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Fired? Speak No Evil

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Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#281

Post by Florin_Andrei »

grellas wrote: post #277

Non-disparagement clauses can be seen as a throwaway item, a suffocating burden, an essential protection, or a damned nuisance, each according to taste or context. To begin with, lawyers tend to see these clauses as essential protections and they are sometimes right. But, right or wrong, they tend to insist upon them, especially in the employment context. This explains their prevalence but, of course, does not necess…

I'd like to see some fairness in the matter. I will sign all the non-disparagement clauses you guys like, if you do the same. In other words, the company cannot make any negative comments about me.

In general, I think fairness should be pushed way up front. Want me to give you two weeks notice? Okay. You give me two weeks notice before you "terminate" me.

It's all a contract, and there are two sides to it. I don't see any reason why one side gets all the royal treatment, whereas the other always gets the short end of the stick.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#282

Post by greenyoda »

alextingle wrote: post #252
greenyoda wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consideration was the severance payment, which in the article was worth two weeks of salary.

Are you really asserting that employers who don't ask leavers to sign gag-clauses usually pay zero severance?? On the contrary, I assert that severance pay is normal with or without the gag-clause. So the employer has put the "value" of signing agreement at zero.

Severance payments are not legally required in most U.S. states. The company might usually make a severance payment (because ex-employees usually sign whatever the company asks them to), but if you don't sign their agreement, they won't give you a severance payment. So the cost of not signing is whatever the severance was worth.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#283

Post by [deleted] »

officemonkey wrote: post #209
nemesisj wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it whenever anyone insists something "isn't a big deal" or they don't care about it that much. I will simply say that it is a big deal to me, so if it's not a big deal to them, they might as well do it my way. This works in almost all cases, or the other party has to backtrack and then at least we're negotiating on more transparent terms.

Exactly this. If it's "no big deal" then ex it out of the agreement. Oh? You won't? Then I guess it is a big deal after all.

[deleted]

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#284

Post by knappe »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #210
knappe wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'd say their track record is spot on. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/04/09/ea-voted-w...

Well, to be fair, given people like you, that's really no surprise. That's not to save that they necessarily do not deserve it.

"Well, to be fair, given people like you, that's really no surprise."

A personal attack? Can we save the ad hominems for somewhere else? I fail to see how being an informed consumer is a problem. I care how/where my dollars are spent.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#285

Post by nostrademons »

grellas wrote: post #277

Non-disparagement clauses can be seen as a throwaway item, a suffocating burden, an essential protection, or a damned nuisance, each according to taste or context. To begin with, lawyers tend to see these clauses as essential protections and they are sometimes right. But, right or wrong, they tend to insist upon them, especially in the employment context. This explains their prevalence but, of course, does not necess…

A couple employers ago I was leaving a job to found a startup and talking to a lawyer about unrelated things and casually brought up the termination agreement they had asked me to sign. His response was "Unless you need the money, I don't see what reason you would ever have for signing that."

The lightbulb that went off in my head was that every legal document you sign is basically a business transaction: you give up something, they give up something, and hopefully what they're giving up is worth more to you than what you're giving up.

So one way to think about this is to forget whether it's "common" or "routine" and imagine this thought experiment. A former employer comes up to you on the street and offers you a couple thousand (or whatever the severance terms were) in exchange for giving up the right to say negative things about the company (and any other terms they ask for). Do you take it? Well, it depends on a lot, including your personal financial situation. For a tech worker, it's probably not worth it; a couple grand is a drop in the bucket compared to the risk of a lawsuit. But if you need to make rent next month and just want to move on with your life, there are some situations where it could be.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#286

Post by throwaway3471 »

grellas wrote: post #277

Non-disparagement clauses can be seen as a throwaway item, a suffocating burden, an essential protection, or a damned nuisance, each according to taste or context. To begin with, lawyers tend to see these clauses as essential protections and they are sometimes right. But, right or wrong, they tend to insist upon them, especially in the employment context. This explains their prevalence but, of course, does not necess…

You said context is critical and this is interesting because a friend of mine is currently dealing with how to handle termination for a contract job (1099 not W2) they were performing.

They had worked for this company for about about half a year now and every single itemized invoice, which should have been paid in X days, was paid over over 4 times X days late every time and the CEO was unresponsive to emails addressing this. The CEO was verbally abusive over the phone and in writing such as in emails and text messages. The contract stated that she would get $X amount for Y hours of work per week. After enough abuse they gave the company the notice and asked to be paid the already late invoice for the previous month and the current invoice submitted a day or two prior and due in less than a week. Now the company has presented a termination contract with all the sorts of reprehensible clauses we are discussing here and they are stating that the consideration is that they won't dispute the hours itemized on the last invoice. They refuse to pay the final invoice unless this person signs the termination contract. This isn't worth seeing a lawyer about given the invoice amount.

Furthermore, the person in question was hired to do administrative work for the company, which is what they did initially, but ended up handling almost exclusively personal issues for the CEO for last few months, which quite frankly strikes me as malfeasance since the CEO was paying for personal assistance needs with company funds. IMHO Some of the work performed should have been paid out of the CEO's pocket instead of the company's funds.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#287

Post by huhtenberg »

knappe wrote: post #284
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to be fair, given people like you, that's really no surprise. That's not to save that they necessarily do not deserve it.

"Well, to be fair, given people like you, that's really no surprise." A personal attack? Can we save the ad hominems for somewhere else? I fail to see how being an informed consumer is a problem. I care how/where my dollars are spent.

It looks like a personal attack, but it's not.

If you read the post you linked to, it quite reasonably says that EA is not the worst employer to work for. It's just that the Internet crowd thinks that it is. And what GP said was that this crowd comprises of people like yourself, which again is reasonable observation, not an attack.

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#288

Post by greenyoda »

dwc wrote: post #134

> Though such clauses don’t technically violate the First Amendment Not technically, not in spirit, not in any way related to the 1st amendment. Have so few people actually bothered to learn even a little about the 1st amendment? You can read the entire first amendment several times and then ponder it a little in just a few minutes, because it's very short. In fact, I'll paste the entire text: Congress shall make no…

"Not technically, not in spirit, not in any way related to the 1st amendment."

... unless your employer is the federal government, or a state or city government (since the First Amendment applies also to the states[1]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28Bill_of_Right...

Re: Fired? Speak No Evil

#289

Post by danielweber »

steveklabnik wrote: post #270
robterrell wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the author lives in NYC, so I assume he was working remotely. If that was the case, which states laws apply? What if one of the states is an at-will state and the other isn't?

I've often seen contracts explicitly contain "Disputes will be handled in CA and I waive my choice of venue."

If it's a small company in California they really don't want to take a bus to Texas to get into a legal fight with you.

This is one of those cases where you can't have both sides compromise. They want things jurisdicted (izzat a word?) in one state or the other. And the company is the one with the lawyers who have crafted things specifically for their home state.

You should give them this, perhaps in exchange for something else.

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