Guest Post by Steve Candidus
From Wikipedia:
“…The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The amendment was ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War…”
Unfortunately, the thirteenth amendment to our Constitution did not put an end to slavery. It has changed form, but it is still very much alive today.
There has been a push by companies and major corporations over the past decade or so to what they call a ‘non-compete clause’ as a requirement for employment. They require an employee, whether they be new hires or even some that have been employed with them for many years, to sign one of these in order to obtain or to continue their employment there.
These clauses state that an employee cannot seek employment in the same field for a designated period (usually at least one year and oftentimes several years) after leaving their company.
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In most cases, the reason for an employee’s departure makes no difference. Whether they went to a competitor for more money or better benefits, were laid off from their current company, or even fired for any reason. They are still bound by this unconscionable clause.
If you have been in a given business for all of your professional career and at some point you choose to leave and go to another employer for whatever reason, these clauses state that you cannot, and your former employer can and will sue you if you do. They will also get an injunction to cease your employment with your new employer and will not take you back to theirs.
Non-compete Clauses’ are clearly a violation of the 13th amendment. They demand an involuntary servitude to an employer. If you refuse to sign, they will fire you even if you have been with that employer for years.
If they hand you one of these despicable documents one day your choice is to either sign it and agree to be their slave, or refuse to sign it and have to seek employment elsewhere and hope that they do not have the same requirement.
In other words, an employee must stay with their masters, risk long-term unemployment, or start at the bottom with a career in a new field and have to work their way up all over again.
Where is the moral outrage?
Where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on this issue of slavery being alive and well in America?
Where is the moral indignation from what passes for a news media in this country on this issue?
Those lawyers in black dresses (they sure love to wear those things) that preside over our courts are so corrupt on this topic as to be not just a part of the problem, but to be the problem. Our county, state, and federal legislatures are also on the receiving end of monies from corporations to allow this trampling of our basic right to work in one’s own field of experience.
Even here in Texas where we have a ‘right to work’ law, companies have bought and paid off our state representatives to the extent that our law against non-compete clauses is completely ignored. You can and, will be sued, even if your state also has a right to work law. Our judges (in their black dresses – ooooh) and representatives have, as usual, sold, ‘we the people’, out.
Just as our Constitution was written in plain language that the ‘common man’ could understand, so too is the solution. All it would require to correct this shameful practice is for the US Senate to pass a law stating that no city, state or county may pass any law or ordinance that allows an employer the use of a non-compete clause with any employee past or present.
Such a bill should include independent consultants and contractors as well, or employers will use them as loopholes by simply declaring that all employees are now contractors or some such garbage.
Such a bill would simply re-affirm that the thirteenth amendment means what it says it means. That slavery is now and forever abolished in the USA.
Who could be against that? All we ask our politicians that we elected to represent us is to return the right to all of us to work in the field of our choice. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask of them.
The reality is that the outcry from our politicians and judges (those lawyers in black dresses – ooooh they love those) would be deafening. In chorus, they would be screaming about how it is so much more complicated than that, and that we, the unwashed masses, just don’t understand everything that is involved, and most importantly that we must leave everything to them – the experts – and they will take care of it. In other words, they will wait for what passes for a news media in this country to bury the story and then they will bury our demands for this natural right.
Joe and Jane taxpayer is shafted again without the negative appearance that exposes the reality of it for all to see that they consider themselves our masters when they are supposed to be our servants.
We the people elect them to office and they, the politicians, then reap the rewards of money donations – lots and lots of money donations – from big business to keep their labor in chains.
Their outcry against such a bill would also do something else though. It would clearly identify those judges (lawyers in black dresses – woooooo) and politicians that are receiving the most for their duplicity.
Along with the anticipated hostility against anything that is for the rights of individuals in what passes for a news media it will also show which of these talking heads is most in line with the politicians and judges (oooooh, those black dresses).
In other words, the pigs that squeal the loudest will be the ones that have the most to lose!
It’s time to tell them all to put up or shut up.
Every single company in the United States that currently demands these non-compete clauses be signed by their employees should be sued into oblivion over this flagrant violation of human rights. Their management and board of directors should be held criminally accountable. So should our judges (ooooh – those black dresses again) and legislatures that allow it.
Understand that a non-compete clause is not the same thing as a nondisclosure agreement.
An employer has a right to protect their proprietary designs and property, but every employee has a right to seek employment in their chosen field without restriction from a former employer. If they can’t they are reduced to being slaves.
It’s that 13th amendment thing…
Steve Candidus is a writer and a history buff that works as a product and application specialist of large AC electric motors in Spring, Texas.
The one’s I’ve signed (as a software developer) was that I couldn’t work for one of their clients – for a year. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. I know some contract guys that wanted to work for a clinet – and the client negotiated with the employer to pay a finders fee.
The real broad Non-Competes have been struck down several times.
Do you know a lawyer who can help me? I’m in Northern Virginia.
WTF did you sign?
Why or what? Why and what the fuck did you sign?
The one I signed is very broad in that it says I cannot work in my field anywhere in the country.
Were you paid a significant severance payment on separation? Were you handling highly technical proprietary information? If not it’s likely going to be too broad to be enforceable. Get a good lawyer who has won those types of cases previously.
I have no access to marketing, sales, technical (software) property, accounting, customer service, office structure/culture/daily operations, do not attend meetings, am not a supervisor, and I am not management nor do I have any training responsibilities. I do work with customers on an every day basis. The knowledge I have in the industry is no more than anything that can be found on the internet.
I am currently employed by the company. Does anyone know of a lawyer that can help me leave and guide me on how I can start my own company while staying clear of a lawsuit?
When I was an IAM Union Steward and stumbled upon the appearance of collusion between union officers and NLRB contractors, I discovered while on suspension for insubordination to a manager when filing and stating a grievance as “Union Steward” (a term the Supreme Court has determined to mean Co-Equal to the highest ranking executive in the Company Managerial Ranks, up to and including Owner, WHEN acting in the narrow role of “Union Steward” on behalf of a union member in dispute with the Company blah blah yadda yadda. So, at home studying up on those Labor Laws that have sank their suction tentacles into every industry of the land, I discovered a Union Member can not seek employment in a right to work state with a company which might compete against the union in a contract. As a Union Steward, I was not allowed to work for other companies that might be in direct competition it seemed, with ANY non-union position. It was a crap contract drawn up under hasty negotiation processes when Boeing got caught paying less than a quarter of the pay-scale value to its retired military experts who were former enlisted as opposed to paying former officers at a higher rate. Workers organized, sued and got enormous backpay. Yadda Yadda and blah blah… the Union now owns that contract and eventually consumed itself when the pay rates for everyone drove the price beyond insanity’s reach.
Yeah, that’s all great until you get your pay lowered drastically and your benefits pulled and they tell you sorry, you can’t work in your field if you quit here and you should take this shit sandwich with a smile on your face.
Then after that year of unemployment, working at Costco, or staying on and feeling utterly demoralized, you realize that all the companies have done the same thing and you must work for pennies on the dollar no matter where you work from then on. With a smile on your face, too. Or else it’s back to costco.
This is a violation of your GOD-given rights. These restraints of trade are anti-capitalist and have no place in a free market economy.
Another thing I’ve been teaching is how this trend has taken a dump on a weak US economy already in the dumps.
https://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/economic_liberty/occupational_licensing/licensetowork.pdf
Licenses, permits, fees, certifications…You can’t do anything in America without permission. It’s like the old Soviet Union. Restraint of trade and tradecraft is the order of the day AKA “credentialism”.
It’s also seen in H.R. gatekeepers with useless degrees in H.R.-ing people to death; people that can’t even do the job choosing winners and losers from government to academia all based on meaningless pieces of permission paper.
Totally disagree with the premise. First, no one is required to sign one unless and agreement has been made to hire the employee. The author seems to deny free agency on the part of the prospective employee. More importantly there are a lot of things that an employee receives beyond a paycheck including the way that a business is conducted, it’s trade secrets, policies, etc. that a competitor mat not have. How would you ever be able to monitor what the employee is bringing to the table in the next arrangement? Without some kind of non-compete clause anyone who wants information need only send in a mole to clean the competition’s clock via espionage.
Absolutely ridiculous attempt to cobble the 13th amendment onto this argument.
Boo on you hard guy. Even shitty sandwich shops are requiring them.
HSF, although I enjoy your posts and comments, I must respectfully disagree with you.
“…First, no one is required to sign one unless and agreement has been made to hire the employee…”
In many cases, an employee of several years is required to sign one. Sometimes through a change in the company’s management or ownership, and sometimes just a change in the industry. What one company does their competitors will often copy.
The argument often made that an employee can simply go somewhere else rather than sign it doesn’t work if all of the companies in their field have taken the same approach with the non-compete clauses.
The argument that they can simply go find employment in some other field means starting over in something unfamiliar.
“…More importantly there are a lot of things that an employee receives beyond a paycheck including the way that a business is conducted, it’s trade secrets, policies, etc. that a competitor mat not have…”
Trade secrets, proprietary designs, and especially documents are best covered in a nondisclosure agreement as stated in my post. It is never permissible to take any company owned documents with you if you leave an employer. It’s called theft.
“…The author seems to deny free agency on the part of the prospective employee…”
You say I am denying the very thing that I am trying to support – that an employee has a right to make a living in their chosen field.
It’s not free agency if you are only allowed to leave a field that you know and have value in to go to one that you don’t know and have no value to a prospective employer.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Disagree with the effectiveness of “Trade secrets, proprietary designs, and especially documents are best covered in a nondisclosure agreement.” You’re absolutely right that taking these is theft. However something as ubiquitous as a photocopier and in the age of electronic documents the ease with which this theft was is accomplished is obvious and the difficulty of proving that theft is virtually impossible for most companies. The issue isn’t the documents it’s knowledge of what’s in them. That said, the non competes that are broad are very diffficult to enforce especially without significant cash payments to the employee. If you’ve been affected by this get a good experienced lawyer.
Does this make sense in this context? I felt it did… trying to show that the organization that should absolutely stand up for the rights of the worker sold out to the idea of making them sign NDAs to help with the Non-Compete Clause.
The IAM Union agreed that all employees of the Contract would sign NDAs for the Company to be more competitive in its bid against other bidders. If a new company couldn’t show the ability to hire all of the existing employees, they were at an immediate disadvantage if they were coming in as right to work, willing to take a vote of the entire labor force. With the NDAs in hand, forced by the Union CBA, what Company could hope to win that contract in that environment? Or would want to? I was hired as an independent consultant on a bid effort by a very successful software engineering company put together by a very smart team of military buddies who’d done some real Vietnam time. Their intent was to come in to the new right to work state by 70% or more in Oklahoma and bid a union held contract. Those union contracts have federal pass-through regulations that require new companies to honor existing CBAs until they expire.
So the IAM SCHEDULES the new CBA to be in place a year before the contract bid drops. That means, the new company would have to know how many employees would come to the new place nonunion… and they aren’t allowed to talk to any of the employees.
“More importantly there are a lot of things that an employee receives beyond a paycheck….” – says the guy with the bullshit “intern program” on his farm who neglected to even provide the “paycheck”. You just don’t pull that kind of shit where I come from. That’s a Hippy tactic that I’ve seen employed only so they can indulge their “sustainable organic farming” fantasy after they realize that it’s more work than they imagined.
Nobody ever did labor on my farm without fair and prompt pay. Whether it was the neighbor kids picking rock in the field or a friend or relative who drove tractor during harvest.
“…The worker deserves his wages.” – I Timothy 5:18
I’m increasingly less impressed with HSF’s ‘take’ on most matters.
Yes, I’m a bit crabby today.
They were paid. I called them interns because that’s what the college program called it, an internship. We don’t actually have a program and I didn’t really need the help, I just let my son bring his friends home for the Summer to complete their course requirement, earn some money and pick up a few new skills, eat anything they wanted, use anything on the farm, enjoy a part of the country for the first time in their lives and stay in our guest house free of charge. I wish someone had done something like that for me when I was their age.
And quoting the Bible doesn’t make you any less of a dick.
I admire any writer who starts a sentence with “And”. It demonstates your chutzpah by breaking the rules for the greater good of rhetorical effect. Even if it is to criticize me. And if you really did pay your workers, then the egg falls on my face. You never conveyed that in your writing.
Yes, I can be a ‘dick’, but a Jersey Boy can surely handle dealing with such types. A redneck ‘dick’ from flyover country can’t be any worse than a ‘dick’ from Philly, NYC, or Boston.
I’m a product of the early 80’s farm crisis where neighbors were lost and their land sold, but had their 5 or 10 acre homesite later sold as a mere parcel and bought by one of my above-mentioned hippies who thought they would bring ‘enlightenment’ to the land with their organic vegetable farms, selling their product at the local Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings. Every single one, except those with a million bucks to start with, failed.
Witnessing all that has jaded my perspective. No apologies.
Whatever. I’ve written plenty and if you’ve read any of it you’d have known better. But hippy? Holy cow dude, that was a low blow.
And sometimes I start my sentences with the word ‘and’. And you know what,?It sounds just fine to me.
As you were.
I’ve noticed that commentators evolve in a couple of familiar ways, friendly noobs become embittered (Vodka) and feisty noobs become humorous (Stucky). Change is the price we pay for growth. TBP is not for the faint of heart.
This place definitely takes a little getting used to, but it’s worth it.
I can actually write out ‘shitfest’ here without worrying about being moderated out.
What a luxury…
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
EC has accurate discernment in most matters. But after reading through the entire thread, I see that he missed this important fact: it’s mostly a shitfest fueled by the animosity between Boomers and the pissed-off Gen Xer’s. I’ll leave at that.
HSF is a treasure to this site. Like Llpoh, he would be successful at whatever he chose to put his hand to. And he was a good sport to reply to my criticism. Too bad he didn’t ‘get’ my compliment about starting a sentence with ‘And’. He’s a good writer. Or as my mom would say: “he writes well”.
Vodka, I was out most of the day. I missed the entire argument. I liked HF’s comment on honesty and LLPOH put the finishing touch on it. You know why I like white folks? They are honest injuns. The ones that care about their business anyway. You can tell the ones who care about their business, they keep the toilets clean. (i forget will be mystified but with a little thought, he will understand)
I bet the toilets in the white(folks)house are clean. You know, where all those injun treaties got magic-penned? The tidybowl men tasked with levitating that particular appearance prolly all signed n\c’s, too: “You wanna’ polish our big apples? Sign on the line that is dotted.”
Don’t lump me in(to that bowl), EC. I retired from business. “Go forth & do likewise, gents.” Try. That’s all one can do. If someone can\could work in my business, go out, start his own version, & then out-compete me, that would be pudding-proof-positive that I wasn’t cut out to be in that business. Nothing personal. That I’m not a pole vaulter doesn’t hurt my feelings, either. And you’d not hear me blubbering out seniority, or NIMBY, “arguments” if it happened. Free market capitalism’s all about making the most efficient use of scarce resources. If you’re a waster, relatively, then you should be wasted, figuratively. That is the calculus of progress, whether this one or that one consents, or not.
But I heard that noise from plenty of “competitors.” It’s a standard in the great American songbook. Singing like a canary songbook, that is. In jail, not a coal mine, that is. Tho there is a coal mine aspect, too. Anti-competition is like the canary in the coal mine.
The big idea that was taken forward to try & do likewise the other “gents” who had pulled the scam off was new, more stringent, licensing requirements. And the biggest motivation was all the new competition moving in. Who do all these no-seniority encroachers think they are? There ought to be a law, say the lawless. This is our reservation, say the drunks – & pass the koolaid. Liberty’s not license – nor can it be licensed.
I love this tune. But the plastique mystique of non-compete ain’t music. It’s just the exploding noises “titanics” make as they break up, sink. Don’t let the band playing on confuse. Listen like Van Gogh. Or like Van Morrison.
I tried to respond to this yesterday but my phone is not always cooperative out in the woods.
I tried to say “Not for the feint of hart either.”
Greetings,
I would have to agree with HSF on this one. These days I spend a lot of time working as an inventor and manufacturer. I can see scenarios where it would cause me great harm to turn someone loose with what I’ve got going on. These non-compete clauses for guys in “sandwich shops” are just retarded and to claim that Subway or The Olive Garden might have some proprietary voodoo back in the kitchen pushes the bounds of credulity.
BUT, it’s going on.
Greetings,
So what? If you wanted to learn about electrical work and design in the traditional manner then you’d have to spend a good portion of your life at some school handing over your cash to people that do not and have not worked in the industry.
Or. . .
You could come work for me and I’ll teach you practical real world practices and procedures and you’ll get paid. Now, I recently had a clown that got greedy and decided that he wanted to test the waters and took a proprietary design to two of my competitors in the hope that they would hire him, produce the product and give him royalties. Now, I didn’t have to do anything to discover this but answer the phone as the owners from both companies called me within minutes of speaking with this guy. After all, the very last thing they want is a rat within their own organization.
The best part of all of this is that it really is a small world and I didn’t have to do a thing as this idiot tarnished his own name. His exile from employment was of his own doing and that he is going to be going through a “rough patch” while he thinks about his actions is the cost of doing business.
What you just said isn’t even relevant to what I’m saying. Sandwich shops etc who have ZERO proprietary anything or which is not common knowledge or cannot be found on the internets are using non-competes. You couldn’t possibly be advocating for that, could you? It is a scare tactic that works against the vulnerable. You like taking advantage of people? Do ya? If you do, what the fuck are you doing here on TBP then? Since every fuckjob that government does on you, stop bitching since it is their right to do it to you. Stoooopid.
Wtf…. you are a suck up…
When I was in the Radio biz it was standard practice to require no-competes which would bar you from working for another station in the city or region for at least a year.
Radio biz at one time was the backbone of U-Haul. It was like being a carnie because you HAD to leave town.
Greetings,
What did you do in radio? Are you anywhere near Ventura?
Steve Crosno managed to evade that and stayed in El Paso for decades. Back in the 80’s or 90’s it seemed like every other week that Renán Almendárez Coello, known as El Cucuy De La Mañana was changing radio stations in LA.
Maybe it was because no-one gave two shits about spanish radio then?
They still don’t. However, One guy is Spanish radio, the other wasn’t (he’s dead now).
“…One guy is Spanish radio, the other wasn’t (he’s dead now)…”
That must have been Muerte.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
You are a tool….lackey..
I agree completely with HSF. All the states I have practiced law in, and there are several, have clearly stated policy that people are free to make any agreement that is not against public policy (and thus illegal). A person is free to contract away and waive many of their protected rights. It is up to the parties to determine whether the bargains granted and received are worth the cost to them. Even the Supreme Ct. has said that constitutionally protected rights may be waived, so long as there is no duress involved.
It is up to the employee, if an employment contract is involved, to be informed and knowledgeable of the consequences, and be satisfied that the benefits received are adequate compensation for whatever rights or privileges are relinquished.
And you agree with this? That is fucking stupid a shit. The time will come when everyone works for either the government or corporations for subsistence pay. You can’t follow a bouncing ball or something? If I was an owner of a college I would start making students sign all kinds of shit to be educated. I could own the world.
I had to sign a non-compete agreement as a condition of employment. Basically it would subject me to prosecution if I went to a competitor and…
1) Brought confidential company documents with me. These could include customer lists, drawings, photos, project documents, sales figures, profit and loss… stuff like that.
2) Brought any active projects with me or attempted to steer clients away from them (the latter has a sunset clause).
What it does not do is prevent me from continuing my (35+ year) career someplace else. My employment is at-will which in addition to meaning that I can be fired with or without cause, I am not bound from accepting a better situation or money elsewhere.
Really what it comes down to is that if I were to harm them, they could sue my ass, but if there is no economic loss for them, or it isnt enough to bother with, then it wouldn’t be very smart to waste a bunch of money on lawyers just to fuck with me. For me, even if I were to move on, it’s better to remain on good terms with them. I have enough people that hate me already…most of these are people from whom I have taken millions of dollars in business, lol. Nobody is going to think less of me for that!
The erasures & redactions & paintings beneath the paintings – nat security, COG, ya’ know – are pretty funny. The Friday the 13th amendment fork tongues the much louder speaking actions that pre & post date the kited check in the chain maille – & all the please mr. postman beseeching in the world can’t change the world.
“Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men,” by Hummel, is the title that tells the tail that is swallowed, infiltrates, the head gamers, pre & post “civil war”. All against all is what the Hobbesian bargain brochure sells protections from, same way protection rackets do. Those insurance premiums are magical. Feedo the guido & your biz’ll never burn down…sez so, right in the bromance contract.
Inner-monopolist reflex is a patented homo satrapian hallmark.
I wish I could understand wtf you say in your comments.
Orwell’s shorter, but less sweet, paraphrase: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”
Sweeter short: heads i win, tails you lose.
Wip, yeah. No shit. I’ve been trying too, but…I get nothing when I read 5 or 6 of his/her/??
Thought it was me slipplin’ a bit. Wonder if anybody else here has trouble decoding that.
Wipper, you need a college reading level to understand i forget. He interjects ideas that color his seemingly simple sentences. Phil Spector had the same idea to fill all audio space with music. His wall of sound greatly improved music, taking it from the plinky 1950’s sound to the modern effect.
i forget has got the same idea and in time he will reach a greater audience or maybe he will only be appreciated years from now like Van Gogh.
Good tune. Understanding, or wanting to, yourself, for yourself, is good. But I got past wanting to be understood. Playing to the audience’s validation is a net negative. Not therapeutic, as some seem to believe, or hope. And that’s in the real world. Which v\r crosswording isn’t.
Hey kids, shake it loose together
The spotlight’s hitting something
That’s been known to change the weather
We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight
So stick around
You’re gonna hear electric music
Solid walls of sound
Understanding i forget’s poesy; an interpretation:
1. The erasures & redactions & paintings beneath the paintings
– nat security, COG, ya’ know – are pretty funny.
The things hidden from our sight on account of national security are odd.
2. The Friday the 13th amendment fork tongues the much louder speaking actions
that pre & post date the kited check in the chain maille –
The scary 13th amendment pretending to be harmless yet clad in torturer’s clothing
3. & all the please mr. postman beseeching in the world can’t change the world.
the future is relentless
4. “Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men,” by Hummel, is the title that tells the tail
free men are enslaved while former slaves rule
5. that is swallowed, infiltrates, the head gamers, pre & post “civil war”.
a story that has no end but repeats because of the hidden state
6. All against all is what the Hobbesian bargain brochure sells protections from,
Government promises protection from anarchy, that is the social contract
7. same way protection rackets do. Those insurance premiums are magical.
taxes
8. Feedo the guido & your biz’ll never burn down…
guarantee our safety and freedom to pursue happiness
9. sez so, right in the bromance contract.
That’s what the Constitution says
10. Inner-monopolist reflex is a patented homo satrapian hallmark.
But the czarist instinct is, like in a Caliphate, to treat the states like protectorates.
Interpreting the dude on LSD.
blah blah blah Friday the 13th was a good movie blah blah blah So was The Postman blah blah blah I collect Hummel figurines blah blah blah I can’t wait for Stucky’s civil war map-torial blahsky blah blahbooshky blah Feedo the guido will burn your motherfucken house down blah blah sigh blah Monopoly is a fun game blah blaah blah Hallmark Cards are the best blah blah blah the czar needs calipers on his wagon blah. And, BLAH!
Wrong Stuck. Deal with it. But I’m not stuck in NJ, either. That qualifies you for some handicap points. Take as many as you need.
Tom Robbins, among other prominences I am impersonally acquainted with (Steve Jobs, Kary Mullis) make similar characterizations: lsd, other psychedelics, was the most important thing they ever experienced. TR also:
“I’m always astonished when readers suggest that I must write my novels while high on pot or (God forbid!) LSD. Apparently, there are people who confuse the powers of imagination with the effects of intoxication. Not one word of my oeuvre, not one, has been written while in an artificially altered state. Unlike many authors, I don’t even drink coffee when I write. No coffee, no cola, no cigarettes. There was a time when I smoked big Havana cigars while writing, not for the nicotine (I didn’t inhale) but as an anchor, something to hold on to, I told myself, to keep from falling over the edge of the earth. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take that fall. So one day I threw out the cigars and just let go. Falling, I must say, has been exhilarating — though I may change my mind when I hit bottom.”
― Tom Robbins, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life
National security blanket. Linus. Thumb-sucking. Etc. A cartoon you ain’t allowed to compete with, or in, or freely leave, signature implied at birth. Spooner’s post office, etc ∞ the check’s locked up behind the maille, but coming any day now, & the balances are liar weights controlled by fat thumbs whose raison detre is to neverever reconcile the ledger. Right up until they pull what they must really want, a heath ledger. Rx death. The postman rings twice relentlessly: death & taxes, or death by taxes, or pay taxes or die sooner than otherwise. Past is prologue is now; there ain’t no future on a closed-loop ride. Slavery? That’s freedom. & no emancipation prior to inculcation-obviation of emancipation (we just have to look good, we don’t have to be clearly there, which many clearly aren’t). Ouroboros, will it go round in circles? Phoenix bird’s a feathered reptile & billy’s point was that the bad guys “win” way more than once in awhile – cuz they cheated & lied & tested & never failed to fail – it was the easiest thing to do. Cross points all the cardinals, not just Southern. And the state that’s hidden is wo\man’s own nature, by selves from selves; there are countless salves involved. Gov guidos call chaos anarchy, sell ya’ policies for that – or else. Any archy but anarchy. Can’t have that. Helps bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, that most don’t want that. Security (blankeys, key blanks to OPM, etc) – not liberty. Social con•tract was part of Rousseau’s act 2 rationalization for his failure – commercially – as an artist. Failed artists can be mofos. Ask noble savage yobo. If you pay, your place, magically, does not burn down…until the next rule change, at least. “I usta’ be able to bake\sell cakes to whoever I wanted. now the lesbo’s I declined to do biz with own my bakery – & I’m their bitch.” Etc. Safety is an illusion that sells. Helen Keller had balls; many others traded theirs to the mountain oyster shop in exchange for that illusion…Which is as close to “happiness” as those angling anglers dare to cast or tread. It do: the broho’s locked themselves in a second story room, got naked, lubed up, took inspiration from sodomy, & penned the magic legal document. The fondled\molested kiddies still refer to that, them, adoringly. “founding fathers.” Incest (& s\m) is more common than is recognized. (I read that Freud discovered this in Vienna, “had” to change his shtick & spiel, lest he be run outta’ town by his abuser-customers.) Satraps are fractal, & once inculcated-institutionalized, comfy enough, 3 hots & a cot, a gang to belong to, bunk-buddies. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, rock hammers, Zihuatanejo, most inmates Pavlov-regurgitate that stuff as being cray-cray. They’d rather stay-stay right where they are. And so they do.
Thanks for playing. Roadrunner, designated good guy, wins all the time. But that’s just another cartoon. Scripted. Prescription. Like fluoride in the water.
It especially sucks when a new owner buys a small business and lowers the pay of long term employees to that of starting pay. While at the same time raises prices on clients that she never even sees and the employees are left to deal with the fallout while being completely demoralized at the same time. Which is the situation I and my fellow employees are in.
There should be a stipulation that if an employer pulls some rotten move like that any non-compete should be voided, IMO. Because you are right, that is slavery. And everyone loses eventually; employees, clients, and eventually she (the new owner) will lose too. If there is any justice in the world anyway.
To many folks have no idea what slavery is. Don’t like the conditions? Don’t take the job. Do that en masse, and things change.
Also, here is an idea – start your own business. See how you like it to spend money training a guy, teaching him or her, letting them see your trade secrets and intellectual capital, paying their salary on top of all that, and then have them waltz across the street to you competitor. Bet you would think that is fine.
Or just start your own business. Then you do not need a damn job, right?
Business does not owe anyone a job. It is a buy sell relationship. If ither side does not like the terms, then no deal.
Repat after me: “I do not need a job. I need to make a living.” They are not the same things, and jobs are not a right.
Amen. Working for yourself is the way to go nowadays. Of course, some non-compete agreements even try to bar you from doing that if it’s the same field. Which shows a lack of confidence in the business owners own skills in hiring and retaining great employees, and appreciation of their employees skills whom they lost, too bad they didn’t show that appreciation when the employee actually worked for them! Smh.
Fuck you… you are a tool…
I hear an echo.
If competition is good (& it is), then non-compete isn’t (& it’s not). The most obvious defect with this subsidy mindset that dies on the vine that would entwine would be competitors *except* when backed by color of law thuggery is that it is overly broad. Stealing property is theft, not competition. But “poaching” employees, or customers (which are synonymous-redundant) – neither of which are property – is in the eye of the beholder who wants “poachers” kept beholden, which is to say shackled, out of the way.
Every gig I ever had was an internship, an apprenticeship. Albeit not formally. My experience inside someone else’s business is nonetheless 100% mine. If I decide to take that experience & launch a similar business as one I worked in “for” someone else (that is a figure of speech) – that’s my business. And it means I think there’s enough market for me to pursue, or that I can do a better job – can be more competitive – than my former employer.
When I sold my last vehicle, it was to an experienced businessman. Part of the conversation we had, having to do with marketing, was me reminding him that qualification of prospects is an efficiency, & that the most qualified prospects were already buyers – of some other company’s similar\same (ostensibly…since they don’t know about *us* yet) products\services. He disagreed. In his mind, another company’s customers were their property. Which is absurd. And is an indication of how insidious the slavery mindset is. But it wasn’t my problem.
IP (intellectual property) is the threads immobilizing Gulliver. Anti-competition color of law stasis. NIMBY’ism (not in my back yard). Lock down the status quo. Cowardice. Venality. Greed. Envy. Conservatism. Cartelism. Monopolism. Oligopolism. Short-sighted, short time preference, opportunism via parasitism: would be competitors, and “customers,” alchemized into hosts. Those who subscribe to this are rent seekers. Or want to be. Every country subscribes to this, are, in fact, the headwaters for this. Hydrocephalites…flooding, drowning, the productive landscape. Damming up progress. Damning everyone else – so long as they got their fix is in “profits” – which is to say rents.
So, wheat\chaff, employees\sunk costs, that’s real life. The quicker the chaff waltzes, the sooner the wheat can replace it. “My” people who were worthwhile asked for raises. And got them. The worthless waltzed. If they weren’t bounced first; either way, good riddance.
Some of those departed decided to try competing. Go for it – I am all for it. Let the chips fall where they may is how timber becomes lumber becomes better life across the boardwalks that competition builds…and that anti-competition empire degrades & lets fall – via force – to ruin.
When I sold my aquarium (last vehicle), the guy needed a 5-yr n/c (which seems to be somewhat standard practice). No problem. I was done with that container of liquidity. Still chickenshit, his part, tho. Mono…polo(ist)…mono…polo(ist). Don’t like the water, fish? Get out. This is my water fish. Stay out. Goddamn the pusherman fisherman sang the Steppenwolf.
En massery, which underlies all this, is slavery. And en masse o’ en masse o’ — non-compete gang vs non-non-compete gang — is just the same ol’ Spartacus spectacle. Whose turn on the cross this time? Not the masses, so they falsely believe, always the man.
Hemingway’s Santiago has the balls, creative spirit, & the need, to go way out, land the giant marlin, try to get it back to shore. Not once did it occur to that fisherman to compel the sharks – any of which he might have hooked, too, & several of which he competitively killed – to sign non-competes. If he *had* thought of it, delusionally, & could have enforced it, the story would have needs be been written by Hemming&hawingway…and it woulda’ sunk like the holed hull it woulda’ been. Like the holed hull hereabouts, in time & place, is doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea
James Joyce lives.
I write this in all Ernest-T
For I make no reference to the way of Hemming, a motor news aspirant
Perchance that Santiago had made his way to the lighthouse,
And thus be knighted as Ulysses?
Thank you for writing in a more readable way. For me at least.
That was great. I hope LLPOH reads that. Even if he does, he probable doesn’t care because I believe that he believes that IF a thing CAN be done (slavery) he is justified in doing it. Lots of people feel this way.
Might makes right is a popular rite indeed, Wip.
“A Republic – if you can keep it.” Old Ben telegraphed the punch that he was amongst those throwing. Cute. And analogous, albeit couched, to that also rotund dictator’s televised eating of an empanada in front of the starving hordes under his thumb.
But 180 away from libertarianism, non-aggression, integrity, etc.
Feelings such as those are made to be hurt…but, as you say, there’s a lot of people who lead with their feelings.
LLPOH has said he’ll never read me again, so might depend on whether the paint around that corner has dried yet.
De nada…& I did play it a little straighter than usual.
Don’t worry about LLPOH, he’s a one trick pony. He views and spews nothing close to news. He’s a self proclaimed daddy morebucks who is scared of his worthless employees because they might out compete him.
Succeeding in business is not easy. That deck is stacked against. Which motivates all this re-stacking of deck chairs so as to – magically – ward off drowning. Which, not so paradoxically, gins up nothing so much as drowned wo\men walking their way to the bottom of the deep blue sea. It is shortsighted (or ignorant) at best, dishonest at worst. Malum in se malinvestment, all around…send lawyers, guns & money.
I respect anyone who tries, successful or not. But the idea that success once obtained is rightfully maintained any which way via crayonlaw is just cheating after the fact. It’s blood-doping & micro-motors hidden in cranks & hubs.
And of course, any “success” obtained via cheating from the outset is a lie.
“Non-compete Clauses’ are clearly a violation of the 13th amendment. They demand an involuntary servitude to an employer. ”
A “slave”, which the 13 amendment abolished, does not have the option to simply quit and seek a more amenable master.
If you can simply quit and walk away from a job if you don’t like the conditions or terms your employment is not involuntary servitude.
Nonsense. Read Llpoh again, until you understand what he’s saying. Let’s see anybody start with nothing and work 30 years creating and refining a business that manages to elbow it’s way into the already crowded room at the top, and then let some piece of shit who can’t cut it leave and transfer all that knowledge to a competitor. You guys are right in one respect. You are definitely cut out to be the slave, not the master.
I don’t think anyone is talking about trade secrets dipshit. That is stealing as has been acknowledged as far as I have seen on this post. Non-competes are being used as scare tactics against those who have the least options. Maybe even no options whatsoever.
I recommend you read iforget’s comment above at November 11, 2017 at 1:03 pm
You’ve been whining about this for awhile, WIP. I don’t see the big deal. It’s a free country. If you don’t like the deal, don’t sign it. What am I missing? If you are valuable to the company, you have a lot of leverage with them. If you are not that valuable to them, they have leverage over you. That’s never going to change
Finally the white collar gets the screw job of black balled , that’s why you need a union with power to shut an abusive employer down . Sadly far to many company’s see employees as overhead expense rather than an asset to the profit margin . Downward pressure on wages and benefits is the outcome of the deliberate dismantaling of our industrial infrastructure and its spreading and getting worse . On this very site I have been ridiculed about Tesla and $20 an hour or less and how $15 per hour or less is all shit for wages yet employers pay that and expect high performance and loyalty . Fat chance , I understand operating a small business is no picnic but neither is working to try and make one successful when all you get is a pat on the back and bull shit excuses for raises and benefits . I have witnessed the owners kids and wife driving BMW’s while employees can’t keep a vehicle running to get to the job . I also got a glimpse of the payroll the wife made $80 k to live at the beach condo and have her hair and nails done weekly but no raises just can’t swing it for my loyal trustworthy crew of guys that always come thru . Maybe next year …LMAO
Look at the bright side. You’re the new Niggers. You corporate cubicle, over educated assholes might get 40 acres and a mule. Problem is, you wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with either one of them.
I know what I’d do with my mule: hire Dennis Roe to do “mule shows” down in Tijuana.
Raydawg, if you saw Stubb’s depiction of Dennis Roe, you’d appreciate his comments a lot more. Don’t let the name fool you, this guy is a brass knuckles, cue stick fighting kind of guy.
He may very well be the kind of guy you describe.
Mostly his comments consist of pissing and moaning about “high falutin'” this, and “over-educated” that. In short, a fucking whiner that never got over not going to college. As if that matters.
I’m sick of his “blue collar hero” bullshit.
Sometimes the world needs a blue collar hero.
What the world needs now, is ♪♫♪. Never been in choreographed fight scene in my life. lol…. Hey! Alan Rosenberg as a baby (started watching “Bosch” recently).
White collar heroes, college educated heroes – just as tiresome. Cult of the hero, with his\her 1000 faces is accurately the cult of the tail-chasing followers. “As if it matters” – indeed.
“Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.”
Anyone having to sign bullshit like these clauses, you may as well also have them call you Kunta Kinte, the slave from “Roots”.
More libertarian drivel. If I pay you, there are going to be conditions, for my benefit and yours. Don’t like it, best you go someplace else. Lots of things in a successful business are propriatary, and need to be protected for the continued success of the business and the people who still work there. No, you can’t take that with you. Like Zara says above, if you don’t harm your former employer, there would be no reason for him to come after you. But if you do him harm, it means you can’t plead ignorance.
The right to contract in this is unlimited. Don’t like it, don’t sign it! Don’t know quite what to think of the clause demanded post-hiring, from low level employees. Sounds like something dreamed by H.R. (which in non-Marxist places is known as “Personnel Dept.”
Libertarians need to return to common sense. Libertarianism was very appealing when it was rooted in common sense. It’s gone totally off the rails, bought off by corporate America, just like the repugs and the dims. The stealth issue in this piece is intellectual property rights, something big business abhors. Here’s a quote from a Mises Institute piece on October 27th, by some idiot named mark thornton. “Is Bribery and Corruption a Good Thing?
Normally, bribery and corruption of public officials is a good thing because it allows more producers and more consumers to obtain gains from trade from each other. Such is not the case with prescription opiates in this environment.” Read that again. And people wonder why I despise the mises institute.
In NC, if you sell your company, it’s state law that you cannot compete for 3 yrs, which is a good thing. You could have a devious bastard/bitch CEO seller who has side deals w/ large clients that f***/quit you a day after selling.
This is akin to the movement that CFB players should not sit out for a yr after transfer, unless they go to I-AA (Wooford, Montana State, et al). If that’s scrapped, the bottom 48 or so out of the 64 Power 5 teams are screwed and everything would collapse financially within 2-3 yrs.
BTW, does anyone else other than me sense that this kneeling crap is a NFL cover up that fans (1) cannot afford to go to 8-10 home games a yr and/or (2) we’re just turned off by rasta hair, overwhelming tats, criminal records, and asshole attitudes?
All ya gotta do is look at SCAM NEWTON.
What?
Well I just bumped mah last 8 ball and sat down ter read TBP, ter see what kinder narcissistic bullshit Stucky was postin tryin ter fill the awful void that being uh noodle dicked retard like he is must create. He’s stickin all kinds uh shit up his bung hole and cuttin hisself and basically his whole life is one massive cry fer help, cuz his dad was eastern European where they don’t give uh flyin baboon’s anus about their gawd dammed offspring.
And what do I see. This has got ter be the most idiotic TBP offering of all time. Bring back the twin homos Steve C and Francis M, slather me in Nutella and let em loose afore I ever am exposed ter this level of navel gazin retardation ever agin. Admenstruater, I’m with Yahoo and ever other global corporation that’s givin you shit cuz yer lettin mongreloids run amok and I ain’t never spendin another second on this site.
Said BW, ” I ain’t never spendin another second on this site.”
Christmas came early! What did we ever do to deserve such a reward?
I haven’t been this heartbroken since Dougie Pecker disappeared.
This one certainly exposed a rift in the 4th Turning community.
I told my wife, may have even posted something here a while back, that in the not too distant future people would look upon the concept of a job in the same way that we now see slavery. I had no idea that would happen so suddenly.
The concept of entitlement has so thoroughly permeated the social construct that there is virtually nothing that isn’t deserved as a basic human right by whoever needs something .
A long time ago I got on an SEIU email list and never unsubscribed. You should read their communications. These days the basic premise of unions has nothing to do with work at all- that’s not even really a part of what they do any longer, it’s non-stop demands for compensation and benefits and power transfers. It’s like blow flies on a corpse. They see something that looks profitable and they show up for the feast.
Maybe this next conflict will be the ultimate Communist overthrow with the do nothing billionaires at the top fighting it out with the not -workers at the bottom and everyone simply scrambling for the non-existent capital. It’s a virtual Revolution.
Same as it ever was…
Hsf – great comment. If jobs are a right, as many believe, who then has the obligatin to provide them? Sure as hell will not be me.
I consider the buying of labor the same as any other item. If I need it, and it is of mutual benefit, I buy it. But no one in the end can make me buy labor. Every condition they force upon me re the purchase hastens the day I stop buying.
Since people can no longer go west and stake a claim, regulations are bought and sold by those with the power and money you will see this attitude more and more. What will you do when Buffet, Gates and Bezos team up to purchase every asset in America? Will you cry like a little bitch? No, you’ll be dead and gone so who the hell cares.
You’re an idiot. Release people from the chains of regulations, exploitative practices and price gouging (think education) and you will see amazing things happen. People want to take care of themselves. If anyone doesn’t want to take care of themselves, it’s the rent seekers. Those paying the fees and rents are the ones taking care of the fat bastards up in the clouds. If you do not believe that, then stop bitching about the government and corporations. Crybaby much?
Don’t you have a burger to flip?
I thought you were some kind of rain man. Where is the intelligence? Is my second paragraph having any affect on your ability to see the mirror?
LLPOH…”IF a thing CAN be done, a man is justified in doing it. That is, unless the other guy did the THING first.”
WIP, your acting as if money and power were birthright. I know tons of people who came from nothing. They just worked harder and whined less than you are doing. You obviously aren’t a key employee in your company. I would recommend changing that. It’s not really hard to do, if you make it your top priority.
Why then would a company be afraid of me?
It has never occurred to me that I was “buying” someone for their labor. I had always, and still do, consider my employee’s as partners.
Nonsense.
My wife has gone through an interesting 7 years in her current career. Her last boss was a do nothing and blame everything on everyone else. 6 months ago, the new manager has come in. The whole office has turned a corner from dark and ugly to upbeat and forward looking. Why? The new manager is personally involved with each person to help them up the corporate ladder. Why? Because once the new manager came in and saw how little the old manager did yet the team was handling it on their own, she sees people who deserve more. This is good management.
You could take a lesson from Anonymous.
I was just chatterboxing with my Nick this morning after returning from the deer blind to make breakfast and have it ready to heat and eat when Artemis returned from the morning’s hunt with or without.
I was explaining the concepts of Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb I find most relevant regarding current events to Nick and I reminded him that we saw an enormous part of that power transfer happening during the time I was a union steward chosen to sit on Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations between government level Union Representatives and Contract Negotiators and the Boeing Subcontract who got to ride in on a non-compete clause apron strings.
We were able to enter the second week of negotiations with a strike vote in hand which got the NLRB people involved and then I really saw how corrupt bureaucrats are.
HSF, do you follow my train of thought on this?
Hey hardfuck – tell us how you feel about Monsanto. That was a stupid as shit comment. You’re comparing the SEIU to this conversation? An organization that fucks the taxpayer every chance they get? And the taxpayer doesn’t even get a chance to decide? Good God.
Stop bitching about the SEIU since whatever government says goes. I mean why don’t they have a right to do that if they want? The government gets to do whatever they want because they own you. They are your rightful representatives, right? Stop bitching about the government and their employees.
In case you are ignorant, I do not believe the SEIU should be able to do the things they do.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with everyone today? It’s like that movie The Crazies.
I don’t care for Monsanto. I dislike the corporation. I don’t use their products and I try to avoid anyone downstream from them that does (hypothetical downstream, not riparian) and I try and do everything in my power to set an example of how to farm responsibly.
That said, how does this have anything to do with the fact that I believe free people are not slaves?
I can’t follow anyone’s train of thought on this today, but I can definitly grok the anger.
It’s no different than you bringing the SEIU into the conversation. You fuckwit. You believe that IF a thing CAN be done it is ok to do it. Oh, unless it’s against the person who did it first?
I brought Monsanto into it because they can sue if their plants pollinate your crops, no? This has been brought up on this site a few times.
How about you grok on my cock.
Wip whning like a little pussy. Waaaaahaaaa! I signed a contract and now I wantz out. It is unfair! I don’t wanna honor it! Waaaaah. Evil corporations should provide me a job on conditions of my choosing! Waaaaaah!
Who would have thunk it – WIP is unethical with no integrity. What a surprise.
LLPOH…”IF a company promise employees a pension and then RENEGE on that pension the company is justified to do it.”
Unethical? What’s good for the bitch isn’t good for the gander.
WIP – companies renege when they go broke. Funny that. They enter into defined benefit agrements that turned out to be vastly more expensive than considered.
That is why defined benefit plans have almost entirely disappeared from the private sector. And pensions now tend to be fully funded, but balance at retirement not guaranteed.
Nice strawman argument though.
I don’t know what led up to this, Wip’ing the Farmer.
Just for\against non-competes? With “for” looking thru the lens that free means free to sign – or not? Sorta like free to get a ss# & work, & have previous generations of ss\uplicants\ubsidized right off the top of every one of you paychecks?
Well, lying along a continuum as it may, n\c’s are still a variation on indentured servitude. I owe my soul to the company store. etc. Like a lot of things, not worth the paper written on. Magical words, spell-casting. Are you (meant generically) experienced, sang “rule”-breaking Hendrix – did he ever – or just credulous?
Torture-coerced confessions are invalid, too – well, they are supposed to, should, be.
Self-defense weapons in waistbands are illegal in the city of big shoulders. But not against the law. No matter what you signed, even “implicitly.”
The one place I worked that union agitators came calling, they were voted down, twice. And I always said, & meant it, that if any union came into my business & crayon-lawed me to the side, I’d burn it down.
Dirty Harry’s line about knowing limitations is good, but knowing prerogatives is better. My business is (was) my property. Not a “public accommodation.” But employees & subcontractors & customers aren’t my property. Nor am I theirs, no matter how big their shoulders are.
Wait. Did HSF just say fuck? Must be a dopple.
No, that’s him. He just can’t believe he’s on TBP the day the commies decided to out themselves.
I suspected same.
A non-compete agreement may have saved my little company.
We were 2-3 people at the time, and we needed a new salesman. We couldn’t afford a seasoned one, so we had to hire young and train them. I explained our non-compete intent and he agreed. We were competing with well established larger companies. 5 years later, our new methods were working and we were doing well. He then wanted to either buy-in or leave to start his own. We offered the buy-in price and he decided it was too much, quit, and started his own business.
He immediately went after our best customers using the same methods we taught him. I told him he had two choices. Do same in a different territory or wait one year to compete with us. He had good lawyer friends. He chose a different territory.
This one year gave us a chance to hire a replacement and train to hopefully keep our customers. It barely worked, as after one year, the ex-salesman came back at us, but now we had a new one (not seasoned yet). The majority of our customers stayed with us and we survived, barely.
Years later, we needed another salesman and could afford a seasoned one. This new seasoned salesman did not warrant a non-compete and he is still with us today.
10 years later the old ex-salesman is now an ally, and we help each other. Some would ask how can we if he tried to unseat us? Well, I chalked it up to being too young and inexperienced to understand, and today he now understands that the original buy-in offer was more than fair, now that he knows what it’s like to start from nothing.
On a relative note: when I left the last company I worked for to start my own, they did not have a non-compete agreement. However, I liked my boss and company at the time, they were just moving in a different direction than I liked. So when I quit, I self-imposed a non-compete with my boss “I will not go after any business or customers that I created under your employement for one year” It was hard but it kept my integrity in the industry.
I’m sure there a good and bad non-competes, I think ours was fair and warranted.
And there you have a perfect example of what life is like in a high trust society with an honorable population.
We don’t have that in many places any more, hence the ubiquitous nature of the non-compete contracts.
If someone shows you how to be a blacksmith for five years would it be just for that person to open up a shop right next door and try to take all his mentors customers? Of course not. That’s the point of it, to prevent that.
HF, that is the most valuable lesson from LLPOH. Integrity. If a noob learns nothing else here, integrity should be a key take-away.
Cheating customers or employees can make somebody rich. All the money in the world won’t buy you peace of mind.
And the only thing that we take with us when we leave these carbon containers is the person that we were.
See – I sometimes start a sentence with ‘and’ too.
I will also write with split infinitives at times, and like Churchill, I’m not afraid of ending a sentence with a preposition…
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Glad to know you read the comments here, Steve. Split infinitives are a “must” at times. And, as you already know, Churchill is irreplaceable. Prepositions ending a sentence happen.
Steve-O, Why would anybody be afraid of that? The English language is great in its flexibility and expandability. It can convey so much in few words (fuck off) and it can convey so little in many words (KeiserSuzie). Your teachers taught you the rules of grammar, after that, it was on you how you used the language. The main idea is to get your point across, a concept lost on i forget.
Prophecy and Tongues
…I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church, I would rather speak five coherent words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Thanks EC.
I just wish I was better at spelling.
I take comfort in the words of Mark Twain:
“…I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word only one way…” – Mark Twain.
Thank doG for spil cheek.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
If that’s your main idea, ec, ‘s ok with me – even when you speak in a tongue that contradicts that from my perspective (some of your stuff is wtf?, too, you know – or would be, if I gaf, but I don’t take it that seriously…).
The punchline is that long before it was your idea it was the collective idea. And I only appealed to mass merch when I was young & still in the teeth of “education” machinery – & I only did it even then because I bought the mass merch pitch that the grades mattered, or would, later.
Ah, shit, i forget. I’ve been guilty of your sins and KeyserSuzie’s. Does the proverb – it takes one to know one – ring a bell? How the fuck do you suppose I earned that El Assclown moniker? It wasn’t easy. Let’s not get too butthurt, hermano. Publicity is the key to TBP success. Many commenters have died on the vine with brilliant comments but little spotlight. Your welcome!
El a\c was before my landing here. But then as now, surely all in good fun. I always thought traffic was the point of these forums, but have been to more than a few that qualify that censoriously. A lot like university. Going along to get along’s the real butthurt – no matter how slippery the lube is. But, different garden parties for different folks.
James Joyce sings…listen with Van Gogh’s ears…well, ear. Lol….
Proof that you are one of the least ignorant beaners in South Dakota, South Carolina or South America, perhaps?
I have been listening to the audio book Antifragile while out and about this very exciting first deer season since getting the place in a finished enough state that my dear husband can finally feel comfortable taking a few days off from that front walkway and join the hunt. My cousin, Artemis, is taking her very successful huntress ass back to her real estate appraisal business and will be back out here as she can this week. I’m going to get down to the treehouse and set up at least one bedroom. We are going to start the renovations on that Hunting Cabin for Rent or Seasonally available guest house or safe house or Stalag XX, depending upon the state of the world at the end of this insanely chaotic year. She inspires my muse, this cousin who could play that guitar well enough to make a decent living playing the bar circuit in Arizona and go out to Vegas for a few gigs here and there until coming home to be with her beloved Momma, a favorite aunt of mine as well, who was appropriately named Rhoda, perhaps of Go Tell Aint Rhody fame. And the story that she and I remember together of our hillbilly raised mothers and the nightmares those girls experienced when certain “uncles” came over makes Harvey Weinstein seem closer to home.
But, the question that comes to me is this: How, in a country which supposedly demanded protection for certain inalienable rights, did such a thing as a Non-Compete Clause and Non-Disclosure Act evolve from corporations being the bad guys of the Union Organizing Heyday and OVER-RIDE individuals’/citizens’ inalienable rights? It has come to this because of the ability of corporations to claim the rights of individual voters. All you smart lawyers and businessmen out there secure in the knowledge that you really are the truly intellectual Fourth Turning fans who see something really special in the intensely passionate following Jim Quinn has attracted on his blog? Well, I’m asking you to tell me which President almost handed corporations everything they needed in order to donate as much money as they possibly could to a Foundation he and his wife, who happened to be the Secretary of State at the time who expanded that idea of philanthropy to third world dictators and pay-to-play politics in an empiracle way not seen since Napolean. In fact, anyone could buy all the Uranium they wanted as long as they ponied up the speaking fee to that President, retired.
That is, of course, one rule with which Churchhill would not up put.
Thanks EC. I may a hardass at business, but I do not think there is a soul out there who thinks I have ever been dishonest.
Another dumb as shit comment by Hardon….
“And there you have a perfect example of what life is like in a high trust society with an honorable population.”
How does a non-compete show trust?
Non-competes are a result of a society with low trust, you moron. How could you miss what I said so completely?
I don’t often comment on things that are outside my wheelhouse because I don’t want to muddy the conversation with my ignorance. Last night I took a crash course on the history and legal application of non-competes after this shitfest.
The key word in every provision and every court decision came down to this- ‘reasonablness’. That isn’t a word you see too often (and for good reason) but it fits here. The scope of these contracts should be limited to geographical area and time period. I assumed that was the very reason for these but people have either misinterpreted them to mean that they are enforceable across time and place without regard to being “reasonable” or that they infringed on other elements that are clearly not covered.
So for the record, let’s restate the premise that led to the very first non-compete court case of any substance, namely Mitchel v Reynolds in 1714.
It is unfair for an employee to learn a trade, curry favor with the customers of his employer and be paid for his work only to leave in order to set up a competitive business in close proximity to and dependent upon the customers of his former business. I don’t see how anyone could see that in any positive light. The employer/employee relationship is always front loaded in the favor of the employer; he tells you when to come to work, what to do while you’re there and how much he’ll compensate you for your efforts and everyone understands this. On the flip side he provides a safe work environment, guarantees a salary or wage, serves as a mentor and teacher of the craft or trade the business engages in and looks out for the myriad issues associated with operating the business allowing the employee to concentrate on his or her role exclusively.
These clauses were originally instituted to keep trade secrets secret, retain a client/customer base built up over time, enjoy a relative sphere of influence absent head to head competition from within his circle of employees.
Here’s where I have shifted my stance- the law appears to have already taken care of protecting these concerns, especially in the case of Application Group, Inc v Hunter Group, Inc
It is unreasonable to enforce the non-compete over great distances that would negatively impact the ability of people to do business in other states that would benefit. So if you want to open your blacksmith shop next door to your former employer, you’re an asshole but if you want to move to California and do it, you have every right. Same applies to time- tomorrow, you’re a dick, next year, no problem.
But here’s the thing- almost all of these non-competes are designed that way. There are a slew of other restrictive agreements that better suit the model of businesses in question, non-solicitation (trying to peel off customers/clients from the business you worked for- think of Mad Men), Invention Assignment (you work for a laboratory being paid to invent something and when you do you try and claim it as your own and sell that proprietary design as if it belonged to you. It doesn’t) and anti-piracy clauses (you cannot lure away all your co-workers to come work for you when you leave a company).
Is this a pure case of black and white? Nothing is, not ever. Is there a reason for having such contractual obligations? You bet, clearly. Should people think twice before accepting a position that requires such agreements? Uh, yeah! Caveat Emptor applies to more than goods in the marketplace. Research the company before taking the position, think about your long term plans or goals and if they might be curtailed by such an agreement.
What you cannot do with any type of good faith is argue that by being a party to one of these contracts you are a slave. That’s horseshit and you know it. Slavery allows for no choice or agency. One cannot legally agree to be a slave and conditions of slavery extend to every facet of life, not just employment. If you think that by signing one of these your prospects are limited beyond your level of comfort, DON’T SIGN ONE. By the same token, if your plan for success is to piggy back off the hard work, sacrifice and business acumen of another and launch into direct competition and call that fair, you’re lying to yourself. It’s a form of fraud and it ought to be dealt with legally.
I fall back on my original stance concerning high trust societies where it would be unthinkable for someone to work and learn a trade under a man and then go into head to head competition with him in the same market for the same clients. That’s unthinkable to anyone with an honorable character, but I get it, we don’t live in those times and it’s monkey see, monkey do. If everyone else in this Kleptocracy is going to take advantage of people’s good nature and trust in order to fatten their wallet, it must be okay. Except it isn’t and that’s why we have a social order that is rife with corruption and decay and why everyone with a sandwich shop has to have their employees sign one of these.
And after a good night’s sleep (unsettling dreams about runaway trucks notwithstanding) I do feel bad about some of my comments yesterday on this thread.
I said some crass things directed towards Wip- not that he was a fat, lazy, stupid, balding loser with a tiny dick who can’t comprehend simple points for shit, because that would have been impossible for me to know with any certainty, but I still feel bad.
HTH
HSF – I already agree with you on a company’s personal property being protected. We need neither non-compete, nor nondisclosure for that. Laws against theft cover it.
In past times when I have left the direct employment or independent representation of any company ALL literature, documents, quotes, customer information, etc. are returned to them. It is their property. There have been many things that I would have loved to have kept, but they didn’t belong to me. All were returned. We should be good there as well.
BUT
So many companies look at their salespeople as just some sort of a resource that they can plunder at will with no repercussions. They bring us in like hired guns (that seasoned salesman ChrisNJ mentions) to bring in new customers and new business and then discard us and simply take that new business as ‘house accounts.’ Then they just go and get another new ‘seasoned’ salesman and repeat the process. We are not just expendable to them, we are literally disposable.
The threat of leaving and going to a competitor is about the only weapon that we have to protect ourselves. The company that disposes of us may make more money initially with their new ‘house accounts’, but they not only lose a good salesman, they will then have to compete against the discarded one. And we WILL be looking to hurt them. You bet!
Many years ago, I sold the largest DC motor that my company had ever sold in North America. It was a long and tough project that took many months to bring to fruition, but I did it. All of management was congratulating themselves on such a spectacular feat. Wouldn’t you know it, just before I would have been paid, I was discarded, they took all credit and monies and just hired another salesman.
For the next few years, I was willing to drive all night to get to any opportunity to take as much business away from them as I could. And I made damned sure they knew it.
I understand a company’s right to protect their technology, their designs, their confidential business, but employees are not just some sort of resource like buying a bolt of paper at Office Depot that can be used and disposed of. That is just plain wrong.
I guess we can agree to disagree and hopefully even discuss.
I’m glad you’re feeling better today.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
If you’re not low trust, then you are the moron. At the least, you are at the wrong table, punching above your weight, etc.
I don’t think you are a moron, farmer.
But verification, ongoing, is the tao. Not trust. It has always been thus.
People lie, emphasize the fine craftsmanship of their rugs, which they hope to codify into flying carpets. And it is Daedalus & Icarus, every time. Rounder & rounder goes the ride.
ChrisNJ – Your comments bring up some interesting views, but mostly from your own side.
“…On a relative note: when I left the last company I worked for to start my own, they did not have a non-compete agreement…”
If they had a non-compete you would not have been ‘allowed’ to start your own company regardless of how nice you were to your former employer. The word ALLOWED is the important one here. HSF claims I think everyone should be ‘entitled’, to a job, but the truth is that I believe everyone should be ‘allowed’ to pursue employment. There is a difference.
“…We were 2-3 people at the time, and we needed a new salesman. We couldn’t afford a seasoned one…”
How could you hire a seasoned salesman at all if he is not ‘allowed’ to leave his current employer and seek a new job with you?
“…Years later, we needed another salesman and could afford a seasoned one…”
This indicates that you were probably not paying your original salesman after he had been trained and was presumably bringing in business for you what you would have paid a seasoned one at the time that he left. If you were, he might have stayed.
Again, you were able to get a seasoned salesman only because he did not have a non-compete with his current employer. If he had been forced to sign one of those, he would not have been ‘allowed’ to go to work for you.
ChrisNJ , HSF, – I am not claiming that people are ‘entitled’ to a job as you put it, but I do think that everyone is entitled to work in the field of their choice.
Let’s turn it around and look at it the other way.
Let us assume you are the salesman and you came into the company as a newbie at a low level of pay kind of like the old apprentices of years gone by. You learned the job and the products and were now bringing in business, but your pay was still at a low level. Not as low as when you started, but lower than other competitors paid their salesmen. You were aware that you could make more money in another company.
One day a competitor contacts you and askes if you would be interested in going to work for them. They suggest a better salary and bonus plan than you are getting at your current employer. You have a young family to feed and you figure that your responsibility to do the best for them overrules any responsibility and attachments that you might feel for your current employer so after some negotiations you agree to the competitors offer.
With that non-compete clause in there you not ‘allowed’ to do better for yourself and your family.
Also from the other-way-around, I can tell you that I have worked for several companies that after I brought in a number of new accounts and nice business they decided that it was enough that they would simply get rid of me and take those as ‘house accounts’ and just go and get another salesman.
This is a common and classic mistake that companies make because not only do they lose the talents of a good salesman, but the part they always forget is that the salesman is likely going to end up at one of their competitors and they are going to have to deal with him competing against them – and having been screwed over will be very inspired to go after them.
With a non-compete, the company is completely protected by a wall of lawyers from any repercussions from their actions. The ones that I have witnessed were pretty awful. The company’s intention was never to win the lawsuit. It was to get that injunction denying the former employee from working at a competitor and to drag it through the courts for as long as possible. Torture for the former employee and a lesson to all the rest of their employees of what awaits them if they try to leave and go to a competitor.
Sounds like slavery to me…
I am not saying that this is what either of you guys did or would do, but believe me they are out there. The last company that I worked for laid me off two days before I was due my commission on over four million dollars’ worth of motors I had sold on a large project. I was the only one laid off and when I inquired if I was still going to be paid they said no, this is your last day here. It was a lot of money.
It was not a non-compete clause here as I simply re-opened my old company, but any salesman needs to be able to seek employment wherever he or she can find it. I have forty years’ experience in the industrial electric motor business. I am well known in Texas and I have a value in this business to an employer that I would not have as a newbie in some other.
To suggest that I should have to wait a year or two years to seek employment in a field that I have been active in for four decades in order to protect that former employer is disgusting.
You and i forget have made compelling arguments that will probably fall on the deaf ears of Hardon and LLP(iece)O(f)H(orseshit). They love slavery and cheating their fellow man.
Neither of those things are true, but you are a slanderous midwit, and that can’t be denied.
I had to slaughter my bull today, not something I wanted to do, but I had beef promised to neighbors and a freezer of my own that needs to be filled for Winter and when the two steers burned up in the slaughterhouse fire I was left with no other option. That’s the kind of decisions and hard choices a self sufficient person has to make in order to feed his own family and I can live with it. I don’t have a boss to ask for an advance, no union to represent me and hand out a check for nothing. It’s all on me. It’s also the reason I’m being confrontational in my responses to these unwarranted attacks. Usually, intelligent people with different ideas are able to discuss them without resorting to calumny around here, but not this day, not this day.
So go fuck yourself Wip. If your boss lets you.
You asshole. A non-compete doesn’t “allow” people to stand up and take care of themselves once they have acquired the necessary tools. If you had signed a non-compete with a person/company in order to learn farming, where would you be now? You fuckwit.
I don’t need to constantly rely on other people like you do, you full sized infant. You expect someone to create a business, take all the risks, hire you, pay you, train you and then you expect to go out and into direct competition with them and feel self-righteous about it? I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be that kind of ungrateful and self-centered prick.
I stand on my own two feet and if I need help I’m kind and responsible and have good relationships with neighbors and friends so that they want to help me out and they know it’s mutual. Reading the comments you’ve hammered out on this thread it’s clear that kind of behavior is some kind of mystery to you. I don’t rely on jobs because I like being my own man so it’s hard for me to relate to the client/patron relationship you are so familiar with, but your endless yammering certainly helped me remember exactly why I have avoided it.
You caught me on a bad day so I’m sure I’ve said some things I’ll regret tomorrow, but right now nailing your little dick to the floor is helping me get over the other stuff, so for that, thanks a bunch.
HSF – little WIP has always lacked integrity. He is envious, and cannot get over it.
I know we have had our differences, and one episode I truly regret. But I generally believe we are laike minded in many ways. We believe in standing on our own two feet, in family, in doing what we say. I have great respect for you.
Here is a little fact that some may find interesting.
In business, not only do I do what I say, I also almost always do what others think I said, so long as I think they are honest about it. So if I say I will take two of something, and the other guy says three was the number, I take three.
Why do I do that? Because my reputation is important. It means I have extremely loyal customers and suppliers.
I recently quoted a project, and had to source tooling quotes. My competitor sourced the same quotes as me, from the same supplier. The supplier quoted me 10% less for the same tools! He told me so – and why? He said it was because ai am honest and he knows I will never try to screw him, and will accept any mistakes I make as my own and will not try to pass them on to him. He says he has to charge the other guy more to allow for the prospect he will get screwed.
Honesty and integrity in business wol be repaid in kind.
Go fuck yourself. Where did I EVER say I required a company to do anything for me? Guess what asswipe, my company needs me more than I need them. Why else would they want me to sign a non-compete? Grok that idiot. I’m not trying to steal anything from my employer. There are two sides to this. You only see the one side.
Non-competes for the purpose of scare tactics or monopolistic reasons or indenture is NOT integrity. It is cowardly.
WIP – hahahahaha! Yep, I bet your company is shitting its pants at the prospect of losing you. Fuck, that is funny. Hahahahahaha! Losing a chancre like you would really be a great loss!
Calling someone a “full sized infant” is just plain going to far. I think someone is doppling HSF.
Why are you crying to me about your bull? Isn’t that a part of the business? If you can’t handle the business you’re in, you are free to do something else.
We have a herd of deer on our land and just this one cousin hunting. My cataracts prevent me doing anything other than with a camera at certain locations, so I think we are a favorite rutting grounds for the deer. You are welcome to come use up to 8 of our 16 tags we get as landowners in this deerhunting crazy place. We had one of last years venison roasts last night, freeing up space in our freezers, which will all be full very soon. Today we quarter and hang.
The treehouse stands empty with new roof and Mennonite built stairs. Electricity is on and we have a very good shop type heater that keeps it NOT FROZEN. I have been riding my quadrunner right before daybreak this year letting all the poaching types around here that Nick and I are going to be the ones deciding if our land gets hunted or not. After startling a guy on horseback yesterday on my property, I decided it was time to start packing the Beretta again. Reminders of the chaos ahead are heavy here on our land and we think this a great opportunity to refine our hunting skills. You are welcome to visit my little piece of heaven during this deer and turkey season and fill up any freezers you can and on my electricity dime too! That treehouse has to be heated with that space heater until we get that old pot belly woodstove set up inside and rebuild the chimney vents. You any good at that, HSF?
Steve, you don’t have to sign to work for them under those conditions if you don’t want to. It’s a voluntary agreement. If you don’t want to work in a place that has a non-compete, don’t work there. I’ve made all kinds of deals with all kinds of people where the first thing I did was take a sharpie to the contract they brought, and just start deleting stuff right in front of them. And then sign it and hand it back to them. Now they’ve got to choose. I don’t get all this helplessness.
The problem is when all the big companies copy each other and all require that damned non-compete.
In my business, you can’t just take a Sharpe as you say to a contract with GE, ABB, Westinghouse, Siemens, etc. These are corporate contracts and you either sign them as is in an agreement for employment or you won’t get past the HR paperwork.
If it makes you feel any better I was approached by one of them (I won’t say which) some years ago and among other information that their HR department requested was that I send them a list of my last three employers. They wanted to know who, where, and what I did at each. In addition, they wanted to know why I left them.
I wrote back that although I really didn’t think that was any of their damned business, obviously they think it’s important so I wanted them to provide me with the details of the last three employees that held the open position. I wanted to know who they were, how long they were there, and why they left.
I repeated that although I didn’t think it was any of my damned business either, they obviously think it’s important so I said that I thought that they should provide that information to me first, and that after I had reviewed if I was still interested in working for them that I would send them the information that they requested.
I got a very rude email back from the head of their HR department informing me that I was no longer under consideration.
BUT
You have to be in a position to tell them to piss off. At the time I was and I did.
Many people trying to support a family are not, and they are forced by no other option to sign whatever bullshit document these big corporations hand them.
Hence, I now work for myself.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Good point. And trust me, I’m one of the big proponents around here about a big wave of antitrust.
Steve – bullfuckingshit. The fact a person is poor does not give them, the seller, the right to dictate terms to a buyer. His poverty or personal circumstance is not anyone else’s problem. That is a personal issue stemming from personal decisions. What total bullshit.
And most jobs are not big corporation. Lots of small companies out there. Or they can work for themselves.
So your position is because, you know, boofuckinghoo some people make bad decisions and get in trouble, then they get to dictate terms to buyers. Fuck that shit. You cannot make me buy on terms that might jeopardize my business. You do not want to sell, do not sell. I will buy, or not, based on terms of the transaction.
I have contracts asking for all kinds of crap, much as you relay. I tell them no, even if it costs me. Employees can do the same.
I work as a consultant for a network of about 55 engineers, scattered around North America. Here’s a story I heard recently (wasn’t working for them when it happened).
Apple wanted to make some bizarre chemical for their display screens. The network was asked to propose a process to make it; the idea was we could tell Apple what it would take to make XX tons / year of chemical YZ.
In the bid request, Apple put in a lot of legal garbage. Among them was a clause: Apple could come in and audit our HR practices, and if they said something was wrong and needed to be changed, _the network would have to make those changes_. Essentially, Apple was claiming the authority to tell the network how to run their business.
The managing partner and lawyer took a Sharpie to the proposal, and made a counter-proposal. I think he said they were simply declaring the need to negotiate on any given policy or procedure, not just take dictation from Apple.
During the bid review meeting they gave Apple a copy of what they proposed. When it got to that section, the Apple rep said these items were not negotiable. When the managing partner realized they meant it, he said every term in every contract was negotiable: it was an agreement, not a consent order. The Apple rep said something like, but we’re Apple: if you want to do business with us, you have to take our terms. Our partner LAUGHED IN THEIR FACES and said we’re done here, sorry to waste your time. He said the look of amazement on their faces from his rejection of their business was worth the expense of making the trip.
They probably think we’re too stupid to know what we lost out on, but we think they’re too stupid to know what expertise they lost access to. More companies need to STOMP on those kinds of terms to teach bigger companies where the limits are.
It takes a ballsy management to turn down Apple-sized business, but retaining control over how they ran their own company was important to them. By the way, the HR department is one guy, with secretarial help. If a company HAS an HR department, it’s probably too big to listen to you or value you when it counts, and I doubt I’ll ever work for another one.
Submission holds. Color of law jiu-jitsu. Brazil’s got a rep for that. And for waxed pubics, perianals.
But authoritarian control freaks – with much pent up underlying fear & loathing – use the big crayonlawbox to wax the public, are smooth criminal assholes.
The Gracies (Brazilian jiu-jitsu family\business) are competitors. Anti-competitors are graceless.
The Dark Brutality of Israel – Andrea Iravani
The word is that these clauses have been more difficult to enforce in recent years. As with so many things, there are at least two sides. Surely, one has a right to contract, including inserting a non-competition clause to prevent an employee or sub-contactor from learning your business techniques and secrets and then entering into competition against you. Extending that to grunt-level employees though, violates the spirit of the thing; and as mentioned, those clauses are not real easy to enforce.
When a company requires everyone to sign a non-compete they simply are using a scare tactic. If a person (even a low level employee) is scared even if they can do it legally. Why? Because the company has a lot more money to pay a lawyer to shut you down (or drown you in lawyer/court costs) than you have to pay a lawyer to keep your doors open.
Slavery
Wimpyness
Coward.
To link the 13th Amendment to modern non-compete contracting is like conflating negroes on 18th century southern plantations to modern blacks in the 30 Blocks of Squalor today. There is no comparison other than through satire or hyperbole. HSF is correct. The author should get an E for effort and an F for fail.
And you should get my dick to suck on.
Gee, WIP, something that small is never going to generate much interest. We all know you are the sucker, not the suckee.
Poor little LLPOH bitch is afraid of his little ole employees he’s always bitching about because they fuck up all the time and they aren’t worth shit.
Can’t compete rainman? At least not without everything tipped in your favor. Stop bitching about the banks and the government then.
WIP – I compete very well, thanks. BTW, I do not bitch about banks, as a rule. Govt? Yes, I bitch about that.
Best ge,t back to flipping those burgers, lest you get fired.
Then stop bitching about the government you crybaby. They are your rightful masters. I’m sure that is what you think every time they put more red tape, regulations, requirements and more responsibilities on you for the “upkeep” on your employees (like healthcare).
You’re a coward.
Wip,
Blow me you COCK GUZZLING THUNDER CUNT!!!!!
Stubb – nice. Especially love the “thunder cunt” part!
Damn, that was a compelling argument. I stand corrected and am in awe of your inability to say anything worthy.
Stubb – I have not commented to the author, but you are correct. People use terms that are so obviously untrue as to make them meaningless as used.
steveC
I’m amazed a topic about non-competes is gonna get over 100. Well done.
However, it has become a mini shitfest. It truly is enjoyable to follow it along. HF is even saying fuck and shit and nailing dicks to the wall! AND ITS YOUR FAULT!!!
Congratulations. ??
Stucky,
Where ya been son?
I was worried that you’re missing out on my first shitfest.
Come and tear me apart – HSF is having a field day.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Steve I respect your opinion even if we disagree because you communicate like an adult and a gentleman.
Wip is getting my goat, no secret there.
And Stucky? I’ll have to think on that for a while. He runs hot and cold.
My mom was big on me being a gentleman from my earliest years.
I will still stand when a lady enters a room and I will always offer my seat to a lady. Mom was also big on me always taking the street side when walking down a sidewalk with a lady.
If I didn’t, you would see my head visibly move forward as my mom – rest her soul – would smack me upside the head. “A lady entered the room. Why didn’t you stand up?”
Agree or disagree, the point is to discuss and even debate.
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Some people do it a little differently is all.
Not gonna tear you apart. Non-competes for the most part , not always, are pure evil bullshit. I was sued for supposedly violating a non-compete, 4 day trial, .. ruined a large part of my life.
Anyway, watching a shitfest is a helluva lot of fun. More fun then being on the short end of one.
I think WIP is getting the fuck kicked out of him. He needs to try harder. Really really proud of HF. I tried real hard to get him to engage me in a shitfest the other day, but he didn’t bite. Good thing too … those middle-finget animated gifs would have destroyed me.
Stuck – there are no perfect worlds. As I said, somewhere herein, capitalism sorts this shit out on a macro scale sooner or later. Unfortunately, on a micro scale some get fucked, as you illustrate. Some businesses will get screwed by unethical,employess, and vice versa. Nothing can be done about that I am afraid. Making non-competes illegal would just screw business, damage job creation, etc.
The invisible hand will fix it, but there will be blips.,
I’ll believe I am right thank you. Non-competes for the purpose of scare tactics, to financially drain someone even though you know you won’t win, monopolistic reasons, cowardice (LLPOH and Hardon) are, as Stuck put it, Pure Evil.
But Hardon and LLPOH think non-competes are a sign of integrity. Bwahahaha.
LLPOH, how does that Stucky dick taste?
Steve – you are fucking the goat. It is not slavery, no where near.
People can work in any field they wish. Go do it. But want a job? Want me to train you, get you experience, pay you, give you access to my secres and tech and customer base? Then, buddy, you need to sign a non-compete to protect me from being screwed.
Don’t like it? You are welcome to start your own business. Go for it.
And here is also the deal. If business offers non-competes that are too onerous, they will not be able to attract employees, and their competitors will thrive. The employees will go elsewhere, to other businesses or industries.
And you know what that system is called? It is called capitalsim. It is a system that if not fucked with works really well. It means that anomalies get ironed out by the invisible hand. Companies that behave poorly get sorted out by the market.
You cannot force someone to buy labor on conditions that are unfavorable to them, nor can you force someone to sell.
Those slaves, as you call them, have free will. They can sell, or not sell. They can start their own businesses. They can seek more favorable terms. If their chosen industry cannot meet their demands, they can do something else.
Slavery? What a joke. Get a grip. You prefer to make the business owners slaves and force conditions on them that can, and would in many cases, destroy their life’s work in preference to those that have risked nothing, built nothing.
What a load of shite.
“…Honesty and integrity in business wol be repaid in kind…”
Lipoh, I will agree with you on that one.
I always say that to me the only thing that changes are the lines – the companies that I represent.
I have had many of the same customers for decades.
They don’t say, “We need to replace that old 5,000HP xyz company motor with a new one at 10,000HP so we’d better call them. They say, “Call Steve Candidus and tell him we need him to come out and figure out a way to do this retrofit”.
They call me because I am competent at what I do. I’ve learned it on the job for four decades.
Mostly they call me because they trust me.
TRUST ME!
I don’t ever try to sell them what I have just to make a buck. If I don’t have what they need or can’t get it, I tell them so and then tell them where they can get what they need.
They ALWAYS come back to me again.
I owe this lesson to my dad. He used to tell me that when I grew up I could be anything that I wanted, but if I wasn’t honest I was nothing.
Thank you dad.
“…People can work in any field they wish. Go do it. But want a job? Want me to train you, get you experience, pay you, give you access to my secres and tech and customer base? Then, buddy, you need to sign a non-compete to protect me from being screwed…”
I also agree that people can work in any field that they choose. They are kept from that right by these Non-Compete’s though.
Your company secrets and designs are protected by a non-disclosure. You have a right to protect them.
You do not have a right to keep an employee from seeking employment elsewhere just because it might compete with you. THAT is Capitalism!
And I do own my own business…
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
Steve – non- disclosures will not help if your ex-employee sets up business next door, poaches your customers, or simply lies about it (the disclosure) now will it? Gee, a business could go broke very fast.
If a business trains, pays, discloses secrets to an employee, it has every right to stop that employee from using those skills and info against them, for a reasonable time. Thus the non-compete. It is a contract entered into willingly by both parties. Don’t want to sign it? Don’t.
Capitalism will sort it out. If it becomes such that it is too onerous on employees, business will be forced to change.
Coward. Btw, that government (no, I am not a government lover and you KNOW that) you bitch about has done an awful lot to float your company. In fact all companies since it is the one (or the fed. Whichever you choose) who is keeping the economy on the upward trajectory, no? So, without the government injecting massive amounts of $$$ into the economy, you may not even be in business. But you cry about your incompetent employees who you are afraid will out compete you. Bwahahaha.
Meanwhile, if I find a legal way to “get out of” my non-compete you’ll accuse me of having no integrity. Bwahahaha.
WIP – I have never seen a more whiny bitch than you. You are hardly worth swatting, but it is a slow day.
BTW – I do not have any non-competes in place. My competitive advantage is that I amjust better at what I do. No trade secrets. Hell, it HELPS me when new competition arrives. It highlights that I am better.
I even allow a competitor to exist for that very reason. We have one small competitor that I could kill off at any time, but that competitor does a couple things. First, it takes projects that are low profit that we do not want. Second, it highlights the pitfalls of customers choosing to do business with other companies. If they did not exist, customers would likely try to create a competitor to us, because they like a competitive marketplace.
Stuck, anybody can cuss. What’s remarkable here is that it’s taken this long for HF to admit it’s fun to slice and dice somebody when you’ve had a bad day.
My go to guy is YoBo, even on his days off I can stick a shiv in him. He’s polite too, so that makes it too easy.
I don’t recall why I began teasing the Wip, but I think he let his mask down for a bit. I told him his work in progress had stalled. Now I see I was right.
and so are the times that compose the days of our lives here on TBP.
LLPOH – I find it interesting that you can reply to me but your reply button is absent. Anyway, I now see why you never made it to the big time (you admitted this from a conversation some time ago). As large corporations absorb their competitors, you would have us believe you are smarter even though you are but a little fish in comparison. You do not have non-competes but you defend them. No, I am not a sandwich maker, pinhead. It was an example of the exploitative practices of non-competes that YOU SUPPORT and then turn around and preach about INTEGRITY. Bwahahaha.
WIP – depends on what you mean by big time. CEO of fortune 500? No. Senior manager of such – yes. Manage plants with thousands of employees? Yes. Not suited politically to be CEO. Simple as that.
I am a tiny fish compared to a multinational. I have a niche market. Big companies cannot compete with me in it – they cannot provide the service, and their cost structure is too high. I would love them to buy me out, but not going to happen.
When next I am flying first class around the world, I will think of you wallowing in your self-pity and jealousy, and be content.
You say more and more idiotic things. You are a senior manager of a company? I thought you said you owned a company. I must have missed something. Why are you saying I am jealous? Motivated, yes. Jealous, not so much. Actively working toward goals and creating a better mousetrap, yes. Self-pity, not so much.
It’s pretty funny how you have glossed over my most important points. But with your level of integrity, that seems about right.
There are federal laws that regulate mergers and acquisitions because corporations/companies want to rule their market but not you. The things you say are confusing to say the least. You like non-competes but don’t use them (even though you told me you have in the past), you think competition is good but you want to keep it in the bottle. You may need a check up from the neck up.
Calling Mrs. Freud.
WIP – guess I need to provide you with an English translator. You said I never made it to the big time. I responded. I left working jobs and went into running my own company.
If you ever make an important point, I promise not to gloss over it.
Now you can’t answer questions. Take the last comment, it’s all yours.
WIP
I thought you had GAME??
You’re kinda getting your ass kicked here.
Carry on.
I fail to see it that way. Dodging questions and ignoring points is their game. Ya know, integrity and all. I’ve made some damn fine points.
Btw, I don’t subscribe to the trilogy. Ya know, LLPOH, Hardon and Stucky.
Shit Stirrer in Chief…
” WIP
I thought you had GAME??
You’re kinda getting your ass kicked here.
Carry on.”
Stucky, I KNOW your game.
LLPOH – I still find it interesting that there isn’t a reply button on some of you comments so I posted one here so I can respond….
WIP – companies renege when they go broke. Funny that. They enter into defined benefit agrements that turned out to be vastly more expensive than considered.”
Here is buffoon LLPOH saying the company shouldn’t be held to promises but not so much for employees. Again, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. Integrity bitchez.
WIP – you say “Here is buffoon LLPOH saying the company shouldn’t be held to promises but not so much for employees”. I did not say that. I said that companies that go broke simply cannot pay. Tell me how they can pay if they go broke? Of course companies need to keep promises. But if they go broke, it is impossible.
Man, you are a dullard.
Hey Buffoon, what if the employee goes broke and needs a do-over or needs better prospects?
Am I? Maybe I’m paranoid also.
Buffoon…”The company rules, employees suck DDD”. Stucky, I stole DDD from you. Thanks.
@Navyhato produced a video alleging that America is attempting to destabilize Europe, without a shred of evidence, because there is not a shred of evidence, in fact the overwhelming evidence points to the contrary !
In Response to Black Pigeon @Navyhato – Andrea Iravani
Fun little shitfest you’ve had here. I too particularly like to see HSF let loose with some vulgarity from time to time.
I usually try to see both sides and with this one it is very easy to do so.
Are No Competes necessary to protect the irreplaceable IP of small businesses? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Are they way over used and often just one more way in which many corporations fuck their employees without lube? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Thank you. This is what I have been saying. One of the big problems/issues is who owns your knowledge? Who controls your mind? What is right and wrong, good or bad, legal or illegal about the knowledge you use? Do you own what is in your mind?
I gotta tell you all, when one of these topics truly generates a TBP discussion instead of splattering shit balls over each other, I’m reminded why I fell in love with this place.
This was always almost as good as deer hunting, but NOW? With deer hunting? Wow. Song of Solomon tunes indeed.
Steve, sorry this is so late, been out all weekend. I’ll try and answer your questions/assertions. Hopefully to give you some faith that there are good companies out there, or create one yourself. Sounds like you may have or are trying.
“If they had a non-compete you would not have been ‘allowed’ to start your own company regardless of how nice you were to your former employer. The word ALLOWED is the important one here. HSF claims I think everyone should be ‘entitled’, to a job, but the truth is that I believe everyone should be ‘allowed’ to pursue employment. There is a difference.”
I still believe I would have. I wanted to go in a different direction and they did not. I would have been (and did) sell products that they mostly did not have (same industry though). However, we did share one similar product, and that’s where I self-imposed my own non-compete with my old employer. It seems this stuff is pretty common sense to me.
“How could you hire a seasoned salesman at all if he is not ‘allowed’ to leave his current employer and seek a new job with you?”
He was seasoned in the same industry. I don’t know if he had a non-compete or not at the time, however he sold completely different products, so it never became an issue. Again, seems common sense to me.
“This indicates that you were probably not paying your original salesman after he had been trained and was presumably bringing in business for you what you would have paid a seasoned one at the time that he left. If you were, he might have stayed.”
Why do you assume people are nefarious. I don’t. The salesman that wanted to buy-in or leave was paid very well. Much more than average in the industry. One year he made more than me, and i/we celebrated it. And he could have continued to get better. However, he was young and I think he believed he should warrant much higher pay, unfortunately way more than we could give. Again, I tried to keep him, as I believed he would end up being one of the best salesman in the industry, he just needed a little more time. And he did, paid his dues working for himself, after many hard years, and is successful today. I still wish he would have stayed. But to be fair to me, his replacement ended up being the best salesman I have ever seen, and he is still with us. (and the same system as the first guy BTW).
“Again, you were able to get a seasoned salesman only because he did not have a non-compete with his current employer. If he had been forced to sign one of those, he would not have been ‘allowed’ to go to work for you.”
Maybe true, but he wasn’t selling the same products, so it never came up.
And I’m sorry to hear your story about getting let go right before a big commission. That is horrible. I’ve had a few salesman leave for various reasons over the years, and I pay them the commission they earned even months beyond their departure. Although one situation was a very long cycle and he wanted the commission now, but I had no way of knowing how the job would end up (6-9months later), so we negotiated a payment so he could get it without waiting.
We celebrate high commission payouts. It means a lot to me that they work so hard and value our little companies desires and methods. I’ve had many peers in business tell me I am crazy for paying my people as much as we do. They say “they will always stick it in your back later”. I don’t believe this. If they do (no one has) then I would say I didn’t want them anyway. As HSF said ‘integrity’ is more important to me than anything.
Here’s another interesting one for you. I always told my salesman that I would never ‘cut’ them. Because that’s what happened to me time and time again working for others. So I had a vision of changing our business for the better, but I had no money to do it. So I met with my salesmen and offered “If I can take 5% from each of you, I can do ‘this’ to pay for it, and it ‘should’ net you even more. They instantly all agreed. It took a while, but it worked.
Best of luck Steve.