You sign it on your first day. Page nine of fourteen. You’re excited. New job. New start. You’re not reading page nine.
Page nine says you can’t work in your industry within fifty miles for twelve months after you leave.
Which means: if they fire you, you can’t work. Not “you can’t work for a competitor.” You can’t work at what you do. The thing you spent a decade getting good at — you agreed to not do it for a year because you were excited on your first day and the paperwork was thick.
Non-competes aren’t about protecting trade secrets. They’re about making it expensive to leave. If you can’t go to a competitor, you can’t use a competing offer to negotiate. If you can’t negotiate, you take what they give you. If you take what they give you, they set the price.
It’s a leash that looks like a form.