I once worked at a tiny startup where we were trying to sell a dataset to GS. Before we could even send a sample, they sent over some boilerplate forms for us to sign. I remember two distinct stipulations - anything we sent them was immediately and forever their property, AND they had the right to drug test any of our employees. We ended up not signing so there was no deal. My boss said it was their way of getting rid of us.
I signed one of these contracts in 2006. I went to work for a company in product design and development, and since my work was new product design and development, everything I worked on at that time became the property of the company.
There was also a two-year non-compete clause that forbid me from working with any of their direct competitors afterwards.
I signed the contract because I wanted to do the work, and because I knew that all the other places would have me sign the same contract. I also thought that this company was the most progressive of the group. Finally, I wanted my ideas to be funded, and so in exchange for the time and the resources that they promised to put towards my work, I would provide them with the ideas. We were both taking risks to achieve a greater goal together.
In the end, they reneged on their side of the bargain and didn't provide the necessary funding to complete the production and testing that the product design needed. After trying to get the work done myself in-house by funneling time and energy away from other projects towards mine, it came to a head and it was acknowledged that they weren't going to fund the work and that we needed to part ways.
On the day that decision was made, I was escorted out, leaving everything behind, my notebooks, and all my digital research files.
Several years later, when they won a large contract for work that was in the area that I was working on, my manager took me out for lunch and said that I had just been about 5 years ahead of the curve, and that they hadn't had the resources to carry that type of research and development that far ahead of a clear billable opportunity.
When I asked him about the files and the notebooks, he said that nothing ever happened to them, they were all just filed away in the archives.
I left understanding their situation well. It's hard to fund something when it's not clear when the payoff will materialize, and when it did materialize, they were able to get there first anyways. So the loss of five years in R&D wasn't noticed, by them, their clients, or the industry.
The lesson that I did learn was - back up your files offsite, and have duplicate notebooks, one that is your private notebook and one that is your office notebook. Because when you sign a contract like this, you have to be prepared to leave everything onsite when it ends.
The irony with the 2 year non-compete is that after I left, non of the other firms were interested in even discussing the work that I had done. Which is why these guys were the only ones that I could have worked with in the first place, and it's why they were the only ones able to secure the contracts when the need for the technology finally arrived.
And there wasn't much I could do with the technology myself, since it was untested and unproved and I couldn't fund the research myself. So the non-compete clause didn't impact me much either.
Perhaps this sheds some light on why the contracts exist and why people like me sign them.
I worked at such a company. I was given the contract to sign. No thanks.I quit a short while after. Basically everything I built while working there was supposedly their property.
I understand the last part, and wouldn't do this to a small team or startup. This probably wouldn't work with a tight-knit team anyways. It's mostly for big companies, working for "the man." Generally discussing this with them won't be productive. I would do this though if they realized that I didn't sign a particular contract. It is their responsibility to make sure I signed the documents though.
A couple years ago I had to sign a similar agreement at a previous job.
The problem with mine was that the company was a fairly large one which had completed numerous acquisitions in the last decade or so. Every little company they acquired had some product that was "out in left field" relative to what their core business was. So as these smaller firms were consolidated, this company ended up with all sorts of little businesses out there that I could never account for. I couldn't confidently say what was or was not related to their business or R&D, so I just stayed out of doing side projects out of fear of getting sued and felt pretty unfulfilled.
I ended up just quitting that job and going to work somewhere that I didn't have to sign any assignment agreement.
We did have several people leave before joining because they refused to sign the agreement. I know that it's my fault I signed the agreement. I'm also working towards your suggestion (38 applications so far this year) but the thing that scared me was the fact that they got ownership of something after the employee left. I can see if it was something they worked on while with the company and then left and tried to patent it. If it was something completely unrelated then I just lost faith in the legal system. I'm also probably risking being fired just by posting something like this, shrugs.
I was asked to sign one once, I said no, and it turned out the startup had just got some standard contracts from someone and was using them because they had them, not because of some specific concern so they had no problem changing them to something mutually acceptable. Any company that won't do this is not worth working with.
No idea about the OP, but in my case every contract I signed contained some clauses that prevented me from speaking or acting in any way against the companies interests, at least while I was working there; just like a sort of non-compete agreement but applied more broadly.
Luckily I never had to test those clauses, but I'm sure had I done anything against them they would have destroyed me in court in no time.
If I was in the OP shoes I'd leave ASAP. One day someone will let the cat out of the bag anyway (coworkers, researchers, competitors doing reverse engineering, etc) and he could lose his job anyway if the company tanks. Not to mention being related to a technical fraud.
He went through a phone screening, then a technical interview. They made him an offer and sent him a contract. A clause in particular caught his eye:
Employee fully and unconditionally grants, assigns and transfers to the Company any
and all Inventions created, developed, discovered, conceived, invented, learned, or
suggested by Employee during the performance of Employee’s obligations under this
Agreement and for a period of one (1) year thereafter, whether or not such
Inventions are made during working hours or on the property of the Company, whether
or not such Inventions are related to the business, activities or interests of the
Company and whether or not such Inventions are patentable, copyrightable, or
protectable with a trademark, service mark or otherwise.
He asked me to look it over, a more experienced eye I guess. As soon as I opened the document, big red flag, it was 15 pages long. I've never had anything over 3 pages. The more I read it, the worse it got. They really, really needled in on the invention thing, and had all these side rules that it included anything that wasn't even patentable, and that you wouldn't argue against any claim they made unless you could prove that your work had been done before starting there by producing a patent. They required 30-days notice before leaving, which in PA is illegal to stipulate. There were restrictions for two years against soliciting anyone they had ever solicited, not just their customers. There were statements that unpaid overtime was expected, which is also illegal in PA (employees are allowed to work unpaid overtime but it cannot be a requirement for employment). And there were weird things in there like stipulating that the employee worked exclusively for the CEO. What was the point of that? It was just a complete mess.
So I suggested he should get a lawyer to review it. In the mean time, they started pressuring him to sign, he told them it was with the lawyer right now (though he hadn't yet found one, he was just stalling), and they freaked. Cut him a check of a few thousand dollars to go away and agree to a gag order.
But I didn't agree to shit! However, I still won't name them because I'm fairly certain they'd launch a full-frontal libel lawsuit against me. Just one of those kinds of places.
I’ve seen that for a well-known large tech company, and I wasn’t even employed in the US, making those seem stranger. Friends and former colleagues pushed back against that (very publicly and for obvious reasons in one case) and didn’t get to keep their vested options: they had to exercise what they had before leaving.
There was one thing that I cared about (anti-competitive behavior, things could technically be illegal, but what counts is policy so it really depends on what the local authority wants to enforce), so I asked a lawyer, and they said: No way this agreement prevents you from answering that kind of questioning.
I turned down a job because of this very issue. I was ready to sign and when I was reading the terms, it said they would own my side projects during the contract term if I worked on them. Hard no from me.
An acquaintance of mine who was given an offer by Google, and arrived on the appointed day, brought the agreement, a red line, and a clean copy. They refused to make any change in their wording even though they said their intent was not to enforce the wording as written. They said that they couldn't sign it unless Google's intent was actually in the writing as well. That afternoon, Google asked for all the gear they had been issued back and rescinded their offer of employment.
Google's statement was that Google would not make any changes in the employment agreement and signing the agreement was a condition of employment, thus by refusing to sign the agreement, this person had 'voluntarily' chosen not to work at Google.
I've worked in numerous jobs in the US and have never had to sign a contract. One tried to make me sign one of those 'anything you invent even on your own time is our property' documents and I told them no to which they said don't worry about it then.
The company I work for now was acquired awhile back and the software I work on is one of the main reasons for acquisition. I fully expected them to try and present some contracts, but they didn't. Most likely they correctly thought that I wouldn't sign it without some increase in pay and benefits, and they didn't want to give me any additional money.
Interesting but IMHO warped perspective. They put a paper in front of me when I left Google and I thanked them and put it in my briefcase, but didn't sign it. The person you've never seen before from HR who exits you isn't your friend and they aren't there to help you. Contracts under which you receive no consideration are fundamentally not contracts and you have no reason to sign them. Your actual friends would not propose such a thing.
I worked at a company once that was bought and tried the same thing. I told them I needed a large compensation component to sign, and I never heard anything else about it. This was big company buying big company though, so it was probably boiler plate stuff.
I did something similar with the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements my employer wanted me to sign when our company was purchased. It was a four page document and I simply altered the terms to suit what I thought was fair (I had no intention of stealing their IP, but I also didn't want them owning everything I created).
The HR representative signed both copies, gave me one and filed the other. The funniest part is that when I left a few years later, they couldn't find the one I'd signed and asked me to sign another during the exit interview ... I declined ;)
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.
This is what startups pay a lawyer to do. It's not that hard: restructure the company ownership in a long document with complicated terms. Get the employee to sign it and voila, early employees are screwed. The only real response is just not signing, but they will tell you the company will die if you don't do it, and you probably will just take it rather than fighting. At least I did.
I once accepted an offer and the next day I put in my 2 week notice at my new job, and later the same day I found out from a press release that the my new employer was being acquired.
A year or so into the new job, the CEO emailed everyone in the company a restrictive NDA, non-compete, non-solicitation contract and told everyone to sign it. It included language about theft of company forms or documents among other things.
I looked at the metadata of the contract doc and the "company" tag was the CEO's previous employer. Which told me that the CEO "stole" the doc from his previous company, and was asking everyone to sign something saying they wouldn't do the same.
Because of that I decided not to sign it. Several other colleagues refused it too. No one was terminated, but there was a large staff exodus shortly after who were solicited by another former employee. I stayed on another 6 months to finish a project but left after that to join my former coworkers.
I would have been open to signing if I was compensated for it, but that option wasn't on the table, and I wasn't willing to restrict my future ability to find work with no benefit to me.
Lesson learned: Reusing legal forms from old companies can cost a lot more than a proper lawyer review would have cost. Don't take shortcuts when signing OR asking people to sign a legal document.
Some companies routinely do this as part of an acquisition. One former employer started doing it right after the acquisition of which I was a part, when they didn't do it that way and subsequently found that the employee agreements they'd rammed down our throats weren't worth the paper they were written on.
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