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Comment by nathanb | Hacker News Reader

What offends me personally is the offering of money in exchange for signing the agreement.

If I had a choice to sign the agreement or not, of my own free will and with no incentive, I may actually do so. Like you, I have no particular desire to speak ill of anyone, deservedly or not. Time spent disparaging a former employer is time which could have been better spent moving forward.

But when you offer me an incentive for signing the contract? It makes me wonder why these rights I'm giving up are worth so much to the company. And feeling like I'm being bribed or pressured to do something is one of the best ways to manipulate me into not doing it, just because I'm so stubborn :)

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Contract law requires there to be "consideration" (usually money) given when asking you to give something up, otherwise the contract can be found invalid. Please stop taking business matters so personally, they aren't trying to offend you.

If you're asked to sign one when you're hired, the consideration is the job itself.

If you're asked to sign one when you leave, depending on your contract, any severance package might be considered consideration.

Think of it as the opening of a negotiation. They want you to do or not do something, now what do you want in return? You get bribed for working, after all.

You're looking at it the wrong way. There are two ways the company can approach it. The first: we need to let this person go, but we don't want to fuck up his career and personal life and we don't want him fucking up ours, so we'll give enough severance to cover the gap and a positive reference. And no lawyer will let the company offer severance without nonlitigation and nondisparagement. The second: fuck this guy, toss him overboard. Usually, when a good company does a layoff, it's the first. That's why they offer the severance. In part, it's to keep you from saying bad things about them. But it's also, at good companies, because they know it pays off in the long-term to have the people they laid off still feel some good will toward them. Careers are long.

Sure. And I feel more goodwill when the company doesn't try to bribe me in to not talking bad about them. As it says in the article, any company that can't survive some disparagement is maybe a company too fragile to survive anyway.

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