4 ms·

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

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.

patio11 15y 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 15y ago
Thanks, very useful. Looks like this is a basic requirement of common law contracts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration 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)
- praptak 15y ago
  Hey, let us know how it went, especially if they make any idiotic claims in order to persuade you to sign.
middus 15y 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?"

patio11 15y 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 15y ago

Thanks, very useful. Looks like this is a basic requirement of common law contracts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration 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)

praptak 15y ago
Hey, let us know how it went, especially if they make any idiotic claims in order to persuade you to sign.

middus 15y 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?"