201–210 of 271 posts
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If you are interested in collective action to combat clauses like this, follow Maciej Cejlowski.
Follow him how?
(Or try here: https://twitter.com/baconmeteor )
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Damage control. They went from "lol, you're the only one with a problem, get lost!" to "hmmm, this is generating bad publicity.. now we definitely sympathize with your concerns!" real quick. As far as I'm concerned, I now know all I will ever need to know about Gigster. Your reputation is something that takes a lifetime to build and only 5 minutes to ruin permanently.
> Your reputation is something that takes a lifetime to build and only 5 minutes to ruin permanently. This is the most important takeaway from this entire sad thread. Wonderful comment!
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If this comment had been the last email response in the chain, I think that would have been great. The fact that it wasn't, that an important issue was dismissed when raised in private, speaks far more to me than this public response.
Damage control. They went from "lol, you're the only one with a problem, get lost!" to "hmmm, this is generating bad publicity.. now we definitely sympathize with your concerns!" real quick. As far as I'm concerned, I now know all I will ever need to know about Gigster. Your reputation is something that takes a lifetime to build and only 5 minutes to ruin permanently.
A quote I read somewhere recently: your reputation grows like a coconut tree, but fall like a coconut.
That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…
Why not draft up something to give to the company disclaiming all rights to your work? If lawyers are too expensive for the company, I'm sure they'll sign it right away! I'm guessing the HR person is just incompetent and the issue should be escalated. What exactly does a company think is going to be the outcome of saying "Oh, BTW, we might sue you for this, we might not and we're not going to give you a straight answ…
That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…
Is this common in contracts??
That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…
To anyone reading this that gets this response in a negotiation, this is the go to line for any experienced negotiator when you come to them with questions about a contract. Always. Its like negotiation 101. Do not take the response at face value. Its a canned line that doesn't mean anything on its own.
The typical response is to say that it makes a good impression on the organization that they have yet to have any contract disputes and then get back to asking about your specific issues.
Although, the harsh reality is that for them to change this contract means they need to bring a lawyer into the situation and that costs them money. So realistically you need to be in a situation where you have some kind of leverage in the situation. That is pretty rare when you are alone on the labor side as opposed to the capital side. Sometimes you have to decide between taking a risk of getting screwed or walking away. Unfortunate reality of our economic system as it currently stands. As unions learned a long time ago, labor protections via government regulation is typically more effective than private negotiation. Without that, most people just have to learn to accept they you are going to get taken advantage of and work around it.
So I hate to disappoint everyone. Such contract really cannot be viewed the way this was summarized through an email. One paragraph has to be interpreted in the context of everything else. Moreover, everyone uses this language. It is funny, but I suspect that most of Silicon Valley just recycles the same 3-4 contracts, that individual lawyers just modify slightly. I have now worked with 60+ tech companies (Looker, Gi…
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I give a similar reply when being asked to remove an interest penalty clause for late payment. " We always pay our bills on time so there's no need for that! " " Great! In that case you don't have to worry about every paying it either so we'll leave it in! "
Here in France the minimal penalty rate is set by law, and it's mandatory to put it on every bill, with the payment terms now. It's part of a crackdown on big companies crushing the smaller ones with unreasonable payment times.
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Quitting a job is a major, life-changing event for many devs and the question is whether such a clause in the contract is worth the trouble. That said, I disagree strongly with these intellectual property clauses in dev contracts.
If you already have the job and they try to make you sign something like this, don't quit, but say no. You may not be prepared to quit over such a clause, but it's also likely that they're not prepared to fire you over it. They will probably tell you that you must sign it, or else terrible consequences will ensue. If those consequences involve the company, brush it off, because that's not your problem. If they involv…
In other words, it would be clearly illegal for an employer to say simply, "Here's the new employment contract identical to existing but with a new, more aggressive IP ownership clause; sign it or you're fired." Contracts signed under these circumstances have been struck down in court.
However, it would be legal for an employer to say, "Anyone who signs the updated employment contract (with aggressive IP changes) gets free lunches and can work from home 2 days a week." I don't understand the caselaw enough to know what would happen if they provided the incentive and added "or you're fired."
In general, I think the idea is that you have a lot of freedom with new employee agreements, but you cannot just change out an employment agreement on existing employees to strip them of rights.
*IANAL, and it may vary by state.