3 ms·

> They would also give you a PC in agreement for continued employment for N years. Do you mean that in exchange for accepting a PC, he had to agree to a multip

by addaon 2mo ago

> They would also give you a PC in agreement for continued employment for N years. Do you mean that in exchange for accepting a PC, he had to agree to a multiple-year enforced contract? Is the right to leave a company even a right that one can sign away in the US? Would people really do that for a few thousand dollars? That seems shockingly close to indentured servitude... "we'll pay two months of your rent up front, but you can't quit for five years no matter what we do to you."

majormajor 2mo ago
Usually signing bonuses are "pay back all or a pro-rated percentage if you leave before [date]"
- addaon 2mo ago
  Sure, but that's just lending you a computer at that point, unless they expect you to cover the depreciation cost or something when returning it.
  - rcxdude 2mo ago
    I would guess you would owe some agreed value of the PC at the time you received it.
    - SoftTalker 2mo ago
      From what I've seen where I work the majority of "work" computers and laptops don't get returned if the employee separates for whatever reason. So I can see some companies wanting to make it a formal loan or have some means to recover the lost value if it isn't returned. My employer doesn't, because the residual value of a 2-3 year old laptop is not even worth anyone's time beyond making a few perfunctory requests to return it.
      - rcxdude 2mo ago
        Eh, the requirement to return your work-provided laptop is about as strong, legally speaking, as a requirement to pay back the value of it when you leave. Perhaps even stronger (because a work laptop is never really even a loan to you). I would suggest your workplace is a bit of an outlier: most places I'm aware of make pretty sure the laptop is returned, even if only because of the risk of company information leaking out otherwise (some places I know might let an employee keep an old laptop that's being replaced after they have wiped it, perhaps with all storage removed entirely).
        FireBeyond 2mo ago
        Yeah, I've generally had to return laptops, unless the company itself is closing down (startups) or such (which I've been "fortunate" on, I once got to keep a nice iMac 27" and 27" Apple display, and then an M3 Max 96GB MBP). But usually monitors, other accessories are "you can keep those".
  - esseph 2mo ago
    That's exactly how those things normally work. "Education incentives" at companies can be similar. For instance, maybe they pay for your trip to AWS Re:Invent and a couple of cert fees ($X,000.00) with the agreement you stay for a year or two. As long as you stay for the year or two, you don't own them any money. If you leave before then, they send you a prorated bill or take it out of your last paycheck. The idea is that companies don't want to train you on their dime for you to use that training to immediately take a new job somewhere else (or worse, a competitor).
to11mtm 2mo ago
There's actually a mortgage company that does worse; They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but; 1. It's actually a loan. 2. If you leave or are terminated at any point for the period, you have to pay back the ENTIRE loan amount. 3. Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. 4. If you don't take it, you don't get hired.
- Aurornis 2mo ago
  Why not name the company?
  - nilamo 2mo ago
    UWM, United Wholesale Mortgage. Their location near me (Detroit suburbs) has closed, but not after getting an awful reputation that's somehow worse than Quicken or Rocket Mortgage.
    - to11mtm 2mo ago
      Well, they still have their Pontiac HQ. I've never worked there, I've only had the pleasure of knowing some former employees that were way happier at RKT, and the observation that the most toxic manager I have ever worked under [0] apparently had a pretty good run there after he got booted from our org [1]. What was more striking was, I had a very short stint at an org that tried to 'Emulate' their management style and it was the fastest I ever left a job. [0] - The kind of guy who's previous wives both left him so hard they didn't even try for custody, so he was having a 'thing' with a different department's manager while her husband was dying of cancer. The creepiest moment was when she brought her kid to the office and the <10 year old kid was dressed up in the same outfit as this 40-50 something dude. [1] - He eventually got too bold and turned on his 'lieutenant' (who also for a time would dress just like him). Once that dev lead finished the HR 'Training' that they were subjected to, he stopped the behavior of preventing the dev groups from communicating with each other. That cross communication led to a bit of a quiet internal revolt across the whole Dev org.
  - 2mo ago
Aurornis 2mo ago
No, you can’t force people to continue working at your company by contract. These agreements work like signing bonuses. The compensation is given up front, but if you leave before N months then you need to return the compensation or some times a pro-rated version of it.
sgarland 2mo ago
No, as others explained, it was “you owe us $X if you quit before $DATE.” IIRC, they had a few models to choose from, with different amounts of time required. The Pentium III was, I think, a 3 year commitment; a Celeron was I think 2 years.

by addaon 2mo ago

majormajor 2mo ago

Usually signing bonuses are "pay back all or a pro-rated percentage if you leave before [date]"

addaon 2mo ago
Sure, but that's just lending you a computer at that point, unless they expect you to cover the depreciation cost or something when returning it.
- rcxdude 2mo ago
  I would guess you would owe some agreed value of the PC at the time you received it.
  - SoftTalker 2mo ago
    From what I've seen where I work the majority of "work" computers and laptops don't get returned if the employee separates for whatever reason. So I can see some companies wanting to make it a formal loan or have some means to recover the lost value if it isn't returned. My employer doesn't, because the residual value of a 2-3 year old laptop is not even worth anyone's time beyond making a few perfunctory requests to return it.
    - rcxdude 2mo ago
      Eh, the requirement to return your work-provided laptop is about as strong, legally speaking, as a requirement to pay back the value of it when you leave. Perhaps even stronger (because a work laptop is never really even a loan to you). I would suggest your workplace is a bit of an outlier: most places I'm aware of make pretty sure the laptop is returned, even if only because of the risk of company information leaking out otherwise (some places I know might let an employee keep an old laptop that's being replaced after they have wiped it, perhaps with all storage removed entirely).
      - FireBeyond 2mo ago
        Yeah, I've generally had to return laptops, unless the company itself is closing down (startups) or such (which I've been "fortunate" on, I once got to keep a nice iMac 27" and 27" Apple display, and then an M3 Max 96GB MBP). But usually monitors, other accessories are "you can keep those".
- esseph 2mo ago
  That's exactly how those things normally work. "Education incentives" at companies can be similar. For instance, maybe they pay for your trip to AWS Re:Invent and a couple of cert fees ($X,000.00) with the agreement you stay for a year or two. As long as you stay for the year or two, you don't own them any money. If you leave before then, they send you a prorated bill or take it out of your last paycheck. The idea is that companies don't want to train you on their dime for you to use that training to immediately take a new job somewhere else (or worse, a competitor).

to11mtm 2mo ago

There's actually a mortgage company that does worse; They call it the 'People Promise', and it sounds like a bonus, but; 1. It's actually a loan. 2. If you leave or are terminated at any point for the period, you have to pay back the ENTIRE loan amount. 3. Because it's a loan, if you -do- survive employment through the term, guess what, you now have to pay tax on the 'forgiven loan'. 4. If you don't take it, you don't get hired.

Aurornis 2mo ago
Why not name the company?
- nilamo 2mo ago
  UWM, United Wholesale Mortgage. Their location near me (Detroit suburbs) has closed, but not after getting an awful reputation that's somehow worse than Quicken or Rocket Mortgage.
  - to11mtm 2mo ago
    Well, they still have their Pontiac HQ. I've never worked there, I've only had the pleasure of knowing some former employees that were way happier at RKT, and the observation that the most toxic manager I have ever worked under [0] apparently had a pretty good run there after he got booted from our org [1]. What was more striking was, I had a very short stint at an org that tried to 'Emulate' their management style and it was the fastest I ever left a job. [0] - The kind of guy who's previous wives both left him so hard they didn't even try for custody, so he was having a 'thing' with a different department's manager while her husband was dying of cancer. The creepiest moment was when she brought her kid to the office and the <10 year old kid was dressed up in the same outfit as this 40-50 something dude. [1] - He eventually got too bold and turned on his 'lieutenant' (who also for a time would dress just like him). Once that dev lead finished the HR 'Training' that they were subjected to, he stopped the behavior of preventing the dev groups from communicating with each other. That cross communication led to a bit of a quiet internal revolt across the whole Dev org.
- 2mo ago

Aurornis 2mo ago

No, you can’t force people to continue working at your company by contract. These agreements work like signing bonuses. The compensation is given up front, but if you leave before N months then you need to return the compensation or some times a pro-rated version of it.

sgarland 2mo ago

No, as others explained, it was “you owe us $X if you quit before $DATE.” IIRC, they had a few models to choose from, with different amounts of time required. The Pentium III was, I think, a 3 year commitment; a Celeron was I think 2 years.