There are patients waiting at a doctor’s clinic in a private hospital for the past hour or so as a doctor was doing his inpatient follow up rounds. His secretary gets a phone call. The secretary hurriedly finds the doctor and conveys something to him. The doctor hastily concludes his rounds and heads out. Later, the secretary informs the patients waiting that the doctor had to attend to an emergency at his private clinic, so the appointments have to be rescheduled.

Similarly, another scenario in an industrial research organization a senior scientist is accused of favoring a tender to a private company that he owns or cofounded. The scientist cofounded this company as a part of the incentive given to such scientists to promote scientific, space or defence research-based product development in the private sector. Here the accusation was not that he founded the company while still working as a senior scientist, the accusation was that he favored a contract allotment to a company that he was owning.

Another scenario, a private company employee was approached by a funded startup seeking help in quickly making and bringing their innovative idea to market. The development needed certain skills that were not easily available in the market. The employee had a lot of idle time and was waiting for his new project to get started. Since he had spare time, he agreed to help the startup to bring their idea to market sooner.

In one scenario, in a company in the US, a lab assistant one day was trying to repair a pick and place machine. The machine was being used in the lab as an experimental equipment. Further curiosity driven enquiry revealed that the very lab assistant had designed and developed that machine at home. He gave it to the company to try for free, with an understanding that if the equipment was found useful the company would buy it.

In a supply and demand driven market assuming someone wishes to utilize their skills for extra money is it a crime? Won’t the company not use the persons work in other projects or internal trainings? Haven’t senior staff reviewed or participated in critical fire-fighting situations in other customer projects? Should a skilled person be treated like a captive equipment given that they are underutilized? OfCourse if the specific person was trained by the organization where they are working full-time then it would be fair to expect those skills be utilized only for that specific organization, atleast until a certain period.

Someone gets an opportunity to make extra money only when there is a market need for the skill that this person possesses. It is not just about extra money that an individual makes it is the tax that the individual pays to the government.

Now, if the government takes steps to fill the skills gap such that the so called “niche skills” are made common skills, won’t this reduce the salaries for that particular skill? May be that is another the solution, tackling it from a supply vs demand context.

On the contrary every company must encourage employees to contribute to areas needing their skills beyond work/projects. This not only would improve the individual’s experience but also establishes a means for additional income (passive income) from unutilized hours.

The candidate gets extra income, pays additional taxes which in turn contributes to the country’s economic growth.

Are we over emphasizing on pseudo morality or ethics to the extent of underutilizing one’s skills or killing opportunities to excel and innovate?

What if someone becomes greedy and neglects their full-time responsibilities for the additional passive income?