amerberg

Yeah, after I submitted my resignation, I was given the choice between legal action and a promotion. I'd been performing at a very high level, been recommended for that promotion by my boss months earlier, only to have kicked it down the road by upper management. After I gave notice they offered to give it to me immediately, with a raise that made them almost competitive with the new company.

The legal threats almost scared me into staying, but then I thought about how miserable I would be if I went back there. The postponement of the promotion had been the least of my complaints, nothing else would be getting better, and I'd only be inviting further bullying in the future.

So I left. I didn't get sued because the new company dropped the offer before I started. I was unemployed for a couple of months and also spent a significant sum on a lawyer. The whole thing was expensive and stressful bordering on traumatic. But I've never regretted turning down the counteroffer.

One came back to bite me: https://progressive.org/magazine/ties-that-bind/

They had a joke of a case. When they first threatened to sue after I'd given notice, the CEO told me he'd have to take legal action to set an example for the new company. Or as the head of HR put it "they can't take our best people." They made no mention of trade secrets or any other legitimate business interest that would have been required to enforce the agreement in court. Instead, the CEO said that they had a "basically an open and shut case" because I couldn't take my "work experience" to their "closest competitor," which is nonsense. Not to mention that people at both companies have told me the companies weren't even competitors.

But the new company withdrew the offer to avoid having to go to court, so the facts and the law didn't matter.

This is how non-competes work.

About a year ago, I lost a new job before starting because the new company didn't want to deal with legal threats from my former employer. They agreed with my lawyer that my former employer wouldn't have a strong case, but they expressed concern that it would look bad for them to be involved in litigation.

The CEO who had been threatening to sue me and the new company was removed in June, presumably for unrelated reasons. Last week, he announced that he was taking a job which _my_ noncompete certainly would have prohibited me from taking.

Now, I don't know if he had a noncompete with my former employer. Perhaps he was able to negotiate it away. Maybe he was granted permission. Maybe he'll get sued, but I think that's unlikely because they have to know the new company will have his back and that they don't stand a chance of winning.

Whatever the case, it shows who the system works for.

Yes, this is exactly how it works. Well, in my experience my CEO threatened me and the new company. I was actually given the choice between a lawsuit and a promotion (with a salary that was almost competitive with the new company) in the course of a single conversation. I chose to stand by my resignation because I'd been very unhappy there and it wasn't going to get any better if I showed them that I could be bullied into line.

I suppose I was lucky that the new company tried to negotiate a bit, but when my former employer refused to budge, they backed out. My lawyer had warned me that this could happen even before I accepted the job offer, right after he assured me that I would be on solid legal ground in taking the job. Admittedly, I didn't really think it would happen because why would they want to be known as the kind of company that does that? Even so, I've never regretted my decision to leave. As stressful as that was, staying would have been worse.