Hi all,

Within the last few weeks my neck spasms have gotten significantly worse such that I cut back from a four hour workday to one hour. And then a week or two after that I heard from one of my co-workers (not management!) that the company I work for was bought out by another company. I had a phone interview with the new company president on a Mon, which I thought went pretty well even after telling him I was 20 hours a week and on disability and only recently switched to a five hour week. The following Fri of that same week the new president said he would not be offering me a job at the new company. Six of us (three programmers, two admin staff, one project manager), including me, were laid off. We got the no-hire decision that Fri and within about two hours our (six) phones were disconnected and our logins were disabled (no more access to company servers, including no more email). We didn't even get to finish our work day they moved so swiftly. We barely had time to let the rest of our co-workers know and to wish them well. No severance pay. There didn't even seem to be a plan for final checks for accrued vacation until a couple of us spoke up.

Chuck, I'm curious how it has been for the companies you worked for when it came to agreements not to compete. I signed one when I started with this company about five years ago. It basically says that if I go to work for a client within a year of not working for the company that the client must pay my employer half of my yearly salary. Do employees get released from this when the company technically doesn't exist anymore? The six of us were laid off the day before the new company officially took over. I've already been offered a part time job by one of the clients but I told them about the agreement not to compete. My former employer, in prior years, has made two or three exceptions to this and employees were able to work for clients without paying 50% of their annual salary. Is there a "norm" for this kind of policy?

-Todd