Ask HN: Would you sign a "mini-contract" upon giving notice?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2840263

by latch • 15 years ago

33 26 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I just gave notice. HR has asked me to sign a 2 page statement. It's a lot of legal speak, about confidentiality and returning any company material and other bland things which I'm fine with

However, there's also things in here that I'm not in love with, like not criticizing the company ever to anyone and some pretty broad proprietary information stuff.

Why should I sign this? It seems pretty silly to bind myself to anything when there's no benefit to me.

hcho• 15 years ago

Well, what are they going to do if you don't sign it? Fire you? Tell them, you won't, keep a copy of the mini-contract and signal that you are ready to lawyer up, if need be. In case they give you a bad reference for not signing, you can take them to court with this.

nodata• 15 years ago

If you need something from the company you'll probably have to sign it. Otherwise, there's no reason to.

patio112• 15 years ago

A gentleman's agreement that I remain a professional is free.

If you want me to sign anything contractual, I require consideration. That's how the game works. (Paperwork from HR drones verifying confidentiality agreements remain active and that my laptop is returned are free.)

If you're not a really assertive person, "Let me talk to my lawyer and get back to you." works frequently.

They may try to exert social pressure to get you to sign. I encourage use of the line "We're all businessmen here. If this is that important to you, we can find a price which will make us mutually happy." You are under zero moral obligation to comport all future business dealings to the whims of someone who once paid you money.

There's a Chris Rock line. When you're in a restaurant, you pay them money and they give you food. Once you leave the restaurant, you don't get to say "Where's my steak?!" If they aren't cutting you a paycheck any more, they don't get steak.

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

As I understand it, it's a bit worse than "if you want me to sign anything contractual, I require consideration" - if they want you to sign a contract, the law requires that it contains something you want ("consideration") for the contract to be considered binding.

patio112• 15 years ago

You're right. Tactically, though, that only matters if you litigate the contract. 99.999% of contracts will not be litigated. There is business value in non-litigated contracts: if there wasn't, they wouldn't ask for it.

Accordingly, if someone asks you for a contract, you always get something for it. Handshakes are free, formalized promises five figures and up up up.

[Edit to elaborate: Most importantly, promising to do something you intend to do, or promising to not do something you do not intend to do, are not valueless. I have no intention of working for e.g. Zynga. If a company wants me to durably commit to that, though, the fact of the commitment has nonzero value to them. Even that easy to keep promise of locking in my behavior in the event of something unlikely to happen costs money.

This goes for pricing for megacorps in any circumstance, by the way. If you normally get to email in 24 hours, and they want that formalized as an SLA, that should cost an appreciable amount of money. No, not $100. $100 is appreciable to you, but if they can spell SLA, they lose precision under five figures anyhow.]

latch• 15 years ago

Thanks, very useful. Looks like this is a basic requirement of common law contracts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration

I don't plan on signing it, I was just curious what people thought (and so far no one has said I should)

middus• 15 years ago

Yeah, just like the OP asks "Why should I sign this?". Why don't you just ask the HR person that question?

"Why should I want to sign this? What's in it for me?"

kanzenryu• 15 years ago

Just for laughs ask them how much money it's worth to them. Then don't sign it.

demallien• 15 years ago

Well, I would certainly indicate to them that you don't see any point in signing - you already have a contract with them! It's up to them to convince you that signing is in your interest as much as it is in their interest.

joelhaasnoot• 15 years ago

Something tells me they should have put that in your initial employment contract under the heading "Termination of contract"

_b8r0• 15 years ago

Why would you need to sign this? How can they enforce a requirement to sign something when you're leaving? This doesn't make sense.

I wouldn't sign it unless I was either obliged to or there was some massive benefit that outweighed the drawbacks.

rmc• 15 years ago

You're leaving, why do you have to sign it? Your old employment contract and existing law might cover it. Best to check what you've already agreed to. If you don't sign it, what are they going to do? Prevent you from leaving? Ha!

staunch• 15 years ago

Hell no. That's all risk and no reward for you. If they want to pay you a nice chunk of money + legal fees to have it reviewed then why not?

crdoconnor• 15 years ago

You should sign it if, and only if there is extra money in it for you.

If there isn't and they're not prepared to give you any, then tell them you'll agree to the vast majority of the terms in principle but won't be signing on any dotted line.

roblobue• 15 years ago

As far as I know employee protection law, at least in the UK, doesn't like these post-contractual obligations. I would ask a lawyer specialising in employment law for confirmation but it is my understanding that you are under no obligation whatsoever to sign this and should they ever do anything that detriments future employment you would have grounds to sue.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

Absolutely not. You should never sign such a 1-sided contract. It can only hurt you.

Besides which, most of those things are covered by the law, anyhow, and the ones that aren't are questionably legal.

IANAL

davethewave• 15 years ago

Cross out everything add a bunch of stuff then sign it

flarg• 15 years ago

My take is that you should just ignore their request; you're obviously required to return equipment and confidential items when leaving any employ, so you don't need to sign a contract for that - it's dumb for them to ask. The other requests are stupid and pointless - so don't get into it with them.

HR departments are almost always useless SOBs; hell, if they were any good they would figured out how to stop you from leaving in the first place...

petercooper• 15 years ago

Take a leaf out of Derek Sivers book on this. Would not signing it cause you to end up in jail, get a fine, or suffer a loss? If not, no need to bother with it for now.

kragen• 15 years ago

It's not unusual to sign a broad non-disparagement agreement in exchange for a substantial amount of severance money that isn't in any existing contract. (In the US, for example, most employees are "at-will" and are not owed any severance pay, whether they quit or are fired, with or without cause.) It is unusual to sign a broad non-disparagement agreement gratuitously.

My guess is that somebody in HR figured they could probably get something very valuable out of you for free, just by asking for it.

bradfa• 15 years ago

Usually at my company, if there's a layoff, anyone laid off is offered a contract saying similar things to what yours says. The catch is that if the employee does not sign, they don't get their severance pay or benefits which can be sizable. Everyone is allowed to sign or not sign but the contracts are 2 way streets (both sides get something). I've never heard of a contract being offered to those who are voluntarily quitting a job where they were an "at will" employee.

gte910h2• 15 years ago

I've only signed these in the past for reasonable severance pay.

gte910h2• 15 years ago

Are they giving you a lot of money to sign it?

Then no, don't.

If they'll pay you 2k per month you worked at the company or something like that, then say "I'll ask my lawyer".

damoncali• 15 years ago

That's pretty typical language. However, you're right. Unless they give you something in return, there's no point in signing it. I've always seen these agreements attached to some sort of severance payment.

epc• 15 years ago

A confidentiality agreement is one thing and is acceptable.

One of the worst mistakes I ever made was to sign an agreement (on resigning from a company) saying I would never criticize the company or its officers. It’s amazing what lawyers can do to make pretty much anything you say about such a company “criticism.”

To this day all I can say is that I worked at the company, not that I resigned, not why I resigned, not what I learned. It has lead to some extremely uncomfortably situations with potential employers and investors even many years later.

Ask HN: Would you sign a "mini-contract" upon giving notice?

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