not to
bother with it?

Assume I have an "ordinary" contract in the USA. Would I need to worry about
this if I wanted to write stuff on a blog, assuming it isn't directly related
to work I do?

(I understand that if it really matters I should talk to a lawyer, and will
not interpret any responses as legal advice, etc. I'm just curious if other
professional employers worry about this or just quietly do their own thing)

~~~
xucheng
> And yet loads of people employed by companies work on open source software,
> write blogs, ... [snip] ... Is it something like companies legally may be
> able to assert ownership

For open source software and blogs, is it feasible to argue that they are a
form of free speech thus cannot be owned (or in practice restricted accesses)
by companies?

~~~
vegetablepotpie
That's an interesting point. I actually talked to a lawyer at my company 6
months ago about contributing to FOSS and their answer was that my work may be
owned by my company if I did the work on my own time outside of working hours
and therefore wouldn't be mine to put under a free license in the first place.
The lawyer declined to comment on what cases my work on a project may be owned
by the company or not and said to fill out a conflict on interest form if I
decided to work on a project.

------
_cs2017_
> This engineer has filed over 30 successful patents over the past 2 years,
> and all of these inventions are used in our products.

From my limited experience, typical software patents are either ideas that
might (if you're very optimistic) be useful in the future, or descriptions of
an approach that everyone already kinda knows. The only purpose they serve is
to create a legal weapon to use in patent lawsuits or counter lawsuits. None
of the ones I've seen would improve performance or functionality of any
product at the time they were written.

Writing 30 patents in two years that actually improved a product seems to me
beyond hard. Invented by a single engineer rather than a team, doing it in
their spare time, only adds to my degree of disbelief.

Has anyone seen examples of such productivity that you could share? Since all
patents are public, an inventor's name would suffice.

~~~
kuroguro
I don't think it's mentioned anywhere that they are software patents. Might be
a hardware engineer.

~~~
NikkiA
To me they were described in a way that I assumed we were talking about
process patents, which could be software, hardware, and even just plain
ordering of how parts of the process are done.

------
CalChris
If this were a salesperson and they reduced commissions, would it surprise
anyone that motivations were also reduced?

If management thinks these patents are worth less, a reasonable position, then
they should file fewer of them. Indeed the cost of patent prosecution is
significantly greater than the engineer's patent compensation. Raise the
filing bar; that'll save some money. But if they lower patent compensation,
they have to understand that it will also lower motivation.

~~~
stygiansonic
Indeed, if they lowered patent compensation they are explicitly signaling that
it is of less value and importance. The fact that this engineer doesn’t want
to contribute anymore lines up with that.

------
jknoepfler
money will not fix this situation. if you breach trust once over compensation,
you lose all goodwill from your staff. your talented staff will leave
immediately. there's nothing to be done to fix it, full stop.

the literal second a company begins curtailing engineer benefits they
transition from a forward moving company to a fungibility-fest maintenance
mode enterprise

~~~
ngngngng
Well said. I started my dream job 1 year ago. 6 months ago we were purchased
and our benefits were all cut. I've lost over 50% of my team, we can't hire
new people. I still have very interesting engineering problems to solve, but I
feel cheated out of what I signed up for.

~~~
Washuu
Similar story here. Company was purchased recently, new health benefits are
messing people up, and most of the staff lost anywhere from 20% to 60% of
their compensation.

I am trying to move on, but I can not solve data structures/algorithms on
white boards with people staring over my shoulder. :|

~~~
aitchnyu
My interviewees wrote code by hand, but on a paper on a desk, seated opposite
me. Surely you can ask for this less stressful alternative?

~~~
Washuu
I would not necessarily describe it as stress. Just more of a complete break
down of the mental process and over thinking of what I am doing.

------
salawat
An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask him
to during his work hours.

I encourage most junior devs to keep their projects to themselves in fact.
Weaponization of patents ethically demands it.

From reading about said company's treatment of this engineer in particular,
they are simply reaping what they've sown. Marginalize your engineers, or try
to catch them out with legal maneuvering (which is what most employment
contracts now are intended as) when you first hire them to hedge your bets at
being able to claim something down the line, and this is what you get.

Edward Demmings says one of the keys to Quality is to maintain and foster An
environment in which the craftsman's pride in his work can flourish.

Blanket claims to IP and marginalized patents are not that.

~~~
usrusr
> An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask
> him to during his work hours.

But there was already a presentation. A court favorable of the employer could
easily regard that as an implicit promise to provide what was presented, off-
hours or not.

------
brogrammernot
I wish I knew was company this was so I could blacklist them from any future
contact.

@OP, upper management fucked up majorly and if I were you I’d be looking to
leave as well. Everything you’ve said makes them seem like complete assholes
who said “fuck the culture” and opted for profits over people.

What should you do? Tell the guy in person that he should leave, take the
patented material with him and don’t look back.

The company has had to have made more than 110k off his parents, and this is
such an infuriating question to be asking.

------
duxup
Company removes incentives for a employee to do thing(s), and doesn't get
thing(s) and is now surprised by result.

It's always hard to know but the way this is being described sounds like the
person asking the engineer for this information has little to no relationship
with this person. That can't be helping. They cut the incentive program that
gave him extra money and insist he move to move on his career, they clearly
don't belive what he says and I'm sure he has picked up on that. None of this
seems like the way you treat a valuable person at the company.

------
jacknews
Regardless of the legal situation, this is a pretty shabby way to treat an
employee.

While the bonus was good, he contributed patents. How much did the company
profit from those? Quite a bit more than you paid in bonus, I'll wager.

And now you've cut the bonus, but still expect (and seem to be trying to
force) the employee to continue contributing _in his spare time_?

Sheesh.

------
pimmen
"We offered X dollars for patents, the engineer accepted that price. We now
want the patents for X-Y dollars, the engineer doesn't accept this price. I
have no idea how to negotiate and I would like to strongarm him instead. Help
me!"

~~~
chrisbennet
I up-voted you but I suspect that the manager has little say over the aspects
of the situation that would help retain the engineer.

Some bean counter has determined that they can save money by not paying for
something they used to pay for - and its working. They _are_ paying less
(which is all the bean counter cares about). They fact that they are _getting
less_ or costing the company is not his problem.

~~~
pimmen
Yeah, I suspect the OP is caught between a rock and a hard place. I know very
little about the situation from what's given in the Stackexchange post, but
this is how I imagine it;

The OP has had no say over this policy at all, and is actually pretty
powerless overall. He/she has no ability to give out titles, perks, bonuses,
promotions or anything really. Still the position of the OP entails being a
link between senior management and the actual engineers, so the OP is the only
one in management who actually sees this engineer's work ethic, creativity and
problem solving. The few times this engineer has been in contact with senior
management the engineer has pushed back their requests for him to just give up
whatever work's been done, which doesn't work because the engineer barely
knows who the f they are. So the senior management now asks the OP to fix it,
but grants almost no authority to do anything.

The senior management would like this situation to end in a situation where
they don't have to roll back whatever policies they implemented, or treat
people in special ways just to get what they already believe is rightfully
theirs, and if this doesn't go well they want to blame someone lower for the
mess.

------
trhway
> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred
> of code/documentation on these ideas.

neural implants cant come too early.

>I've tried offering a one-off bonus for him to just anonymously leave a thumb
drive with the data on my desk after hours, but he just claims he "doesn't
know what I'm talking about".

the engineer is smart while the manager doesn't seem so if he really thought
that the engineer would walk into that trap.

> and even an offer of $25,000.00 for the IP didn't work, which would have
> been according to the "old rules". I think he's worried that by agreeing to
> such a deal, he's opening himself up to legal liability (it would involve
> indirectly admitting he was being dicey/dishonest about "not knowing what
> I'm talking about")

Definitely a Fisher/Spassky level of managerial thinking. Only at this game
the rooks aren't sacrificed, they are shafted.

------
UncleEntity
Wait, so the engineer came up with an idea _in their spare time_ , demo'd it
to the bosses then decided that it wasn't worth it to follow up on the idea
_in their spare time_ but now they want to somehow force them to turn it over
after apparently deleting all evidence of it?

I don't actually know what to think about this (and I'm a big fan of
absurdity) but suspect there's some hidden moral to this story...

~~~
dboreham
There's a whole legal theory behind what's discussed in the OP : patent rights
get assigned to employer by employee under terms of their employment
agreement, subject to whatever laws pertain under the relevant jurisdiction
(e.g. California is probably different). The $1000 bonus thing has a legal
purpose to beef up the employer's rights to the IP, since under law the rights
accrue to the inventor not the employer. And on and on. So this manager is a
clueless idiot who needs some schooling in the law and the various risks he is
running in taking the action he's taken. Ianal, but...seriously..if you're an
engineering manager you should know this stuff to some level.

~~~
notyourday
Would a $0.01 bonus be sufficient to beef up employer's right to the IP?

------
ris
This company's "patent program" is everything that's wrong with the patent
system. Patents are (well, were) intended to protect critical parts of work,
not to be farmed for building up a war chest.

------
cashsterling
Not a lawyer. From past start-up legal experience... it depends on the state.
In some/many states, an employer unilaterally changing compensation for a
portion of an employment agreement, without asking employees to resign an
updated contract, would render those portions of the agreement null and void.

Some states have employment laws against certain non-compete and [iirc]
blanket IP assignment clauses. In those states, even if employees sign to
those clauses, they are still void according to state law.

------
olliej
The standard employment contract in us tech is basically: if you do it on
company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for by the
company it belongs to them - you would almost certainly be in breach of
contract if you refused to disclose.

Now even if you didn’t use any company resources, most contracts provide at
the very least the right for your company to use any IP you develop, even in
your off time, even without any of their resources. Your contract in all
likelihood would give them actual ownership of the IP.

You could choose not to tell them about this IP, and I believe you would be
fine, as long as you never used or published it - even after termination of
employment - because not being required to disclose the IP does not change
ownership - it belongs to the company, even if the company does not know about
it.

Source: going over job offers+contracts with a lawyer

~~~
repsilat
> _on company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for
> by the company_

Mine have also said "relating to the company's business" which I imagine
(IANAL) can make a lot of programming projects difficult, and I guess might
make a lot of _non_ -programming hobbies difficult if you work for a BigCo --
creative media, "things on the internet" etc etc. And not a line you want to
even walk close to IMO with companies of that size.

~~~
reboog711
> "relating to the company's business"

The company I work for also has this. The company is a big entertainment
conglomerate. I'm unclear what businesses the company is not in; but most of
the things I do in my spare time include--songwriting, book publishing, blog
writing--could classify as things the company also does.

My `exclusion` clause was over 1 page long and I spent quite a bit of money on
a lawyer to put it together.

------
gbrown_
> I think he's getting ready to switch jobs, and we need the technical
> information/code he used to create the demo.

This irks me, it's not explained or alluded to why this is _needed_ , surely
this should be _wanted_?

~~~
usrusr
Already sold to customers down the chain, who sold it to theirs? If it's that
kind of pants down situation I guess that the engineer in question will stay
just long enough to watch the drama play out.

------
the_arun
Reminds me of this story -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden_Eggs)

------
analog31
>>> Since employees write these in their spare time...

Oops.

~~~
kabdib
(Asking for legal advice on the Internet. Double oops).

There's a point in the application process where you need to affirm, under
penalty of perjury, a bunch of legal stuff about the invention. I can see
having second thoughts about (say) the prior art landscape, or having sincere
doubts that the application teaches something patentable, and refusing to
sign.

If the potential patents are actually valuable, the cheapest way for the
company to realize them is to pay the engineer for his time. The company
already sounds like a horrible place to work, and lawsuits against current or
former employees are going to send an _awesome_ message to the ranks. Engaging
in a suit to force someone to patent an invention is going to get really
interesting and expensive.

It's also possible that the engineer has been gaming the patent reward system,
turning in inventions that are just reworked prior art, or that are not
actually very valuable (too narrow or obscure to be interesting, or too broad
and risky to use in legal action). 30 patents is a lot, relatively speaking --
perhaps the company realized that it was actually getting low-quality
inventions and decided to adjust the compensation accordingly.

------
robinduckett
Yeah this manager guy is an asshole.

~~~
dboreham
I think idiot would be the better top level designation. So : Idiot asshole.

~~~
convolvatron
i've struggled with these quite a bit over the years. an idiot often ends up
being an asshole because they are just incapable of empathizing with other
people's perspectives. maybe in this case they think they are just looking out
for the companies interest and being extremely short sighted.

an asshole, who isn't an idiot, often uses the pretense of idiocy to obfuscate
their actions...even worse - as a kind of trolling.

given that these behaviors are so often fused, I wonder if it even makes sense
to try to tease out whether there is malicious intent.

------
blackflame7000
In a nutshell, “We want this engineer to continue to bring us value, we just
don’t want to pay for it.”

------
z3t4
When military clears buildings they leave a way for the enemy to exit ...

------
a-dub
This is silly, and case in point why the California statute should be federal
law.

------
umvi
My company pays peanuts for patents. Something like $50 plus a name on a
plaque. I might have filed patents for $5000 a pop, but for $50 it's not even
worth the effort.

------
melonakos
The employer is horrific. Leave. Yesterday.

------
dejaime
"Oh No! This innovation program is bringing too many good results! Better dial
it down a little..."

~~~
stagger87
Let's be real, the quality of patents generated in programs like this are very
low. A good patent is worth more than 5k.

------
usrusr
So the engineer knows his game theory instincts: offer me a price I will
accept or no deal, no matter how much you increase your offer later on. In
this case, it was particularly easy/insulting, because they already knew a
reasonable price he would have accepted. That IP is gone.

------
ezoe
>His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he
generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the
property of the company.

Seriously. That cannot be worked in my country. This line alone indicates that
this employer is evil.

------
infinity0
> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he
> generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the
> property of the company.

This is illegal and unenforceable in many places in the world including the
whole EU and California (only stuff done using company resources or relating
to company work). I'm surprised at the other comments here that seem to be
totally ignorant of this.

------
ummonk
One of the many benefits of being in California is that work that you do in
your own free time with your own resources legally belongs to you. I’m not
sure what would happen in the state this engineer is in on the other hand. Of
course, they can’t force him to complete and deliver work he did in his own
free time but I’m not sure whether he would be able to reuse it or file a
patent himself.

------
ashildr
Personally I’d start looking for another job because the upper management does
not seem to understand who actually has valuable thoughts or the company is
financially so constrained that they have to suffocate people who innovate.
Either way, the persepctive is bleak. And im sure the engineer would do the
same as soon as someone makes the right offer in terms of payment and
location.

------
Balgair
Related: The Elves are Leaving Middle Earth- The Sodas are no Longer Free

[https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-
ear...](https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-
earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/)

~~~
craftinator
Thank you for this, been looking for this article for a long time!

~~~
Balgair
Anytime!

------
hpcjoe
A bunch of things about this I've not seen discussed in detail, and they are
important.

What we know:

1) The company changed the compensation model for patents, and now have lost
contribution from one of their most prolific users of that model.

2) The manager is concerned that the employee is going to leave. And then the
IP will be effectively lost to the employer.

3) Based upon #2, they have engaged a significant hunt for information,
looking through his data storage, his laptop, etc. At likely fairly
significant expenditure of time/effort/personnel who should be engaged in
other tasks.

That is, the company is paying real money for the opportunity cost associated
with their screwing up their policy. They are paying time and materials,
resources, consultants, etc. to try to find something that is not likely
findable.

They are apparently ok with this use of capital.

They are apparently less ok with paying what their engineer considered a fair
market compensation for their effort. At some point, possibly already, they
will have spent more money on the search and recovery effort than they would
have paid the engineer.

4) Somehow the manager is of the opinion that the employee does not want to
"admit" that they are "lying".

What we don't know:

1) The value of the previously patented work. You can get a glimmer of the
thought processes by noting that the manager focused on the volume and not the
quality of the work, by counting. You can get a sense of disbelief in high
quality from the comments here.

So we don't know if this senior engineer was putting out good product, figured
out a way to game a broken system and no longer wishes to play.

I am going to assume the senior engineer put out a good product and patent
set. Such that the company was willing to prosecute patent filings, and saw
value in them. So much so, that when they broke their standing rate on
compensation for voluntary work, they decided to spend real capital pursuing
this voluntary work.

2) whether or not this engineer is really looking for a new job. Well, put
another way, whether or not they were looking for a new job ... yet.

Likely they'll catch on from StackExchange, see their manager post, realize
that they need to git while the gitting is good.

3) whether or not this manager has communicated this to senior management,
whether or not this person has decision or negotiation authority to solve
this. Chances are, they do within specific boundaries.

So ...

A few obvious thoughts:

1) the company policy change is idiotic. Their pursuit of IP across the
systems suggests that they realize that they messed up something fierce.

2) By the managers own admission, they _badly_ broke trust with the employee,
not only by reducing potential compensation, but then further by rooting
through the employee's systems.

Yes, they have a right to do this. They are likely not breaking any laws.

But they broke trust in (at least 2) major ways.

3) If the IP is potentially really valuable to the company, as in material to
their bottom line as a whole, or in a competitive stance, chances are the
employee is very well aware of this. And they know that the old compensation
model, the one they were using, wouldn't be of sufficient value to themselves
for the value it would bring the company.

Which means that this is still a negotiation, and no one has seemingly asked
the basic question of "what would it take for you to recall and rediscover
this work?"

Given the breach of trust, this negotiation tactic may not work. But given
that the employee appears to be a fairly smart cookie, they will likely play
this to maximize their benefit.

4) The manager seems unable or unwilling to come to terms with changes they
need to make in order to get this guy the comp he wants. This is a solvable
problem with the right management, and the right managerial attitude. If you
can't promote him because your rules don't allow this, and you think he is a
valuable team member, and a promotion would help shake up his memory ... hey,
this is solvable. It is left as an exercise for the student, but hint, if the
rules are problematic ...

It seems to me that their are a number of potential solutions to this, none of
which require people to admit to lying, or allowing them to be accused of
lying.

The company simply has to decide how important this IP is to them, to decide
what changes they should make. At minimum, this manager sounds like they are
not a keeper.

~~~
troels
You seem to assume that the company/management would act rationally. I'm going
to guess that you are an engineer?

------
duado
I’m reminded of the quip, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

------
shmerl
The company shouldn't encourage filing software patents.

------
jv22222
Anyone know how a patent team might determine the value of a patent?

~~~
notyourwork
Depends on the patent and the application. Could be stupid simple but save a
company 0.01$ per “item” and when you make millions of “item” a year that adds
up. So it’s entirely based on how the patent can be applied.

------
0_gravitas
How is this IP stuff not considered a massive violation of privacy?

------
craftinator
Hey, OP, can you tell us the name of the company that you and your very
productive and forgetful engineer work at? Just want to make sure I don't
accidentally start working there!

------
ringaroll
This should be expected. You screwed the guy, you got screwed in return. Be
happy that he has not yet left and offer him $300k - $400k as a bonus if that
work is so important.

> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred
> of code/documentation on these ideas.

Ahahah. Is anyone surprised that a smart engineer knows what he is doing?

