My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation • Hacker News Board

Re: My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation

#61

Post by trowawee » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 12:50 AM UTC

joshavant wrote: post #53

tachion wrote: post #23

My partner, a developer, got fired (well, the job offer was retracted after a very well performed internship) for kindly questioning two points of the contract: one about unlimited unpaid overtime, and second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). I told…

IANAL, but, for the _California_ readers, I'm fairly certain a contract with a clause like 'losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE' will NEVER hold up in California court, assuming said projects are done with the employee's own time + materials. ...Which is also a strong reason why you should always avoid using/making/doing anything personal on your employer's laptop/equi…

Yeah, but it's easier (and much, much cheaper) to say "This'll never hold up in court!" than it is to actually prove that it won't hold up in court, which is what most of these companies are ultimately counting on.

Re: My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation

#62

Post by Mr_P » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 4:24 AM UTC

tachion wrote: post #23

My partner, a developer, got fired (well, the job offer was retracted after a very well performed internship) for kindly questioning two points of the contract: one about unlimited unpaid overtime, and second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). I told…

> one about unlimited unpaid overtime

Am I misunderstanding something, or isn't this the definition of a salaried position?

> second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on).

This also seems extremely standard (at least it's in every employment contract from the big tech companies), and probably exists more so to protect the company from extreme circumstances than anything else (although I am not a lawyer).

Re: My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation

#63

Post by tachion » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 8:52 AM UTC

Mr_P wrote: post #62

tachion wrote: post #23

My partner, a developer, got fired (well, the job offer was retracted after a very well performed internship) for kindly questioning two points of the contract: one about unlimited unpaid overtime, and second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). I told…

> one about unlimited unpaid overtime Am I misunderstanding something, or isn't this the definition of a salaried position? > second one about losing all intellectual rights to ANYTHING done/written/created ANYTIME and ANYWHERE (including things not related to company's business and/or technology in own spare time, holidays and so on). This also seems extremely standard (at least it's in every employment contract fro…

> Am I misunderstanding something, or isn't this the definition of a salaried position?

I dont know where are you coming from, but one person being able to demand unlimited amount of unpaid work from another person is called slavery, not salaried position, in my book.

> This also seems extremely standard (at least it's in every employment contract from the big tech companies), and probably exists more so to protect the company from extreme circumstances than anything else (although I am not a lawyer).

Perhaps it is standard, but I think one should NOT sign contracts that are requiring or enforcing something to what one dont want to agree, as simple as that. We're quite involved in open source projects, activities around teaching women how to program, we're thinking about creating a foundation tied to these activities... All this would be impossible or much, much, much complicated with such contract signed, and also simply stupid, if done with full awareness of what is that she'd sign.