Personally, I’m a little tired of insider media gossip, but I find myself compelled to contribute to the cause. What the hell is up with these ridiculous non-competes!?
The Pioneer Press has one. The Star Tribune has one. According to Brian Lambert, John Hines even had a non-compete agreement with KTLK. Work for any media in town, in fact, and you’ll likely be
asked to sign one. Six months. One year. Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine has the gall to ask for two whole years!
No, you’re not misunderstanding. It’s not enough that they have you exclusively while you’re there. That I can live with. But you can’t work for a "competing" (so loosely defined) organization for two years after you leave.
A two-year non-compete?! Can you imagine? You
leave that job — maybe you just get a little tired doing the same thing
day in and day out — and you have to leave town to find work (unless you
want to work at the local Arby’s). It’s absurd.
I say we all take the Par Ridder approach and tear the fuckers up! (Pardon
me, but outrage overrides the auto censors.)
Why would anybody ever sign anything like this in the first place? Why would anyone sign away all their rights? To get a job? You’ve got to be kidding!
Hello. Sign here. Welcome to indentured servitude.
By signing a non-compete agreement, we are ceding our rights as employees, voluntarily surrendering our power of negotiation, our only leverage in a lion’s world. Ridiculous!
As an employee you have the right to explore your options, to determine your value in the job market. You have the right to use said value to make demands on your employer. And you have the right to leave said employer if said employer does not match said value.
On a much more personal note, you have the right to bore with your employer, to explore new options, to ty something new just because you damn well fell like it. You have a right to explore every whim. And, of course, you have the right to suffer the consequences.
Why would anyone sign this away? Are we so desperate for employment that we’re willing to cut our legs off at the knees just because someone put a saw in front of us? Is this the contemporary scab—too desperate to make demands?
Say "No!"
For crying out loud, at least ask for a three-month probation period before you put on the cuffs (and then think twice about how long your hands will remain fused together after the cuffs are off). Would you marry someone who proposed to you after only one interview? Hell, I won’t even marry the man I’ve loved for eight years. And that divorce wouldn’t even require an extended celibacy period.
We seem to have gotten far too comfortable with signing our rights away. Every day we set our signature to something new: a credit card, a mortgage, a lease, a loan, a job order, a purchase, an invoice, a job contract. How much do we really know about what we’re signing? How often do we question the agreement? Don’t even get me going on our lack of consumer rights… But we do have rights, people. And we need to start making demands. As long as we continue to submit to inanities, the lions will continue to feast on our bones.
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