You’re intentionally returning unsigned contacts to employers hoping they don’t notice?
Seeing how you’re first action in each of your new jobs is done in bad faith I think I see why you’ve had to fill out six of them…
Seeing how you’re first action in each of your new jobs is done in bad faith I think I see why you’ve had to fill out six of them…
This behavior is not bad faith, unless it is done with the intent to deceive the employer. It's on the employer to make sure documentation is done correctly. In my company, we catch these kinds of things when we are setting up payroll. Most of the time the employee genuinely forgot to sign, or read some creative advice on the internet. Most of the time, the employee signs, and life is good. When they don't sign, we often find that that person has accepted an offer elsewhere and is milking us for a check.
I'm also not really sure which situations an employment contract would really hurt you in tech besides maybe some IP stuff. NDAs are usually separate.
IANAL,but they're still enforceable, especially in the grandparent's situation where the grandparent's work product was accepted and they were paid. There are realms of contract law where signature compliance is more prescribed like probate.
In my first contract for a dev job:
- noncompete
- agreement to work for a minimum amount of time, while my employer could terminate me at will (I don't think this one was actually enforceable where I live, since I didn't get a signing bonus, but I didn't know that at the time)
- IP stuff
- agreement to arbitration for any disputes (and employer chooses the arbitrator of course)
I would probably dispute some of those now, but as at the time I was naive, fresh out of college. And even if I had pushed back, I didn't have much leverage. I had just moved, and had no money, I couldn't afford not to take the job.
I doubt the parent did this in his first job, once you get to your 4th job, I can totally understand.
Plus why is it bad faith? The employee is presumably expected to read the contract, or should they just trust the employer? By the same token, the employer should be expected to check that the employee actually agrees to the terms.
I always wondered WHY ARE PEOPLE IN THE US ASKED TO SIGN A RECEIPT WHEN THEY PAY BY CREDIT CARD? I can draw literally any scraggles and they’ll accept it. Are they supposed to compare to the signature I put on my card?
Signature comparison is a line of defense.
More broadly, There's a whole set of practices that assume a relationship. You scoff at signatures, but in their heyday, my local banker knew me and knew my signature and he could spot a general forgery or even unusual patterns. Every economic transaction I engaged in came with a relationship that helped mitigate fraud.
Even voting in the US today carries remnants of this. If you go to a small town to vote, you know the election workers and they know you. There's no need for an ID and there's no question of fraud. Everybody knows everybody. If you try to vote and nobody knows you, if you've got the paperwork, you'll get a smile and you'll vote, but you can bet your ballot is flagged for extra scrutiny afterwards.
We need more of this system in the modern world.
This is because we have video recording, PIN input, card not present payments and lots of other ways to prove the cardholder approved the payment. That said, if you are a merchant and want lower fees by requiring signatures, make sure you compare signatures with the back of the card, and make damn sure the card is actually signed (no by looking at a driver's license). An unsigned card signature dispute almost always ends up costing the merchant.
Probably historically; I think I've had it rarely in the distant past.
Signatures are fairly uncommon these days. And the places where you sign a pad you just swipe a finger and no one blinks an eye. I'd say it was just outmoded POS systems but I've seen it on newer systems too. It probably does, as someone else wrote, constitute a bit more assent than clicking a button does even if not much.