I can choose high speed access between the phone company (DSL) and the cable company (cable modem), both private. My best experiance was with DirectTV-DSL (over phone lines), unfortunately they had a good product and went under.:-(
With the cable company I have twice (in two different houses, other the past 2 years) had them deny I had cable running to the house, when I could go outside and find it coming into the house.
The phone company service is horrible. I have to reset the dsl modem box daily because its DNS service locks up. When I call to complain all the support rep. knows how to do is say unplug everything and plug it back in. Well yea, but for $50/month (thats $600 a year people, more than I spend on the computers attached to the network), I should not have to reboot an "appliance" once a day.
I'll give a government compeditor a chance..... Its not un-American to want something that WORKS!
Having previously worked as executive managment at a small start up I have talked with enough lawers in this area to understand two things. (You should consult your own lawyer before acting, as I'm not one and only want to make you aware of what you should ask an actual lawyer! I also don't know if this varies by state.)
The company pretty much has to either get you to sign this BEFORE you start work; or give you aditional compensation for signing away more rights. So normally these things will come before a raise, bonus, or stock options. The reason for this is that the contract is much less likely to stand up in court if they don't.
So if you are being asked to sign without being offered a carrot, you have a few options:
1. Don't sign and see what happens.
2. Ask for the carrot.
3. Sign it and ignore it. When they try to enforce it get a lawyer to argue that you signed under fear of losing your job, and did not sign of your own free will. According to lawyers I have talked to the judge's seem to take this as "they put a gun to my head and said sign it" and hence through the contract out of court, basiclly making it "null and void." (What ever that means....)
At my current company (a fortune 500 where I'm low on the totem pole) I was asked to agree to an ethics policy (via e-mail) that boiled down to "don't do anything you wouldn't want to see in the headlines of your hometown paper." Thats pretty easy to live with, so I agreed no problem.
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Isn't this why the coffee costs $3 to $5 a cup? TO make up for the books/mags you read while in the store. I always do this at Borders.
I can choose high speed access between the phone company (DSL) and the cable company (cable modem), both private. My best experiance was with DirectTV-DSL (over phone lines), unfortunately they had a good product and went under. :-(
With the cable company I have twice (in two different houses, other the past 2 years) had them deny I had cable running to the house, when I could go outside and find it coming into the house.
The phone company service is horrible. I have to reset the dsl modem box daily because its DNS service locks up. When I call to complain all the support rep. knows how to do is say unplug everything and plug it back in. Well yea, but for $50/month (thats $600 a year people, more than I spend on the computers attached to the network), I should not have to reboot an "appliance" once a day.
I'll give a government compeditor a chance.....
Its not un-American to want something that WORKS!
Having previously worked as executive managment at a small start up I have talked with enough lawers in this area to understand two things. (You should consult your own lawyer before acting, as I'm not one and only want to make you aware of what you should ask an actual lawyer! I also don't know if this varies by state.)
The company pretty much has to either get you to sign this BEFORE you start work; or give you aditional compensation for signing away more rights. So normally these things will come before a raise, bonus, or stock options. The reason for this is that the contract is much less likely to stand up in court if they don't.
So if you are being asked to sign without being offered a carrot, you have a few options:
1. Don't sign and see what happens.
2. Ask for the carrot.
3. Sign it and ignore it. When they try to enforce it get a lawyer to argue that you signed under fear of losing your job, and did not sign of your own free will. According to lawyers I have talked to the judge's seem to take this as "they put a gun to my head and said sign it" and hence through the contract out of court, basiclly making it "null and void." (What ever that means....)
At my current company (a fortune 500 where I'm low on the totem pole) I was asked to agree to an ethics policy (via e-mail) that boiled down to "don't do anything you wouldn't want to see in the headlines of your hometown paper." Thats pretty easy to live with, so I agreed no problem.
A real lawyer want to way in?