12 ms·

WeWork Backs Down on Employee Noncompete Requirements

177 points by chrisaycock 8y ago

jedberg 8y ago
So in the last little while, we've learned that WeWork has/had oppressive non-compete clauses, and will no longer allow anyone to expense anything involving the consumption of meat. This is odd to me, because the people I know who work for them love their job and employer, but it seems like they're moving down a dark path...
- gaius 8y ago
  love their job and employer It has all the trappings of a cult. It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination. http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html
  - warent 8y ago
    Vegetarian/vegan does not mean undernourished.
    - King-Aaron 8y ago
      Not necessarily, but it can quite often be the case if the person in question isn't actively aware of the nutrients they are consuming.
      - warent 8y ago
        True, as is the case for any diet.
    - gaius 8y ago
      Well, sure, you can be vegetarian on a diet of pizza and icecream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients.
      - warent 8y ago
        You can be on a diet of pepperoni pizza and ice cream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients. I don't see your point. You can be on a diet of beef and pork, get plenty of protein, and still be undernourished.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    That's one detail that might be cult-like, but on the whole as long as their employment contract doesn't prescribe who employees are allowed to talk to I fail to see how it is cult-like on the whole.
    - gaius 8y ago
      That is kinda what an overarching noncompete is isn’t it? Cults always try to forbid former members spilling the beans.
      - jschwartzi 8y ago
        In this case it's very specific to trade secrets. It's not really cult-like to ask people not to talk specifics about your manufacturing processes, suppliers, or customers. That's also not usually within the purview of a non-compete. Non-competes generally dictate whether you can start selling competing products with a competitor or develop the same kind of software for sale with a competitor. They generally don't prohibit finding jobs in unrelated industries. The morally reprehensible thing about a non-compete for a barista or janitor is that the knowledge of how to make coffee or clean is widely available and unless WeWork has some kind of proprietary technique for cleaning offices the non-compete is really a form of indentured servitude. And assuming there's no particular consideration given to what would happen to the janitor or barista should they lose their job and not be able to find similar work it's the kind of contract that should be illegal. It also makes me glad that I asked my employer to hold off on leasing an office for me from WeWork as I don't like doing business with companies that are that predatory. But there's nothing particularly cult-like about it.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    It can be challenging to get enough iron and B vitamins with a vegetarian diet. It's not that hard to get enough protein. Most Americans are consuming more protein than their bodies can use. I have a genetic disorder. I need about 1.5 to 2x as much nutrients as normal people to not be malnourished. I eat smaller portions of meat than your standard American diet and some of my meals are meatless. My meat-and-potatoes relatives have accused me of being vegetarian because of it. I've improved my overall nutritional status while eating semi-vegetarian by American standards. Some B vitamins are a serious problem for some vegetarians. But you would really have to be doing something wrong to not be getting adequate protein eating vegetarian.
    - tomcam 8y ago
      Can someone explain the downvotes on this? There are no factual errors and the poster does not seem to be on the attack.
      - warent 8y ago
        Meta: I've noticed downvotes are starting to be handed out very liberally lately. Maybe it's time to bump the minimum "karma" score up again required to downvote, or perhaps adjusting the algorithm on how downvotes are scored.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    In a private Slack with a thousand or so industry people, I've seen "WeWork is a cult" mentioned more than once. That isn't particularly surprising to me. Not because of anything specific to WeWork, but just because of general tech industry dynamics. Job advertisements want people who are "passionate", who "believe", who want to "change the word". We have had decades of "holy wars" and quasi-religious behavior, starting with editor choice [1] and OS [2], going up to the present moment [3][4]. It's pretty common for exposes of tech companies to talk about cult-like behavior. E.g., Dan Lyons on Hubspot [5] or John Carreyou on Theranos [6]. I don't think all startups are this way, or even most of them. But the seeds of cult-ish behavior are clearly commonplace. E.g., charismatic leaders, a group dedicated to a non-mainstream vision, people spending a lot of intense time together, hazy boundaries, top-down power structures, and a lot of young, impressionable people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war [2] https://tidbits.com/1995/06/26/computings-holy-war/ https://tidbits.com/1995/06/26/computings-holy-war/ [3] https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17386068/brad-garlinghouse-ripple-bridget-van-kralingen-ibm-kathryn-haun-stanford-cryptocurrency-interview https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17386068/brad-garlinghouse-... [4] https://www.recode.net/2017/12/6/16680816/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-recode-100-electric-car-rocket-hyperloop-boring https://www.recode.net/2017/12/6/16680816/elon-musk-spacex-t... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bubble/dp/0316306096 https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bu... [6] https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-blood-fraud https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes...
    - umeshunni 8y ago
      We're talking about WeWork here, not a tech company.
      - kanelbullar 8y ago
        WeWork is, in no small part, a tech company.
        hobofan 8y ago
        In what non-small part? They have a barely functioning mobile app and portal, but that's about it. Even the IT (which I wouldn't even count towards them being a tech company) seemed ridiculously broken at the locations I've been staying in the past.
  - JCharante 8y ago
    > It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination. Okay, but this reads as non-sequiter because a lack of meat in a diet does not mean that the diet is one with low-protein consumption. Certainly if one is determined to be protein deficient then cutting out some food that is high in protein would be beneficial for their goal, but that's like saying if you don't use git you are managing a project wrong and aren't using version control. If you didn't want to use version control, then that would mean you wouldn't use git, but not using git doesn't mean you don't use VC.
- conradfr 8y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetarian.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetaria... Wow. I am speechless. I am without speech.
- danpalmer 8y ago
  This feels a bit naive. I understand wanting to use their position to change the world, but the right way to do this feels like the practices that Google did - small nudges to change behaviour, rather than commandments from the founders, which enforce a particular world view. There are health and religious reasons why one may want to eat meat, but also vegetarianism for environmental reasons is a fairly US/Euro-centric phenomenon, and doesn’t have anywhere near the same following in parts of Africa, Asia, and other places. Here’s a good thread on the topic: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1006363799975231489?s=20 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636379997523148...
- lquist 8y ago
  This may not be representative of the average WeWork employee? A 3.5 Glassdoor rating (https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WeWork-Reviews-E661275.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WeWork-Reviews-E661275.htm) is pretty low
- anonweworker 8y ago
  (regular HNer here, posting anonymously for obvious reasons). I work for WeWork, and you don't know the half of it. In mid-August WeWork had their "Summer Camp" event, which was a three day all-hands company meeting in England. About 5500 of 7000 WeWork employees were flown into Heathrow and shipped out to a campground in Tunbridge Wells. Everyone was required to sleep in a tent, generally with four or five other tent mates, on air mattresses on the ground with thin mattresses. Because of the vegetarianism thing, everyone was forced to eat WeWork-provided food, sans meat (though fish is okay!). This totally broke my ketogenic diet, which made me quite mad. See other comments about this being a form of group control. For the first day and a half, we were subjected to a number of corporate "talks" which largely revolved around the cult of personalities of Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. Adam Neumann particularly styles himself a televangelis or Jesus-wannabe and walks out into the audience, asking people about their deepest fears, delivering some ersatz corprorate sermon on the mount. There is no "me", only "we". See also the time when Rebecca Neumann commands the gathered WeWorkers to hold hands, close their eyes, and pray. Or the time that Deepak Chopra comes out and shows a disturbing video about childbirth (people were like, "is this an anti-abortion video?) and talks about how evolution and child development are intimately related, and how we should take our shoes off to let the ions flow, and leads a meditation session. A fish rots from the head down, and this is one crazy fish.
  - vorpalhex 8y ago
    That's outright cult behavior in a very disturbing sense. Often cults operate as a way to cover for some verboten behavior - usually perpetrated by the founders - and use the cohesive group identity to prevent people from leaking whatever inappropriate behavior is occurring.
  - ng12 8y ago
    > This totally broke my ketogenic diet Absolutely infuriating. As a diabetic a high-protein diet is just about the best thing for me. I'd quit on the spot.
    - anonweworker 8y ago
      Working on it ;)
- npollock 8y ago
  We're living in a world (at least in tech) where the boundaries between work/life are becoming increasingly blurred. Right or wrong, it seems like WeWork is a breed company that expects deep employee alignment on values that extend well outside of what's normally considered the sphere of work.
Rotdhizon 8y ago
Aren't most non-compete clauses just HR stunts? Every time I hear about some company trying to get employees to sign them, that's almost always followed up by a statement saying it would fall apart if it were taken to court. TIL: Non-compete clauses are the devil and actively screw people over.
- jedberg 8y ago
  It's not that they'd fall apart, it's the fact that you have to retain a lawyer to get a new job. Sure, you'll win eventually, but at what cost?
- ericand 8y ago
  Perhaps you are thinking of California? This is certainly true in California, but I've seen non-competes enforced in the tech sector elsewhere in the US (Seattle, Utah, etc).
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    California law goes as far as to state you can't have a non-compete agreement in the work contract at all. When I worked in Seattle, my contract had a non-compete that specifically said it didn't apply in California, and then the fucking staffing agency tried to tell me it wasn't a non-compete. I called Bullshit! It explicitly excludes your California office! Don't try to lie to me!
    - Latteland 8y ago
      I am in exactly this situation working in Seattle for a Cali company.
- x0x0 8y ago
  I lost a job due to one. This was in NY. I had signed the offer and the new company's counsel withdrew the offer because of my current employer.
  - 8y ago
sixtypoundhound 8y ago
Seriously? Non Competes for Janitors and Baristas? At what point do we call this what it is: bullying.
- jedberg 8y ago
  I'm betting the janitors don't actually work for them, but for a contractor.
  - sixtypoundhound 8y ago
    Warning. Valuable Trade Secrets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    While that would seem likely to me, too, that would make non-compete agreements from WeWork enforced against such contractors seem even more ridiculous. Of course, white collar contractors get stuck with such clauses frequently (which also seems bogus, particularly in "right to work" states).
    - jedberg 8y ago
      I think the non-compete only applies to employees. They have a large staff of full time people that do things like plan events, manage social media, real estate transactions, and so on.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  At what point do we call this what it is: labor abuse.
Latteland 8y ago
The article says the noncompetes will stay for 100 executive level employees. Executive level and they have 100 of them? My experience tells me they probably have the devs listed as fake executives like at a lot of companies so they don't have to pay them overtime. Is that what is really going on here? Noncompetes are terrible and places without them do very well, California being the best example. Everyone should work to get rid of them.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Devs as fake executives? I’ve never heard of that specifically. Devs are often FLSA exempt employees due to their professional status, but that’s usually accurate. The effect of being FLSA exempt is that they aren’t paid overtime, but that’s just the law operating as intended.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    I've personally known a couple of people that worked in NYC for big financial companies, and this was a known dodge. They even had a separate washroom and cafeteria for the real executives. I don't know the precise details, but I noticed that a software engineer colleague at a company had something on his resume about "vice president" on his resume at 'big finance co' and asked for the details.
    - pmiller2 8y ago
      Ok, I get it. Investment banks pretty much make almost everybody on salary (with some obvious exceptions, e.g. interns, administrative assistants, etc.) a “vice president.” It means nothing and is more out of tradition than anything. Those “VPs” are likely FLSA exempt regardless of title, based solely on what they do and the amount of professional judgment they get to exercise.
    - sethhochberg 8y ago
      I'm sure a lot of it is good old-fashioned title inflation, but at least in the financial world part of the reason for so many VPs is that its an easy title to give someone to make them a corporate officer, and thus eligible to sign on behalf of the company.
tchbos 8y ago
They should write about companies applying non-compete clauses to doctors. It's actually causing problems with public health. It requires doctors to relocate to another state entirely to practice especially if what they do is specialized.
jorblumesea 8y ago
We need a new labor movement. The control corporations have over the average worker is getting troublesome for society. Between non compete clauses, cartel-like salary caps and anti-union stances, no wonder real wages haven't risen in decades. While great for the capital classes, it is long term detrimental to the stability of society.
- knightofmars 8y ago
  I'm not sure whey you're getting down voted. Everything you said contributes to wage problems.
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    Many people have been convinced that the labour movement is evil. Including those that would benefit from being unionized. Actually, especially those who would benefit.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      You’ll always get a handful of downvotes here by mentioning anything positive about organized labor or use the U-word. It’s as reliable as the sun. Best not to sweat it.
      - gaius 8y ago
        It’s time based. If I say anything about it it will be upvoted in European hours and downvoted as soon as the West Coast comes online.
  - jorblumesea 8y ago
    There are some that visit HN that are highly paid and often of a different class in society. There's a remarkable lack of sympathy displayed by some small subset of HN readers towards those less fortunate. At least in American society, classism is a huge issue and prevents a lot of good being done in the world. > Poor? it's simple, just get an ivy league degree in engineering and get hired at [insert big tech company here]
djsumdog 8y ago
This is really good to hear. WeWork has multiple office spaces in my city and I was not aware their full time staff had to sign non-competes. This seems insane considering their entire business is to provide space for freelancers and startups. I've refused to sign non-competes myself, and have written about it previously[1]. In the past it really hasn't been a problem. People have typically changed their contracts when I bring it up. But in the past year, I had to walk away from two different jobs because of their refusal to remove non-compete language from their contracts. Are there any groups working on getting national/federal regulations changed to invalidate or ban non-compete agreements? I'd want to contribute to such causes. [1]: https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/
- ams6110 8y ago
  > Are there any groups working on getting national/federal regulations changed to invalidate or ban non-compete agreements? I don't know if there are, but the idea seems like a complete non-starter in the USA. I don't see any reason to forbid two willing parties from entering into an agreement that includes a non-compete provision. I can maybe see some rationale for restrictions in standard employment situations. But for contract work? If you don't like the terms, don't accept.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    The line should be drawn at non-negotiable “take it or leave it” clauses that benefit only one party. This is not an agreement made on equal footing, it’s an ultimatum.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "I don't see any reason to forbid two willing parties from entering into an agreement that includes a non-compete provision." Because they're inherently abusive, and there's absolutely nothing in it for the employee? I mean, when you have a sandwich shop pushing non-competes on their employees, then you know they are fucking nuts.
  - extrapickles 8y ago
sct202 8y ago
Non-competes should not be allowed unless the employer is willing the pay the former employee to enforce it.
- gaius 8y ago
  Right. I would happily sign a year’s non compete if the company was going to go on paying my full salary for the entire period.
- stordoff 8y ago
  This is referred to as gardening leave in the UK: > Garden leave describes the practice whereby an employee leaving a job – having resigned or otherwise had their employment terminated – is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll. [...] Employees continue to receive their normal pay during garden leave and must adhere to their conditions of employment, such as confidentiality, at least until their notice period expires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Non-competes offer no benefits whatsoever to employees, and should be banned outright. There is zero legitimate reason that an employer should have any say whatsoever on what someone does after that employer stops paying them.
- jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
  >should be banned outright almost but not quite. > there is zero legitimate reason that an employer should have any say whatsoever on what someone does after that employer stops paying them. Agreed. However, non-competes make prefect sense when a company is bought/sold. If I own a Marketing firm, and sell it to you, it would be perfectly reasonable, as part of that sale, for you to require me to sign a non-compete. Otherwise I could rent an office across town, call up all my old customers (the ones you just payed a lot of money to get) and convince them to switch to my new company and leave you high and dry.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    > However, non-competes make prefect sense when a company is bought/sold. If I own a Marketing firm, and sell it to you, it would be perfectly reasonable, as part of that sale, for you to require me to sign a non-compete. Otherwise I could rent an office across town, call up all my old customers (the ones you just payed a lot of money to get) and convince them to switch to my new company and leave you high and dry. Ironically, this happens fairly regularly. Companies will hire someone because of their "Rolodex", and the hope / belief / nudge wink that they will do exactly that, bring "their" customers to you.
  - Finnucane 8y ago
    But that's not a condition of employment, that's a deal you make as a business owner. As a condition of employment, it has no reason to exist other than as a tool for businesses to abuse workers.
    - jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
      100% agree that as a condition of employment it makes zero sense.
creativeembassy 8y ago
This is what I've heard (at least in Pennsylvania where I work, and from a number of family members and friends working in different HR departments.) IANAL. Non-competes are unenforceable because you cannot take away someone's right to work. I'm talking even about switching to your previous employer's competitor. Say you're a software engineer with a lot of domain knowledge on heavy construction. And that employer lets you go (for whatever reason). If there's one other heavy construction company within driving distance hiring software engineers, neither the state nor your previous employer can keep you from using your talents to make a living for yourself. The only exception is in NDA's. You can't take proprietary information with you, whether it's source code or sales leads.
- pnw_hazor 8y ago
  Different states have different laws. Generally, non-competes are enforceable as long as they have reasonable geographic limits and reasonable time limits. There is usually no "right to work" exceptions -- I have never heard of one anyway. And the definition of reasonable duration or reasonable geographic limits depends on the job and the industry.
expertentipp 8y ago
"right to work", "impossibility to renounce the right to work" should be written down somewhere in the basic rights or even in the constitutions. In the reality of visas, protectionism, various barriers, employability is one the highest values one can have to offer on the job market.
Nasrudith 8y ago
Noncompetes need to die in a fire. They are defacto parasitic to the economy. The government should be promoting competition not limiting it by wasting resources enforcing leonine contracts to actively make the economy worse.

177 points by chrisaycock 8y ago

So in the last little while, we've learned that WeWork has/had oppressive non-compete clauses, and will no longer allow anyone to expense anything involving the consumption of meat. This is odd to me, because the people I know who work for them love their job and employer, but it seems like they're moving down a dark path...

gaius 8y ago
love their job and employer It has all the trappings of a cult. It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination. http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html
- warent 8y ago
  Vegetarian/vegan does not mean undernourished.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    Not necessarily, but it can quite often be the case if the person in question isn't actively aware of the nutrients they are consuming.
    - warent 8y ago
      True, as is the case for any diet.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Well, sure, you can be vegetarian on a diet of pizza and icecream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients.
    - warent 8y ago
      You can be on a diet of pepperoni pizza and ice cream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients. I don't see your point. You can be on a diet of beef and pork, get plenty of protein, and still be undernourished.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  That's one detail that might be cult-like, but on the whole as long as their employment contract doesn't prescribe who employees are allowed to talk to I fail to see how it is cult-like on the whole.
  - gaius 8y ago
    That is kinda what an overarching noncompete is isn’t it? Cults always try to forbid former members spilling the beans.
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      In this case it's very specific to trade secrets. It's not really cult-like to ask people not to talk specifics about your manufacturing processes, suppliers, or customers. That's also not usually within the purview of a non-compete. Non-competes generally dictate whether you can start selling competing products with a competitor or develop the same kind of software for sale with a competitor. They generally don't prohibit finding jobs in unrelated industries. The morally reprehensible thing about a non-compete for a barista or janitor is that the knowledge of how to make coffee or clean is widely available and unless WeWork has some kind of proprietary technique for cleaning offices the non-compete is really a form of indentured servitude. And assuming there's no particular consideration given to what would happen to the janitor or barista should they lose their job and not be able to find similar work it's the kind of contract that should be illegal. It also makes me glad that I asked my employer to hold off on leasing an office for me from WeWork as I don't like doing business with companies that are that predatory. But there's nothing particularly cult-like about it.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  It can be challenging to get enough iron and B vitamins with a vegetarian diet. It's not that hard to get enough protein. Most Americans are consuming more protein than their bodies can use. I have a genetic disorder. I need about 1.5 to 2x as much nutrients as normal people to not be malnourished. I eat smaller portions of meat than your standard American diet and some of my meals are meatless. My meat-and-potatoes relatives have accused me of being vegetarian because of it. I've improved my overall nutritional status while eating semi-vegetarian by American standards. Some B vitamins are a serious problem for some vegetarians. But you would really have to be doing something wrong to not be getting adequate protein eating vegetarian.
  - tomcam 8y ago
    Can someone explain the downvotes on this? There are no factual errors and the poster does not seem to be on the attack.
    - warent 8y ago
      Meta: I've noticed downvotes are starting to be handed out very liberally lately. Maybe it's time to bump the minimum "karma" score up again required to downvote, or perhaps adjusting the algorithm on how downvotes are scored.
- wpietri 8y ago
  In a private Slack with a thousand or so industry people, I've seen "WeWork is a cult" mentioned more than once. That isn't particularly surprising to me. Not because of anything specific to WeWork, but just because of general tech industry dynamics. Job advertisements want people who are "passionate", who "believe", who want to "change the word". We have had decades of "holy wars" and quasi-religious behavior, starting with editor choice [1] and OS [2], going up to the present moment [3][4]. It's pretty common for exposes of tech companies to talk about cult-like behavior. E.g., Dan Lyons on Hubspot [5] or John Carreyou on Theranos [6]. I don't think all startups are this way, or even most of them. But the seeds of cult-ish behavior are clearly commonplace. E.g., charismatic leaders, a group dedicated to a non-mainstream vision, people spending a lot of intense time together, hazy boundaries, top-down power structures, and a lot of young, impressionable people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war [2] https://tidbits.com/1995/06/26/computings-holy-war/ https://tidbits.com/1995/06/26/computings-holy-war/ [3] https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17386068/brad-garlinghouse-ripple-bridget-van-kralingen-ibm-kathryn-haun-stanford-cryptocurrency-interview https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17386068/brad-garlinghouse-... [4] https://www.recode.net/2017/12/6/16680816/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-recode-100-electric-car-rocket-hyperloop-boring https://www.recode.net/2017/12/6/16680816/elon-musk-spacex-t... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bubble/dp/0316306096 https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bu... [6] https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-blood-fraud https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes...
  - umeshunni 8y ago
    We're talking about WeWork here, not a tech company.
    - kanelbullar 8y ago
      WeWork is, in no small part, a tech company.
      - hobofan 8y ago
        In what non-small part? They have a barely functioning mobile app and portal, but that's about it. Even the IT (which I wouldn't even count towards them being a tech company) seemed ridiculously broken at the locations I've been staying in the past.
- JCharante 8y ago
  > It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination. Okay, but this reads as non-sequiter because a lack of meat in a diet does not mean that the diet is one with low-protein consumption. Certainly if one is determined to be protein deficient then cutting out some food that is high in protein would be beneficial for their goal, but that's like saying if you don't use git you are managing a project wrong and aren't using version control. If you didn't want to use version control, then that would mean you wouldn't use git, but not using git doesn't mean you don't use VC.
conradfr 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetarian.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetaria... Wow. I am speechless. I am without speech.
danpalmer 8y ago
This feels a bit naive. I understand wanting to use their position to change the world, but the right way to do this feels like the practices that Google did - small nudges to change behaviour, rather than commandments from the founders, which enforce a particular world view. There are health and religious reasons why one may want to eat meat, but also vegetarianism for environmental reasons is a fairly US/Euro-centric phenomenon, and doesn’t have anywhere near the same following in parts of Africa, Asia, and other places. Here’s a good thread on the topic: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1006363799975231489?s=20 https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636379997523148...
lquist 8y ago
This may not be representative of the average WeWork employee? A 3.5 Glassdoor rating (https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WeWork-Reviews-E661275.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WeWork-Reviews-E661275.htm) is pretty low
anonweworker 8y ago
(regular HNer here, posting anonymously for obvious reasons). I work for WeWork, and you don't know the half of it. In mid-August WeWork had their "Summer Camp" event, which was a three day all-hands company meeting in England. About 5500 of 7000 WeWork employees were flown into Heathrow and shipped out to a campground in Tunbridge Wells. Everyone was required to sleep in a tent, generally with four or five other tent mates, on air mattresses on the ground with thin mattresses. Because of the vegetarianism thing, everyone was forced to eat WeWork-provided food, sans meat (though fish is okay!). This totally broke my ketogenic diet, which made me quite mad. See other comments about this being a form of group control. For the first day and a half, we were subjected to a number of corporate "talks" which largely revolved around the cult of personalities of Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. Adam Neumann particularly styles himself a televangelis or Jesus-wannabe and walks out into the audience, asking people about their deepest fears, delivering some ersatz corprorate sermon on the mount. There is no "me", only "we". See also the time when Rebecca Neumann commands the gathered WeWorkers to hold hands, close their eyes, and pray. Or the time that Deepak Chopra comes out and shows a disturbing video about childbirth (people were like, "is this an anti-abortion video?) and talks about how evolution and child development are intimately related, and how we should take our shoes off to let the ions flow, and leads a meditation session. A fish rots from the head down, and this is one crazy fish.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  That's outright cult behavior in a very disturbing sense. Often cults operate as a way to cover for some verboten behavior - usually perpetrated by the founders - and use the cohesive group identity to prevent people from leaking whatever inappropriate behavior is occurring.
- ng12 8y ago
  > This totally broke my ketogenic diet Absolutely infuriating. As a diabetic a high-protein diet is just about the best thing for me. I'd quit on the spot.
  - anonweworker 8y ago
    Working on it ;)
npollock 8y ago
We're living in a world (at least in tech) where the boundaries between work/life are becoming increasingly blurred. Right or wrong, it seems like WeWork is a breed company that expects deep employee alignment on values that extend well outside of what's normally considered the sphere of work.

Rotdhizon 8y ago

Aren't most non-compete clauses just HR stunts? Every time I hear about some company trying to get employees to sign them, that's almost always followed up by a statement saying it would fall apart if it were taken to court. TIL: Non-compete clauses are the devil and actively screw people over.

jedberg 8y ago
It's not that they'd fall apart, it's the fact that you have to retain a lawyer to get a new job. Sure, you'll win eventually, but at what cost?
ericand 8y ago
Perhaps you are thinking of California? This is certainly true in California, but I've seen non-competes enforced in the tech sector elsewhere in the US (Seattle, Utah, etc).
- djsumdog 8y ago
  California law goes as far as to state you can't have a non-compete agreement in the work contract at all. When I worked in Seattle, my contract had a non-compete that specifically said it didn't apply in California, and then the fucking staffing agency tried to tell me it wasn't a non-compete. I called Bullshit! It explicitly excludes your California office! Don't try to lie to me!
  - Latteland 8y ago
    I am in exactly this situation working in Seattle for a Cali company.
x0x0 8y ago
I lost a job due to one. This was in NY. I had signed the offer and the new company's counsel withdrew the offer because of my current employer.
- 8y ago

sixtypoundhound 8y ago

Seriously? Non Competes for Janitors and Baristas? At what point do we call this what it is: bullying.

jedberg 8y ago
I'm betting the janitors don't actually work for them, but for a contractor.
- sixtypoundhound 8y ago
  Warning. Valuable Trade Secrets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  While that would seem likely to me, too, that would make non-compete agreements from WeWork enforced against such contractors seem even more ridiculous. Of course, white collar contractors get stuck with such clauses frequently (which also seems bogus, particularly in "right to work" states).
  - jedberg 8y ago
    I think the non-compete only applies to employees. They have a large staff of full time people that do things like plan events, manage social media, real estate transactions, and so on.
da_chicken 8y ago
At what point do we call this what it is: labor abuse.

Latteland 8y ago

The article says the noncompetes will stay for 100 executive level employees. Executive level and they have 100 of them? My experience tells me they probably have the devs listed as fake executives like at a lot of companies so they don't have to pay them overtime. Is that what is really going on here? Noncompetes are terrible and places without them do very well, California being the best example. Everyone should work to get rid of them.

pmiller2 8y ago
Devs as fake executives? I’ve never heard of that specifically. Devs are often FLSA exempt employees due to their professional status, but that’s usually accurate. The effect of being FLSA exempt is that they aren’t paid overtime, but that’s just the law operating as intended.
- Latteland 8y ago
  I've personally known a couple of people that worked in NYC for big financial companies, and this was a known dodge. They even had a separate washroom and cafeteria for the real executives. I don't know the precise details, but I noticed that a software engineer colleague at a company had something on his resume about "vice president" on his resume at 'big finance co' and asked for the details.
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Ok, I get it. Investment banks pretty much make almost everybody on salary (with some obvious exceptions, e.g. interns, administrative assistants, etc.) a “vice president.” It means nothing and is more out of tradition than anything. Those “VPs” are likely FLSA exempt regardless of title, based solely on what they do and the amount of professional judgment they get to exercise.
  - sethhochberg 8y ago
    I'm sure a lot of it is good old-fashioned title inflation, but at least in the financial world part of the reason for so many VPs is that its an easy title to give someone to make them a corporate officer, and thus eligible to sign on behalf of the company.

tchbos 8y ago

They should write about companies applying non-compete clauses to doctors. It's actually causing problems with public health. It requires doctors to relocate to another state entirely to practice especially if what they do is specialized.

jorblumesea 8y ago

We need a new labor movement. The control corporations have over the average worker is getting troublesome for society. Between non compete clauses, cartel-like salary caps and anti-union stances, no wonder real wages haven't risen in decades. While great for the capital classes, it is long term detrimental to the stability of society.

knightofmars 8y ago
I'm not sure whey you're getting down voted. Everything you said contributes to wage problems.
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  Many people have been convinced that the labour movement is evil. Including those that would benefit from being unionized. Actually, especially those who would benefit.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    You’ll always get a handful of downvotes here by mentioning anything positive about organized labor or use the U-word. It’s as reliable as the sun. Best not to sweat it.
    - gaius 8y ago
      It’s time based. If I say anything about it it will be upvoted in European hours and downvoted as soon as the West Coast comes online.
- jorblumesea 8y ago
  There are some that visit HN that are highly paid and often of a different class in society. There's a remarkable lack of sympathy displayed by some small subset of HN readers towards those less fortunate. At least in American society, classism is a huge issue and prevents a lot of good being done in the world. > Poor? it's simple, just get an ivy league degree in engineering and get hired at [insert big tech company here]

djsumdog 8y ago

This is really good to hear. WeWork has multiple office spaces in my city and I was not aware their full time staff had to sign non-competes. This seems insane considering their entire business is to provide space for freelancers and startups. I've refused to sign non-competes myself, and have written about it previously[1]. In the past it really hasn't been a problem. People have typically changed their contracts when I bring it up. But in the past year, I had to walk away from two different jobs because of their refusal to remove non-compete language from their contracts. Are there any groups working on getting national/federal regulations changed to invalidate or ban non-compete agreements? I'd want to contribute to such causes. [1]: https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/

ams6110 8y ago
> Are there any groups working on getting national/federal regulations changed to invalidate or ban non-compete agreements? I don't know if there are, but the idea seems like a complete non-starter in the USA. I don't see any reason to forbid two willing parties from entering into an agreement that includes a non-compete provision. I can maybe see some rationale for restrictions in standard employment situations. But for contract work? If you don't like the terms, don't accept.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  The line should be drawn at non-negotiable “take it or leave it” clauses that benefit only one party. This is not an agreement made on equal footing, it’s an ultimatum.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "I don't see any reason to forbid two willing parties from entering into an agreement that includes a non-compete provision." Because they're inherently abusive, and there's absolutely nothing in it for the employee? I mean, when you have a sandwich shop pushing non-competes on their employees, then you know they are fucking nuts.
- extrapickles 8y ago

sct202 8y ago

Non-competes should not be allowed unless the employer is willing the pay the former employee to enforce it.

gaius 8y ago
Right. I would happily sign a year’s non compete if the company was going to go on paying my full salary for the entire period.
stordoff 8y ago
This is referred to as gardening leave in the UK: > Garden leave describes the practice whereby an employee leaving a job – having resigned or otherwise had their employment terminated – is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll. [...] Employees continue to receive their normal pay during garden leave and must adhere to their conditions of employment, such as confidentiality, at least until their notice period expires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave

s73v3r_ 8y ago

Non-competes offer no benefits whatsoever to employees, and should be banned outright. There is zero legitimate reason that an employer should have any say whatsoever on what someone does after that employer stops paying them.

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
>should be banned outright almost but not quite. > there is zero legitimate reason that an employer should have any say whatsoever on what someone does after that employer stops paying them. Agreed. However, non-competes make prefect sense when a company is bought/sold. If I own a Marketing firm, and sell it to you, it would be perfectly reasonable, as part of that sale, for you to require me to sign a non-compete. Otherwise I could rent an office across town, call up all my old customers (the ones you just payed a lot of money to get) and convince them to switch to my new company and leave you high and dry.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  > However, non-competes make prefect sense when a company is bought/sold. If I own a Marketing firm, and sell it to you, it would be perfectly reasonable, as part of that sale, for you to require me to sign a non-compete. Otherwise I could rent an office across town, call up all my old customers (the ones you just payed a lot of money to get) and convince them to switch to my new company and leave you high and dry. Ironically, this happens fairly regularly. Companies will hire someone because of their "Rolodex", and the hope / belief / nudge wink that they will do exactly that, bring "their" customers to you.
- Finnucane 8y ago
  But that's not a condition of employment, that's a deal you make as a business owner. As a condition of employment, it has no reason to exist other than as a tool for businesses to abuse workers.
  - jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
    100% agree that as a condition of employment it makes zero sense.

creativeembassy 8y ago

This is what I've heard (at least in Pennsylvania where I work, and from a number of family members and friends working in different HR departments.) IANAL. Non-competes are unenforceable because you cannot take away someone's right to work. I'm talking even about switching to your previous employer's competitor. Say you're a software engineer with a lot of domain knowledge on heavy construction. And that employer lets you go (for whatever reason). If there's one other heavy construction company within driving distance hiring software engineers, neither the state nor your previous employer can keep you from using your talents to make a living for yourself. The only exception is in NDA's. You can't take proprietary information with you, whether it's source code or sales leads.

pnw_hazor 8y ago
Different states have different laws. Generally, non-competes are enforceable as long as they have reasonable geographic limits and reasonable time limits. There is usually no "right to work" exceptions -- I have never heard of one anyway. And the definition of reasonable duration or reasonable geographic limits depends on the job and the industry.

expertentipp 8y ago

"right to work", "impossibility to renounce the right to work" should be written down somewhere in the basic rights or even in the constitutions. In the reality of visas, protectionism, various barriers, employability is one the highest values one can have to offer on the job market.

Nasrudith 8y ago

Noncompetes need to die in a fire. They are defacto parasitic to the economy. The government should be promoting competition not limiting it by wasting resources enforcing leonine contracts to actively make the economy worse.