First of all, I would not sign it, period. They could either keep me without signing it, or 2 let me go and risk being sued for firing me for one of their mistakes, which was, not to let you know ahead of time of all of their requirements for accepting the job offer. Especially if you left your last job to go work for them. Yes, you'd have to pay for a lawyer for this, but eventually, the court is more likely to side with you because they _deceived_ you or did not make you fully aware of all of their conditions for working there. Having said that, they are likely not to let you go if you don't want to sign it after 3 weeks because it was their mistake; but I've been wrong before. Second, it is complete bull manure to be subjected to not being able to flip burgers at the local McDonalds from 9 pm to midnight if I wanted to, if my work hours at this job are from 8 to 5. I may sound extreme and they are likely not to care about this, BUT it does make it clear that it is up to the management's decision and not yours, and they COULD decide that by working a second job until midnight you'd not get enough sleep to perform your duties during the day and therefore say, "thou shall not flip burgers after work hours". On the other hand, if you design top-secret satellites at Raytheon and you want to moonlight as an electronic engineer in your own home based business, their worry would is understandable. I have never signed anything of this sort unless it explicitly said ONE year (or less). In my working career, I have only known of one place that tried to sue anyone for this and it was NOT the individual that left company A to go to work for company B, it was company A suing company B which was a client of A and had a contractual agreement that it would not hire any of A's current or past employees unless said employee had not been working for A for a period of 1 year already. The reason for not suing the employee itself is that the courts are likely to side with the employee because you can and probably will always argue that you left A and was not offered a job anywhere else that would pay you enough to pay your existing bills. I'd like to make one thing clear here, in every case I've known this to happen, the (employee) gave a 2 weeks notice and left company A making sure to let everyone know he did not have new employment, yet. One thing that comes to mind right away is this: you're a piclister and as such you're probably inventing and making your own little gadgets all the time. Should you invent something that you'd like to sell one of these days, you'd have to quit before you started to make these for sale first, otherwise you could run the risk or the company suing you for damages because you signed a piece of paper that said if the company has any interest in it, it is not yours but theirs. Also as a piclister you're not likely to flip burger off work hours, but rather be inventing things at those hours. Anyway, in the end it is going to be up to you whether you really think this job is worth it or not. If this is your dream job you'll probably not have an issue with it, but from your question I reckon this is NOT your dream job and you have concerns about this. I would not sign it. Good luck. -Mario (an English as a 27th language person =) -----Original Message----- From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of Aaron Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:06 PM To: piclist@mit.edu Subject: [OT]Non-Disclosure, Non-Compete, & Inventions Agreement A not-so-hypothetical scenario... it the middle of your 3rd week on a new job -- which you really like and enjoy. Now the HR guy comes to by, hands you a couple sheets of paper, and says to review this Non-Disclosure, Non-Compete, and Inventions Agreement that he forgot to mention and have you sign. Among other items, it contains the following 3 paragraphs... "The Employee agrees to keep the company informed of his ideas and suggestions towards the technical development of the lines of equipment to be engineered, sold and/or managed by the Company. Employee further agrees that he will disclose promptly to the Company any and all inventions, improvements, and developments, hereinafter referred to as "Inventions," conceived or made by the Employee during his employment, alone or in conjunction with others, relating in any way to the business of the Company or in which the Company may be interested, and that all such Inventions and all information and records in regard thereto shall be assigned to and become the exclusive property of the Company..." "It is the intent of the Company that the Employee's sole remuneration be for services rendered on behalf of the Company; it is not in the Company's interest for upper-level employees to "moonlight." Therefore, the Employee should either arrange any taxable compensable endeavors for others through the Company, or shall review his plans with, and have them approved by, management before commitments are made, and the Company promises that such approval will not unreasonably be withheld." "In event Employee's employment is ended by either party, he has the right to use the training an experience gained from his employment with company to provide for his livelihood, except as reasonably limited by this Agreement, with Company's customers, other customers in the industry, or in related fields of employment; however, the Employee agrees not to work directly for any competitor of the Company, nor indirectly as salesman, agent, consultant, soliciting representative or sub-contractor, or in any other way promote the sale, development, or use of a competitor's product, or products, while he is employed by Company and for a two year period following the end of his employment with Company." What are your thoughts on the above and what would you do? Aaron -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist