Why You Should Quarantine Your Side Business

A simple rule that keeps your two lives from colliding

A friend of mine recently left his employer to enjoy a gentle slide into retirement. He was a valued employee, respected by his clients, and his transition out was amicable and organised.

Until he realised that he had placed his entire online non-work life on his work-provided MacBook and iPhone.

Now he wasn’t running a side business so at least that complication didn’t arise. But the effort to re-home his email, financial records, contacts, files, photos, software and subscriptions was, to put it gently, complex and time-consuming.

Had he asked me years ago, I would have given him this advice in as stern a voice as I could muster: Keep your work life and personal life separate.

My friend had plenty of time to separate and extract his personal data.

But…

What would you do if you came into the office one morning to find the dreaded RIF letter on your desk? Your login doesn’t work. Terse instructions to take your personal things and leave your computer and phone behind.

What would they find if they decided to forensically review your phone and computer?

Your work computer

Ideally, nothing personal. Because you never used it to sync your personal email and calendar, store your photo albums and personal files, your Spotify playlists, and check your social media accounts.

They find nothing personal because there’s nothing personal to find.

Keep your personal online life on your home computer, and your work life on your work computer. Don’t mix them, ever. Keep them separate.

Your work phone

Ditto for your work phone. Keep your personal phone (and phone number) completely separate. Even if they just give you a work SIM or eSIM, don’t multi-SIM your own phone.

I see this too many times. Even with two SIMs installed, your contact lists, WhatsApp, texts, social accounts, and emails just seem to blend together. If you ever get the letter, just give it back and walk away knowing nothing is compromised.

Your work notes

This is a side issue but it’s worth noting. In our work and personal lives, we take notes. On paper. My personal practice is to do this in an A4 notebook, and not rip out pages for any reason.

Bypass the stationery cupboard and buy your own notebooks. Seriously. And make them expensive, like a Moleskine or Leuchtturm. Something that no budget-conscious office manager would ever stock. Because if your employer demands you leave them behind, you can legitimately claim them as your own.

You walk out clean.

Your side business

Every company handbook says, ‘separate your personal accounts from your work laptop.’ No surprises there, but things change when you have a side business.

If you’re reading this article it’s a fair assumption you have a side business, or you’re planning for one in the near future. It’s also a fair assumption you’re taking a salary while said side business grows to the point where it can fund your lifestyle.

This means you’re vulnerable, big time.

Your employer looks at your laptop and sees the potential for intellectual property ‘repurposing.’ They see your side business files sitting alongside the company’s Salesforce login, and the AutoCAD drawings that have nothing to do with company work.

They see your Stripe invoices, your client emails, proposals and deliverables. They see all the details of your Shopify store, including the images you photoshopped using their Adobe account.

They see unequivocal proof you’re planning an exit. That’s not a good position to negotiate from.

The ethics of keeping it all separate

Your employer pays you a salary. In return, while you’re on the clock, your expertise, knowledge, credentials, insights, time, skills and network are available for the benefit of your employer. Not all of them all of the time, but they’re on call.

That’s the basis of every employment arrangement ever. Full time, part time, casual, work from home, hybrid. Whatever.

Your employer will often make tools available to you to deliver these things. For most readers of The Banana Stand, this means a computer, a phone, software, and apps. These remain your employer’s property, and most of what you do on them becomes fair game too.

The moment your personal data crosses onto them, it stops being purely yours. Run a private email through a company laptop and you’ve handed your employer a legitimate claim to read it.

Keep your personal life off them entirely, or you’re trusting a court to draw a line your employer never agreed to.