I had a noncompete. Didn’t really worry about it. In the state I lived, one had to receive financial consideration for signing one, and I certainly wasn’t receiving enough to be any kind of consideration. I was doing the .com thing before there really was a .com thing. I was the sole programmer (and support, and installer, and backup operator, and …), and my boss thought he knew everything. Except for how to program. And neither did he understand how the programs worked. They worked, and that was all he cared about.
When I gave my resignation, I was told that I was going to be sued. To my face. I laughed. I told him he had better talk to his lawyer first. He did, and then had me doing stupid stuff for the rest of the time I had to be there.
Then, after a year, he wants me to do this, and that, and the other thing. I told him my hourly rate, which, considering, was too low, it should have been higher. He complained that if I wasn’t charging so much, he could really keep my busy. I didn’t say anything, but my thought was “I’m really busy enough as it is, and you’re complaining that I’m making what little money I’m making from your BS?” Then Y2K hit, and he was complaining that the software wasn’t working. The system did zero data arithmetic. Yeah, the year was a two digit field, but no reports were actually generated that compared year to year. He would have had to run the system to 2080s before there would have been a problem.
And as far as I’m concerned, I think people should get half their salary anytime they quit a job with a noncompete, even if the new job pays more than the old. If you’re that serious about it…
