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You broke your word to the employee. You promised him you would fax him the contract with your signature. You've known for one or two years that this day woul

You broke your word to the employee. You promised him you would fax him the contract with your signature. You've known for one or two years that this day would come and that the required notification was 90 days. You decided to stay with the company for well over 90 days, so with a little bit of advance planning you could have met their draconian requirements. Now because of a technicality - you neglected to fax them and they forgot to collect your signature - you might be legally able to get out of it. Yes, you'd save $92, but in terms of your own life, getting out of it is worse for you than it is for them. If you go around the world not trusting and manipulating people, you experience the world as an untrustworthy and manipulative place. You will never be close friends with somebody that you cannot manipulate, and you'll never be close friends with somebody that you can really truly trust. These things might not matter to you until you're in a really bad situation, but by then it will be too late. Look, I've done lots of things like this. I've put people into jams that they simply couldn't get out of with no visible harm done to me in the eyes of anybody else. Being manipulative gives you power and control and money, but not being manipulative gives you personal integrity. At this point in my life I would easily pay $92 for my personal integrity. The right thing to do in this situation if you really felt like 90 days was walking all over you would be to take back the contract the very next day and either agree on 30 days or get your money back, possibly with a chargeback from your credit card. The second best right thing would be to give them 90 days notice. The third best right thing would be to go and talk to them right away. When I say "right thing" I mean "thing that is not somehow taking advantage of the situation". It's not about the money, it's not about the other party's behavior, it's about the kind of person you want to be.

imgabe 13y ago
You're creating a false choice. You can have trusting relationships with family and friends and still be shrewd when it comes to business. By all means trust your loved ones. When it comes to business arrangements, stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties. If this were a situation based on personal trust, they wouldn't have you signing a contract in the first place.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Perhaps, but it would also be hypocritical, and hypocrisy is the opposite of integrity. A lack of integrity by definition affects all areas of one's life. What happens when down the road you get involved in a business deal with a friend or family member? But, go ahead and substitute "close business partners" for "close friends" in my comment if you insist that the personal and professional spheres of one's life are completely separable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity Also, the premise of "stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties", while valuable in conflict situations where you've entered into a contract in good faith, is manipulative letter-of-the-law legal wrangling when the usual negotiation process has been abused to get out of signing something and the other party isn't even aware that you have different beliefs about the terms you've agreed upon.

imgabe 13y ago

You're creating a false choice. You can have trusting relationships with family and friends and still be shrewd when it comes to business. By all means trust your loved ones. When it comes to business arrangements, stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties. If this were a situation based on personal trust, they wouldn't have you signing a contract in the first place.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Perhaps, but it would also be hypocritical, and hypocrisy is the opposite of integrity. A lack of integrity by definition affects all areas of one's life. What happens when down the road you get involved in a business deal with a friend or family member? But, go ahead and substitute "close business partners" for "close friends" in my comment if you insist that the personal and professional spheres of one's life are completely separable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity Also, the premise of "stick with exactly what was written down on paper and agreed to by both parties", while valuable in conflict situations where you've entered into a contract in good faith, is manipulative letter-of-the-law legal wrangling when the usual negotiation process has been abused to get out of signing something and the other party isn't even aware that you have different beliefs about the terms you've agreed upon.