At the last few places I've worked I've found that all I had to do was smile as they handed me the non-compete and tell them that I would take it home, read it and return it signed. Then I'd take it home and trash it. The next time someone asks about it (usually every few months) I say "I'm sorry, I think I lost it, could you email it to me again?" and start the process over. I honestly hate to be that passive aggressive about it but I'm not 'rockstar' enough to just say no and expect to keep my job, and I also don't want to limit my future options.

This advice works in a surprisingly wide variety of situations. It's good to stick to principles and say "hell no!", but sometimes it's not worth a fight. It doesn't work with taxes, but certain problems just go away if you ignore it.

In situations like this, I put it on my long-term to-do list to get it off my mind. In a remarkable number of cases, I get to cross it off my list months later without having had any arguments.

That might not hold up in court. By showing up to work (and getting paid in return), there's an implicit contract.

I don't know enough about law (and neither do I know your jurisdiction), to say whether that implicit contract would include the non-compete they obviously wanted you to sign.

I'm sure you're right, but I think it would also be difficult for them to enforce if they couldn't produce a signed contract. If I were planning on, say, using trade secrets from my current employer to start a direct competitor stealing their biggest customers, then yeah I'm sure it wouldn't hold up in court - but I'm not going to do that. It's more a way for me to be able to honestly tell my next employer - who might be in the same ballpark industry, but probably not a direct competitor of my current employer - 'no, I did not sign a non-compete contract with them.'

That's really good advice! I'm going to use this one for sure.

> you can simply NOT tell your old employer that you got a new job.

You also have to avoid:

1) Telling your old co-workers

2) Mentioning or updating anything on social media. Even if you're not "friends" with old co-workers on e.g. Facebook, that information could still be leaked.

3) Giving any sort of talk where your employment might be leaked

4) Being at an industry event where your employment might be leaked

5) Being named on the company site, and thus your name showing up on a simple google search.

If your old employer is vindictive (which could be one reason you left), there are lots and lots of ways for them to find out where their former employee went to.

Being subtle will probably only keep your employment status hidden with the sorts of employers who aren't really making broad non-compete clauses to begin with (i.e. employers who don't care).

Whenever anyone at all asks you where you work, you just be evasive.

It doesn't matter about any of those, if just as a policy, whenever anyone at all asks where you work, you don't tell them.

Or you just talk in broad strokes/industry without specifically mentioning the name, and if your old employer "finds out" that you have another job, they still can't do anything because they don't know the specific employer.

> Whenever anyone at all asks you where you work, you just be evasive.

That's a pretty mentally taxing adjustment for most people to make.

It's also incredibly awkward when engaging in small talk with new people. Being evasive about answering where you work will lead to many presumptions (e.g. that you work for a 3 letter agency), few of which are very conducive to continuing a conversation.

Similarly I could just lie about where I work, but I think you can probably see how that's similarly taxing to do continuously.

Are you trolling? How is "never telling anyone where you work out of fear of a lawsuit" the smart way to do anything?

"Where do you work?"

"I'm a web developer, I work at a small startup! I do X, Y, and Z"

Not that hard... especially since no one has ever heard of whatever small company you work at anyway.... It's really not weird.

The strongest enforcement might actually come from the new employer. The new employer will ask the job candidate what documents he's signed or restrictions he's under. If the candidate admits he's subject to a non-compete, he won't get hired.

Your discretion and/or fearlessness of lawsuits won't matter. The new employer isn't willing to risk it.

Don't ever show up to the same meetups? Don't ever post anything on eg your blog?

Seriously, this thread is full of crazy people.