5 ms·
As many others have mentioned, there is an exception in California for things done using no company time and resources, and unrelated to your work or the compan
by jeremysalwen 8y ago
As many others have mentioned, there is an exception in California for things done using no company time and resources, and unrelated to your work or the company's area of business or "future anticipated research". This exception required by California law is often copied verbatim into employment agreements, even if you are working outside of california. However, the last clause of this term essentially de-fangs the term entirely if you work at any medium sized company.
I have worked at two FANG companies, and in both cases I crossed off this clause from the contract and initialed the line before I signed it. I told them that I couldn't sign that line and what I did, and in both cases, they said they would "get back to me" with what legal said. In both cases it never came up again, and I started working having signed only the modified contract.
I think that's a fair comprise of who owns what, and I would suggest anyone else to do the same thing I did.
- zachr 8y agoHas an employment lawyer vetted this approach? I suspect that's not really effective...
- benj111 8y agoWhat, signing a modified contract? Both parties are free to negotiate.
- kerng 8y agoOne of my employers even had a process in place where you submit things you do off work or plan todo and you can officially get these approved before signing, like running a side business, etc. Its a contract, so its negotiable. HR likes to create the impression it's a static document, but it's not. Future employees have a lot of underleveraged negotiation powers, especially at large companies I think.
- gizmo686 8y agoWhat approach? Negotiating a contract before signing it. The only potential problem I see is that is that he didn't say that he had a representative from the company also initial the modification, and doesn't necessarily have a paper trail documenting that he informed them of the modification.
- jeremysalwen 8y agoI do have an email trail in one case, but the other case was only over the phone.