A company in Shanghai, China recently came under fire over an ownership dispute between it and one of its interns – the latter won an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 in a raffle event, which the former claims belongs to them, stating that the incident occurred on its dime.
Here’s what happened: On 14 November, the company’s intern was sent on an all-expense-paid business trip. At the end of a function, the hosts of the trip held a raffle event – basically similar to a lucky draw – which the intern participated in and ended up winning an RTX 5060, which currently retails at around RM1,500.
As many of the PC gamers among you well know, the GPU is easily the most expensive component of the entire ensemble. So, when luck went over to the intern’s side, it’s completely understandable why he was so happy.
Unfortunately, the Chinese company the intern was tied to didn’t quite see it that way. When he got back into the office, it was made clear to him by a colleague that the finance department had gotten wind of his good fortune.
Later in their regaling, the intern said that the finance department actually knew of no such thing, and they chalked it up to the colleague who “clued” them in being jealous of their good fortunes. Sadly, the news eventually reached the ears of the higher ups and…well, you can see where this story’s going.
Ultimately, the company demanded that the RTX 5060 be surrendered to them, with the reason (or excuse) that they had won the card on the company’s dime, and it was therefore company property. Naturally, the intern refused and submitted their resignation there and then.
Lawyers who discussed the case sided with the intern, saying that a prize won at random belongs to the person who won it. Ultimately, whether the individual was there on business or the nature of such events are laid out specifically in a contract, the RTX 5060 belonged to the intern.
The story also stands as a constant reminder for us all, too: to always stand up for yourself, especially against a company that is acting irrationally or unfairly, just because they believe that they have more clout than you.
(Source: Fast Technology via Tom’s Hardware)
