Hacker News Reader

Comment by zecho | Hacker News Reader

Maybe don't sign these types of contracts?

We are fortunate enough that even the most mediocre among us can hold out for the next employer that doesn't demand this kind of control over you, or start your own company. I don't give a shit what a company says about their culture of work/life balance or whatever. If I see blanket IP clauses unrelated to non-compete, or like arbitration clauses that remove us from civil courts should a problem arise, I'm whistling on my way out the door.

I once saw a contract that stated I couldn't work in the field for TWO YEARS after terminating. Not just large machine equipment, but ANY mobile/web applications, related to integration with embedded systems or not. Yeah no thanks.

Your mind should be available for rent for $100k/year or whatever your market rate is these days but not for sale at that price. Sorry but I'm a Human as a Service. If you want to own me, you'll have to come to a better valuation.

View on HN

I basically did whistle my way out the door because of this.

I worked as a contractor for a very large defense company. After a year, they offered me full time employment. I specifically asked if there was a "we own everything you make" clause in the employment agreement, but I was assured there was not. I went through about five digital form contracts, and when I got to the last one, it had the clause in there. I told the woman that I wanted to amend the contract and she huffed and told me they don't do that. I replied that I was promised that I would not have to agree to such a clause, and she told me that it was mandatory, so I could take it or leave it. I asked if there was anyone in HR I could talk to about this, and was told no. So I stood up and said "please escort me out the door, starting immediately I am resigning. At the gate, I would like the security guard to search my things." (it was a secured facility, and I didn't want anyone to claim I was stealing anything later.) She asked me if I was serious, and I said yes. I was berated for how much time and money was wasted on getting me ready for employment, and I replied I was promised repeatedly that I would not have to sign away my rights, and this was absolutely a deal breaker and I didn't appreciate being told repeatedly this would be honored until the very last minute. So really, my time was being wasted too. This really, really didn't go over well. My heart was beating like crazy the entire time. My former boss was furious, the HR person was furious. The security guard was cool about it though.

walking the walk. Literally.

Strong work. Not everyone has the will, nor the financial wherewithal, to do such a thing.

>Not everyone has the will... to do such a thing.

This may just be crotchety old man talk, but sometimes I wonder if the extremely protective child-rearing (particularly in schools) that seems to be abundant today will make future adults particularly susceptible to this kind of bullying.

If you never have to deal with this kind of social stress as a child, how can you possibly deal with it as an adult?

Perhaps getting bossed around on the playground is a good way to train the mind to appropriately deal with intimidation from employers, salesmen, etc.

i'm in my 30s and i am in total agreement with you: the modern helicopter parents are so preoccupied with "bullying" that the next generation of kids are going to be soft-minded nitwits on the average. catching a beatdown on the playground now and again made me who i am today and i would never have had it any other way.

having the balls or wisdom to walk away from a situation where you're being bullied, whether literally or figuratively, is becoming rarer nowadays.

Rest assured, children are still being bullied quite regularly.

Being humiliated and beaten as a child with no control over the situation is not "training" for anything. It's abundantly clear that you did not experience that and have no idea what it is like for a child. Let's hope as a crotchety old man that nobody ever decides to show you what it's like when you're stuck in a nursing home where no one believes or cares to help you because of some stupid reason like that it should toughen you up.

Geez man.

I think it is pretty much the norm that most kids get bullied to some extent. You can usually tell the ones that have had a sheltered life.

I disagree. Most kids have experienced that, and in older times quite more than today with over-protection.

Unless we're talking of extreme situations (which we were not), it helps to build defenses against these kind of things and be more vigilant and aware of other's tactics.

Some kind of "toughening" kids up with adverse situation (as opposed to over-protecting them) has been part of human culture for milenia, from Sparta to Native American tribes.

>Being humiliated and beaten as a child with no control over the situation is not "training" for anything. It's abundantly clear that you did not experience that and have no idea what it is like for a child. Let's hope as a crotchety old man that nobody ever decides to show you what it's like when you're stuck in a nursing home where no one believes or cares to help you because of some stupid reason like that it should toughen you up.

Perhaps you should not make such unfounded assumptions. It would also behoove you to refrain from such overt ad hominem argument.

Do you think I was never a child? I speak from experience, not conjecture. I can't say the same for your vitriolic response.

As a child, I went through many situations that were very stressful for me at the time, but ultimately helped to construct a number of helpful psychological responses to aggression. Those responses are very useful in the real world. Contrary to what teachers may have you believe, bullying does not end in school. It simply becomes more subtle.

Kids have it worse today if anything. Once they go home they continue to get tormented online.

I would argue more that the instilled mindset of "do as the authority figures say, you have no influence in the matter" that's pervasive in schools also does a huge amount to train adults to not feel like they have this option. That takes a lot to overwrite when it's instilled in you for the first 18 years of your life.

Yes. I read someone recently who advocated for ensuring your child got in trouble in school quite early on - for something non-violent, minor (maybe uniform infringements or talking in class) so that they could see that the whole world won't collapse if they do something their teacher disagrees with.

One of my young child's (c.5-6 at the time) teachers made their claimed authority explicit in demanding that they be obeyed "first time every time" without the chance to question or consider what they were being asked - that's a bit too close to demanding mindlessness for my liking, terribly arrogant too.

Agreed. And adding to that, you have the general mindset of people telling their young adult offspring that they're "fortunate" to find a "good job" and they should, therefore, suck it up and live with whatever kind of injustice is forced upon them. All for that paycheck.

Agreed. I can see how that could be even more damaging to the development of healthy psychological defense mechanisms than a lack of aggression from peers.

Which do you think is more likely to affect assertiveness: overprotective parents or a lack of leverage in the employment market?

I take the fact that you reduced OP's statement

> Not everyone has the will, nor the financial wherewithal, to do such a thing.

>Not everyone has the will... to do such a thing.

as an indication that you think economics plays a secondary role in this story. I disagree and I'd like to know why you think that's the case.

No, I agree with you that economic factors are generally more important. I just thought the "will" part was more interesting to talk about.

> This may just be crotchety old man talk, but sometimes I wonder if the extremely protective child-rearing (particularly in schools) that seems to be abundant today will make future adults particularly susceptible to this kind of bullying.

I wonder how much of the structure of the school system is bullying, or built around encouraging it.

Vicious unthinking rules applied more for the administration and teacher's benefit than anything else. An environment where you're deprived of meaningful achievement and put under continual stress for largely meaningless exams....

When kids have so little influence in the nature of their environment, teachers are running a stupid rule book, and where 'accomplishment' is so meaningless with respect to what's personally fulfilling, is it really going to be surprising if people grow up without much confidence?

After all, what opportunity would they have had to exercise it?

>This may just be crotchety old man talk, but sometimes I wonder if the extremely protective child-rearing (particularly in schools) that seems to be abundant today will make future adults particularly susceptible to this kind of bullying.

Teaching children to respect authority figures will make them susceptible to this kind of bullying.

Exposing children to physical assault is not going to be any help whatsoever during future contract negotiations. Probably it will be a hindrance, in fact.

I was very fortunate. I was single, and at the time I lived _very_ cheaply, and I had set aside enough money that I could survive almost a year without work. Before that, every job I had ever worked had that stupid clause, and I had swore I would never sign it again. I was only at this place because the money was really, really good. The work environment was the worst I've ever experienced. When they sprung that on me, it was the last straw.

They do this to you because they hold all the cards. I was just lucky that I didn't need them.

That's why it think these kinds of contracts should have very strong limitations since as it stands now an employer could potentially make you sign a contract that would effectively make you unable to earn a living and survive for years or own any intellectual property you may have developed in your own time for the purpose of say starting your own business.

They could cripple you if they wanted to.

To be honest there's not much difference between this an slavery and when signing is the difference between putting food on the table or starving everybody is a slave.

Of course you could always not sign but not everyone has the luxury to do that i would argue most people don't.

I find nothing as pleasurable in this world as seeing people in the wrong get upset that they are in the wrong.

Thanks for the entertaining story! And sorry to hear of your mental anguish.

If you had a written promise, could you sue?

No, you can only say no thanks and leave. I strongly suggest to anyone who gets hired at Google to read the employment contract completely (you can ask them to send it to you before you start). If you have a friend who understands contract law, have them explain it to you. Then decide.

Unlike in credit situations there is no equivalent of the Fair Credit Act covering employment contracts. Many employers exploit that by writing some very crafty wording which reads one way but on close inspection says the opposite.

Thanks for the advice, did not know this.

Not just contrcat law employment law experiance is key here.

IANAL, you sort of can, but mainly in compensation for expenses you incurred based on expecting them to come through.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#American_law

So if someone offers you a job and you quit your previous job, only to find out your new job is no longer on the table, then you can sue for lost wages?

Let's just say that it's possible-enough that you should ask a real lawyer about what they think :p

Would you work for an employer that you had to sue to force them to allow you to work there?

I think the point would be because of the time wasting on the employer's part.

yeah, we have this possibility in France, and I wouldn't feel confortable. I guess most of the times people asks for money and leave instead of asking to be (re-)integrated.

More likely you would be suing for monetary damages, such as the wages you lost by leaving your previous job, any money you spent on relocation, etc.

you have all my respect! wish more people stood up for what they believed in.

The win-win-or-no-deal is strong with this one.

This is why I always say get it in writing. If it's not written, it doesn't really exist.

Funny, I had the same conversation yesterday. A specific non-compete to say you can't work on the precise product segment (say, if you're at Facebook, you can't work on Google+ directly or something more specific like a segment your company is developing a patent in) for "x months" seems something that you can sign off if market segment is such.

If I pay for a car, I'm paying for a product. If I pay someone to clean my garden, I'm buying his time, expertise etc. for the time to clean my garden. I look at me being paid at work the same way. I'm paid to work for 'n' hrs a day, 'm' days a week per year for cost 'x'. I provide you service and I get paid in return. What I do after work, as long as I don't infringe on any IP from work, is my business.

Question: is such a clause enforced in laboratories?

> We are fortunate enough that even the most mediocre among us can hold out for the next employer that doesn't demand this kind of control over you, or start your own company.

That's great this year. When the bubble pops - as it surely will, and if you think otherwise you're as bad as the cretins who were writing about all the rules changing forever in 2000 - things will be different. The time to press for change is when times are good and when you have leverage.

Why is the alternative to signing walking away? Whenever I've been handed terms like this in a contract I've struck them off and explained why prior to signing. I've never lost a job because of it and it's usually a sub-10 minute conversation.

There is a limit to how much an employer can ask for in negotiations before I start to assume bad faith.

A 2 year non-compete covering the entire industry I work in? That's not even halfway reasonable. You're actively trying to fuck me over.

I don't care that it's not enforceable. You're still trying to fuck me over.

I don't care that you're willing to compromise on that clause when I argue. You're still trying to fuck me over.

This is not going to be a productive relationship even if I do get you to remove that clause because you started out trying to fuck me over.

Every employer who attempts this kind of bullshit is a cancer upon this industry. They are preying upon people's tendencies to assume honesty and good faith.

A reasonable clause to put in is a 6 month non-compete in the very specific industry covering maybe two or three companies. That would be a good starting point for negotiations.

I've accepted jobs where they tried to pull this kind of bullshit on me right out of the gate. I used to think I was smart getting them to slice the contract up and make it reasonable like you suggested.

Maybe it was, but it still would have been smarter to never have taken the job in the first place. Those people made terrible employers and are best just avoided.

I've seen "unenforceable" non-competes, combined with bogus accusations of infringement, destroy entire companies and the products that other companies built on them, just through attrition.

I totally respect that stance and I wish it was more widespread. Just speaking from my own experiences – I’ve been presented 2 or 3 very unreasonable contracts that I renegotiated and the employers were fine to work with. I think the non-compete clauses were there out of their own insecurities about competitors rather than any intention to screw me over. I can’t know that for sure, but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is it was all out of the contract before I signed it.

In business, a lot of people like to play hardball. Doesn't mean they’re all assholes. Taking them on and negotiating mutually agreeable terms can be a good outcome in itself. It’s a very useful skill to have.

>In business, a lot of people like to play hardball. Doesn't mean they’re all assholes.

Playing negotiation hardball with somebody who is potentially reliant upon you to put a roof over their head and food on the table makes you an asshole. Let's stop pretending that it doesn't.

It's entirely different to negotiating a 20 million dollar exit.

If I'm going to be paid a LOT of money I might consider some of these terms (> $250k), but generally I find anyway that the more the employer pays you the more reasonable they tend to be.

Most companies buy packages of HR docs from their law firm, or from an HR-focused law firm that does nothing but churn these things out. They all have the same basic list of clauses. So I wouldn't attribute this one clause to general maliciousness. I would wonder though, why so many people said there was no such clause.

I have drawn lines through the objectionable parts of employment agreements, initialed my changes, and then sat patiently while the HR people freak out. It has usually worked out happily for all concerned, not counting the people who think the employment agreement is a gift from their god and must not be altered by mere mortals. When those people have enough power to reject my rejection, I'm happy to walk. But it's important to verify that they have that power, IMHO.

I used to think this too, but not any more. If you sign something, you're taking responsibility for it. Period. It applies to me and it applies to the employer. No exceptions.

The exception you're describing is where the employer is hopelessly naive and unknowingly signed and gave me a contract they didn't read with horrendous terms, and they're very apologetic when I ask them to amend it.

Well, that actually happened to me once.

I thought everything was fine when the terms were amended, but the guy who hired me was still hopelessly naive.

That ended up SERIOUSLY coming back to bite me in the ass as he ran out of money, panicked, hid himself and didn't tell anybody what happened. Eventually he told me that he ended up not paying me because he couldn't.

He was a nice guy and he plainly felt awful, but that wasn't much consolation to my bank account.

So yeah, the when there's a possibility you're negotiating with somebody who is either hopelessly naive or evil, I don't really care which they are. I don't want to work for them either way and neither should you.

In general the ones who intentionally put the clauses in weren't necessarily the most awful places to work in the world, but none of them were job opportunities of the lifetime, and I wouldn't have felt bad passing any of them up.

Non-compete is wrong, too. I have a lot of respect for California's courts for ruling against them and making them unenforceable there.

You don't have to agree to sign such agreements. Once a company has invested in hiring you they aren't likely to let you go when you're at the proverbial starting line. Its more a case of who is going to blink first.

I just know that I've refused to sign more than once. Do you think, especially in Silicon Valley, that the employer not only wants to lose the employee but be bad mouthed about restrictive agreements online where it's likely they will lose even more battles in the recruiting wars?

> I once saw a contract that stated I couldn't work in the field for TWO YEARS after terminating. Not just large machine equipment, but ANY mobile/web applications, related to integration with embedded systems or not. Yeah no thanks.

Interestingly, here the legislagtion allows this kind of clauses only if you're receiving a "significant part" of your original pay from that company until the end of that period. Also, they have 2 weeks time after you quit to decide if they'll enforce it or not and the clause has to be written into the contract from the start of your employment.

Which is actually way more reasonable that some contracts I've seen from the US-based companies.

that's a noncompte cluase (which is a totaly diferent thing) which I suspect would be impossible to enforce.

I get that. I was pointing out dumb contract clauses in general. As the OP says, there's a large array of these types of things found in contracts, which is why I brought up overly restrictive non-competes and arbitration clauses, both of which are just as scummy as claiming ownership of any IP during the period of employment.

But non competes are hard to enforce whereas having releted work/ip belongs to the employer is prity much custom and practice.

The employee employer relsionship is very one sided

Reply on news.ycombinator.com