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from the do-they-want-you-more-than-you-need-them dept.
Sumit Khanna has a blog post with the title, Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes:
[...] Over the course of the next fifteen years, I would be asked to sign non-competes several more times, always prior to employment. I've always refused, and until recently, I've never been denied a position because of that refusal.
A non-compete is a type of contract issued by an employer, typically part of the standard work agreement, job offer or non-disclosure agreement, which states that the employee agrees not to start a business that competes with their current company or to work for their company's competitors, for a set length of time (typically one year) after leaving or being terminated. If that sounds like an illegal contract, in the state of California, it is.
What are soylentils' experience with non-compete clauses?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:56AM (8 children)
Look, most non-competes are way too broad, and therefore unconscionable. You can get all principled if you want and refuse up front to sign such an agreement. That's not a bad route to go. Or, you can sign it, then ignore it as not being worth the paper it's printed on. It's not too different than a shrink-wrap EULA. Bunch of scary legal sounding bull designed to cow you. So if, in their opinion you break the non-compete, and the party you signed with learns of what they consider a breach, what are they going to do about it? Sue you? Please. Maybe blackball you, give you bad references? That's more likely, but they've got to be careful about that one too.
One time I took a gig at a company that insisted on the non-compete. To add to the insult, they also demanded I work for them on a 1099 basis. I signed up, then I was able to ignore the non-compete agreement because their former customer wanted to deal with me directly and cut them out. I told the customer of the non-compete and they took care of it.
The whole deal was a mess. First, the team that worked on the software engineering project was told that if they didn't land the customer, they wouldn't have jobs. So, what did they do? Severely underestimate the time and work it would take, of course. They proposed to port the customer's proprietary database operations, with all its cruft, jury rigging, and layers built up over at least a decade, to a different, open database-- in six weeks time! Said they could do it, with their incredible Agile-fu. The DBA they hired was rolling his eyes at the wildly optimistic schedule. The management doubled that to 3 months time. If possible, you always add more time to a schedule to deal with unforeseen problems, and there are always some of those. Still, the customer was very skeptical that it was possible to port the whole enchilada in just 3 months, but they took the deal.
And so the team got to work, and ran into issue after issue. They hadn't accomplished anything by the time the 3 months was nearly up, and that's when I came on board. I was the crack programmer they turned to in desperation. I managed to salvage part of the work they'd assigned to a truly terrible programmer, but it took another 4 months. The customer had received absolutely nothing and was very angry, threatening to sue. They held off only because I was making progress, and was able to give them something useful 4 months late. They wanted a little more polishing, and that's when they decided to deal with me directly, and I'm guessing they persuaded the software engineering business who'd hired me to not try to enforce the non-compete so I could work for them, in exchange for not being sued. Or, maybe they didn't say anything about it, figuring rightly that the software engineering business wouldn't dare make a fuss, and told me a little lie just to reassure me. Whichever way it went down, I never heard a peep about it. So much for the non-compete agreement LOL.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:34AM (4 children)
So you sign them, and not give a fuck about the consequences. This is Klingon guile. Today is a good day to die. In Earth contract law, when you sign an illegal contract, all terms are null and void. Non-disclosure contracts are valid, however, non-compete contracts are null and void.
This is how White Earthian scum work around them: You cannot disclose professional details of an NDA, but you can use what you have learned to circumvent non-competes to use the knowledge you do have to exploit what you do know to use your knowledge when employed by someplace else.
White Earthian scum such as Apple tried and failed to circumvent this wholesale by colluding illegally with the Whites in charge of Damdung, Jewgle, Crapple, Hwahuawei, Ching-chong Ding-Dong.
But they failed.
This is why we voted for Donald Trump. When the cheap labor of your crappy foreign engineers and their wives in the cafeterias are discovered and blown the fuck out, Whites will take over in the engineering labs and their imported wives will be kicked out of being the cafeteria staff.
Nice try, shitbags. USA! USA! USA!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:44AM
Holy shit, I just found a fat bottle of hooch in my fridge.
I'd like to dedicate this one to the Madames Le Pen, Frauke Petry, Viktor Orban, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, and all others in the spirit.
This one goes out to restitution to the unlawful actions committed during the NATO bombings of Serbia. [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:45AM (2 children)
You voted for him because you want non-competes to be enforceable? Wow, that's weapons-grade stupidity.
It's liberal states like California that make non-competes unenforceable.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:15AM
Wow, that's weapons-grade stupidity.
And Eth is the hydrogen bomb in that analogy!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:13AM
"weapons-grade stupidity"
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:42AM
Look, most non-competes are way too broad...
My experience is the exact opposite! (this doesn't prove anything I just thought it was slightly amusing at the time)
Got an email from the HR drone, subject Non-Compete agreement. I had been working there for a few years already so I'm thinking this is going to be a problem...
I read the thing and it's like half a page.
It says I'm not allowed to take the sales call-list, start my own company, and then try to sell all of them steel.
I got the very distinct impression that someone had taken the call list, started their own company, and then sold them all steel.
Considering I was the EH&S Manager I didn't have a problem signing. I would rather die than do sales.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:11AM
Suppose A Inc and B Corp are in the same line of business.
If you sign a non-compete for A then B won't touch you for fear of getting sued by A.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by termigator on Sunday March 25 2018, @09:18PM
But non-competes are legal any many (US) states, so you cannot blindly ignore such a clause. I know California and Texas do not allow it. And if you are dealing with situations where you live and work in a state that does not allow it, but the company that employs you is incorporated in another state that does, things get a bit grey.
I was involved with this situation where a company I was doing independent contract work for wanted to hire me as a regular employee. The employment contract had a non-compete (company in state that allows them) but I lived and worked in a state that does not. The non-compete was quite severe, and likely would even be considered as such in their own state, and them risking the entire contract void, but assuming their state would upheld, what is not clear is if the laws of their state could be applied to me. What brief research I did on this matter gave no clear answers.
Since I was not willing to take the risk, and out of general principle, I stated I cannot agree to the contract with a non-compete. In my case, the full-time employment offer was rescinded, and I stayed an independent contractor. IMO, the owner of the company was too naive about the matter and letting their legal counsel have too much say on the contract.
My general advise: Do not sign any employment agreement with a non-compete, and as other have suggested, request it be removed. If they refuse to do so, do not sign, go elsewhere. If you are desperate and need the job, restrict the non-compete to only apply if you terminate employment. That way, if they fire you or lay you off, there are no restrictions.