hmelton Wrote:Given the scope of the main company's products at the time I would have been signing away my right to actually use my EE degree for the rest of my life and most of the rights to my minor in ME even a significant part of my Major in programming.Most of the problem I have with this... it isn't that even though they can't win with that sort of overly restrictive language in the contract... given the way America tends to work anymore, can any worker afford to fight it out to retain the career they've invested in when the lawyers come knocking to enforce the terms via court proceedings? I do believe that Ben "Gryphon" Hutchins had to effectively walk away from any sort of journalism career, and his no-compete clause from his former employer was only good for a couple of years. Even the shortest period I've heard of basically means you have to find a stopgap employment, assuming you can exit the career and then reenter once the no-compete clause has expired.
Don't get me wrong they were all very nice both the recruiter and legal departments, but the legal department said that they felt since they were taking a big chance on hiring an engineer just starting out and they needed extra protection because I would be learning a lot from my first engineering job and that knowledge was theirs and they were taking steps to protect that as much as possible.
What was really more telling than the 15 to 20 minute very clear explanation was the statement by the legal interns made at the end just before they sent me back to the recruiters office. "Just sign it and ignore that part, we know it's restrictive, impossible to enforce or follow and besides it won't stand up in any county, state or federal court of law."
I also, of course, take issue with the "all your work are belong to us" clauses, because you either have to stifle any sort of related output, or keep that output private and hope that, when you're out from under the clause later, that you can manage to keep the release of it slow enough that they can't point at it and claim you created it while working for them.
I know why some of these clauses are in place. They're to keep you from taking important information to a competitor ("hope you can get a career in your field that involves another industry", because unemployment compensation still expects you to find a job NOW), from creating things on company time & equipment (there's been a few open source projects that have been forced to rewrite huge modules because they found out that a key contributor was under "all your work are belong to us" clauses, regardless of whether they didn't do it on company property during working hours, especially muddy when one is salaried and can be considered on working hours all the time), and in some cases means that, unless you can be guaranteed 30+ years of working for that firm and a retirement fund, you might as well start planning a career field change NOW.
I've got a current list, should I get into those sorts of contracts, of key exceptions to some of the clauses that are dealbreaking if I can't get them. And only a couple involve "existing customer relationships" with regards to some freelancing I've done.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor