It depends on the state. When I was working as a ‘scraper’ for a not-very-competent but very egotistical web designer, I was forced to sign a cut & Paste mish-mashed non-compete agreement. After reading through it, I signed it BECAUSE I knew it would be unenforceable. Parts of the cut & paste disagreed with other parts, it only restricted me if I worked for the EXACT same type of business (there were only two in my whole state), and most of all, they’re illegal under my state’s constitution. My state is a ‘Right-to-Work’ state, which means the non-compete agreements are unenforceable because you have the Right to Work, and a non-compete interferes with your Right to Work. The boss was from NY, and still hasn’t figured out that the rest of the world is not New York.
Years later, I had a temp job at a dying company that had made all of their (permanent) employees sign Non-Competes. Same thing: The parent company was in a another state, and the HR department just assumed Colorado had the same labor laws.
