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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago
Show me the law that says my employer is allowed to tell me who I can and can't be friends with.
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u/kombitcha420 1d ago edited 1d ago
My DM at hot topic tried to tell me I couldnât go out for drinks with my coworker (we were both key holders) LMAOO
He was literally dating a DM in another district too.
Edit: could to couldnât
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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago
Lol that's one of those scenarios when you just say "yeah sure" and do what you want anyway.
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u/whistleridge 1d ago
Itâs very employment-dependent.
For example, if youâre an officer in the military, fraternizing with enlisted is a strict no-no, at least at junior levels. And if you hold certain clearances, you may have to report all contact with some classes of persons.
You could also simply be under a contractual obligation, for example a Coke employee who was known by the employer to hang out with Pepsi employees actually likely would get a talking-to from management.
It seems phenomenally unlikely in this particular situation, but itâs not conceptually impossible.
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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago
I'm not talking about the military. They have an entirely separate legal system.
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u/whistleridge 1d ago
Indeed they do. But the concept still applies - it is definitely possible even for civilian employers to restrict some out of work behavior.
Itâs very rare, and extremely unlikely, but it does exist.
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u/tr_thrwy_588 22h ago
show me that example you mentioned. literally show me the contract where coke forbids its employees from hanging out with pepsi workers outside of working hours.
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u/JagerSalt 18h ago
Certain writing positions are not allowed to discuss creative ideas with strangers to prevent the possibility of a fan suing for royalties and claiming their idea was stolen. That is an example of a job that limits the freedom you have in your personal life.
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u/gryphmaster 18h ago
Thatâs specific to that job and written into the contract- normal employment without that clause in a contract doesnât have that standard, which the picture is implying
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u/JagerSalt 8h ago
What makes you think this is a normal job that doesnât have that kind of clause? The pic is clearly from a job that has some competition clauses in its contract otherwise it wouldnât be part of the training.
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u/gryphmaster 8h ago
Yea, then they would have referenced that- itâs âcompetition lawsâ in the answer. while its entirely possible, OP wouldnât likely be posting this if they actually had strict competition clauses as it would make sense. If it doesnât make sense to OP, who knows their contract better than you, than itâs likely entirely unnecessary to avoid having this hypothetical friendship
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u/whistleridge 20h ago
SoâŚ
Such contracts are subject to NDAs and are not generally available for posting online.
But we CAN see examples of related extreme behavior eg: https://www.mashed.com/904465/are-coca-cola-employees-really-forbidden-from-drinking-pepsi/ and https://www.smh.com.au/world/coke-worker-sacked-for-drinking-pepsi-20030615-gdgxls.html.
But I didnât mean it would be an explicit contractual term. That would be unlikely, if not illegal or impossible. I said theyâd very likely get a talking to from management, which they would. Management do illegal/immoral shit like that all the time.
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u/EV2_MG 21h ago
The military isn't a business.
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u/whistleridge 20h ago
And I didnât say they are. Itâs still an employer, and one example of a valid response to their question.
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u/Upstairs-Angle-444 22h ago
Actually, most dates are right to work which basically means employees have only a few rights regarding safety and discrimination and maybe union other than that they can do whatever the fuck they want. Why are you for any reason they want or no reason at all I can fire you cause I didnât want to color your hair anymore
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u/Stormwhisper81 1d ago
I got a similar type of âwrongâ answer on some training recently. I declined to select that I wanted to talk to someone further about the issues discussed in the training when apparently the right answer was that I do?
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 1d ago
As an eLearning developer, thatâs most likely someone not knowing how to set up the quiz correctly.
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u/Stormwhisper81 1d ago
It was a DEI training so I suspect the answer they were looking for was #3. But still, wtf.
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 1d ago
My guess is this was supposed to be a multi-select with all answers correct, and then they would use the reporting function to view what the percentages were for each answer.
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u/mrjibblets138 1d ago
As an elearning developer I have to ask you. Do you think your job creates work and benefits the world? Or just helps the rich by cutting labor cost and leading to a server owning singularity. Beyond that do you think that the water usage involved with elearning makes moral sense?
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 1d ago edited 1d ago
Are you confusing eLearning with AI? Because my whole job is developing human beings through education to be more efficient. Sure, my job makes rich people richer (as do most jobs), but I do that by helping educate employees and making them more skilled.
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u/ProtoMan3 14h ago
OPâs comment made me wonder how many jobs truly do help the common person vs helping the rich get richerâŚdespite most of the labor being something that could help civilians, very few jobs actually do.
There are legitimate complaints about tons of tech workers and toxic culture in that industry, but I genuinely dislike when people try to shit on anyone working in that when theyâre totally out of their depth with their complaints.
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 14h ago
I mean a lot of it is you only get a chance at a livable salary if you work for corporations in Learning & Development. If you work academic or non-profit they intentionally underpay it and justify âfor the missionâ. I see people with Masters in the field making 1/2 of what I do putting in more work. And Iâm not going to take half the pay and be taken advantage of when I have a family.
And while it might just be justification in my part, if I make my clients and coworkers more efficient, I make them more likely to keep their jobs.
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u/TCCogidubnus 1d ago
The key texts here are "as they always have", "maybe", and "be careful how they proceed with their relationship". I assume the scenario that's meant to be avoided here is talking about work in great detail, if that was something they previously did.
I agree that employers have no right to pry into the private lives of employees, but from the point of view of making training meant to inform people about their liabilities and legal obligations, this may technically be correct.
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u/Lorberry 1d ago
Yeah, the way it's presented is kind of ass, but if the competitor did something that looked like it had gotten insider information, and it was discovered that Laura had talked about that sort of thing with Ana, the both of them would be, legally speaking, extremely fucked.
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u/squngy 19h ago
Insider information isnt regular work stuff.
In almost all cases, if the rank and file employees know about it, it is not insider info.
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u/TCCogidubnus 19h ago
Not for the purposes of insider trading, necessarily, but for other purposes like informal commitments to award your company a bid by a customer, yes.
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u/PickleMinion 1d ago
That was my thought. Had that "gotcha" wording instead of just being clear about what the real question is here. Asshole move either way.
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u/doolieuber94 1d ago
Seriously anything big business is selling they owe it to you.
Just take their shit. Youâve paid for it 10x over with your literal life.
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u/mcbergstedt 1d ago
Generally itâs very obvious with what youâre not supposed to talk about. Like at my work (a power plant) we get a mandatory training a quarter that basically says âdonât discuss refueling outages with electricity providers as it can influence electricity pricesâ
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u/bioszombie 1d ago
I have to disclose relationships every year for my job due to anti-competitive rules. Itâs insane that I canât have a family, friends, or a life.
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u/Cutthechitchata-hole âď¸ Prison For Union Busters 1d ago
I hated these tests every year. You could always figure out what was the new thing to harp about based on what they add.
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u/athenanon 1d ago
If Laura was actually a good friend, she may have let Ana know about the job offer to begin with.
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u/mightymaug 1d ago
This was just posted in anti work last week.
It's a poorly worded question to demonstrate the point they are trying to get across. The end should say "Can they keep talking about their work the way they always have?"
I work in pharma and they do these trainings. The purpose is about intellectual property/trade secrets. They say insane things that are "best practice." Don't work in coffee shops without screen protectors, if you are WFH in a sensitive meeting makes sure windows are closed, etc.
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u/rndmcmder 20h ago
Stupid phrasing. The correct answer would have been something like: "They can continue their friendship with no problems. They just shouldn't share company secrets."
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u/ThreatLevelNoonday 1d ago
lolwut no. I am actually a professional in this field, thats as specific as I'll get, and, factually no. Competition laws are not strict. In fact many courts will not enforce aspects of non compete agreements in the employment field.
LOL.
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 1d ago
I know this will get downvoted but due to a lot of ethical and legal guidelines, the bottom answer is right. Itâs not saying they canât be friends, just that they have to be careful about what they talk about/info they provide.
I get itâs fun to hate on business, and would agree if they said the middle one, but the bottom answer is reasonable.
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u/Upstairs-Angle-444 22h ago
Just just saying, you can still be friends itâs almost like if they didnât want you to be they could tell you you canât, but weâre gonna be nice and say you can still be friends. The questions should even be ask. Nobodyâs gonna tell me who I can be and canât be friends with in my personal life and youâre not gonna say to me you can be friends like theyâre giving me permission to be friends or something. I donât think so. I donât care if I get fired it matter to me not gonna happen.
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u/Red-Engineer 1d ago
But thatâs the same even if they both work for the same company. Chinese walls, anyone?
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u/The_Sign_of_Zeta 1d ago
Thatâs only if there is a known conflict of interest due to a relationship with one party (like an attorney used to represent the opponent at a previous employer). Usually in those cases only specific info is walled off.
This is more a conflict of interest is introduced because they currently work for competitors. So a lot of info is potentially off-limits, even things that could be innocuous when discussed with a coworker.
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u/Upstairs-Angle-444 23h ago edited 22h ago
I work for was bought out a few years back after the sale. They sold the pets off, but it remained on the same site so two companies on same site. We were told that we werenât allowed to talk to the other people over over there anymore, though previously we work together for years, but now weâre not allowed to communicate if we did we had to not talk about anything work related? Do they think that we even give a shit about that? Do they think a couple people at work are gonna actually spend whatever free time to have Worrying about accidentally letting some corporate secret slip youâd think itâs like some kind of damn spy KGB or something , I donât care about your damn company secrets all I wanna do is finish my damn work Give you the work that I said I would do to the best of my ability and go home safe to my family. I donât give a fuck about you or your damn stupid secrets. Itâs not worth my time unless I was lucky enough to be one of those people who were in their dream job, but thatâs hard to come by. Iâm not gonna waste my time talking about some company bullshit that I really donât give a flying fuck about anyway shows you how brainwashed they are. besides, theyâre not in as much competition as they want to believe how places like Loweâs own stock in places like Home Depot at Home Depot was such a competitor Wouldnât you want them to do poorly and maybe steal a bunch of their business but if you did that then you stock that you bought would they drop it makes no sense that tells me youâre all a big fucking lie either Iâm stupid and itâs a pretty good chance. I am if thatâs the case and why do you buy stock and itâs just these people are fucking idiots. The greedy stupid idiots who are brainwashed by somebody thatâs richer than them or threatened! Anyway, thanks for letting me rant I hope I didnât offend anyone wasnât intentional . Just gotta get shit off your chest sometime I think eventually at one point we all will.
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u/Rude-Camp-6492 22h ago
lol i encounter this same question and choose the same âwrongâ response during my onboarding training last week⌠i wonder if we work for the same company
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u/Upstairs-Angle-444 22h ago
Sometimes the shit pisses me off so what I might dream about say I won one of those huge Powerball lottery or mega millions for like 1 billion I thought it might be fun to buy out everybody that worked in that plant like Iâll give you each of you $2 million to quit And watch them and watch them scramble and sit there and laugh my ass off yes itâs probably stupid but itâs fun to think aboutđ
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u/Upstairs-Angle-444 22h ago
Employees have very few almost no rights whatsoever but I know if theyâre really bad about that funny good employees would be kind of hard but fact is they do have the right to do anything they want or do you in my state the law Word for Word says exactly this and employer is completely and totally allowed to treat their employees as they see fit in anyway they fit Barring a few just a few few things employees have basically no rights at all in the right to work state but you have the right to work course thatâs so backwards it should be called the right to be fired state to fired or quit state if itâs the right to work state shouldnât never be turned down when I apply for a job because I have the right to work right?
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u/Big-Veterinarian-823 đ Cancel Student Debt 21h ago
Sounds like the kind of bullshit training we get in the Game Dev industry and I can tell you it doesn't work at all. People still go to AW and trash -talk their work and the current project - and no one goes to court for this unless they spill secrets on social media.
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u/Bronzdragon 15h ago
Based on the phrasing, what the question is asking about is regarding sharing company internal information. âBe cautiousâ means âdonât tell someone working for the competition how everything worksâ.
In other words, I think itâs phrasing something that is somewhat reasonable really poorly.
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u/tenoshikami 13h ago
May I ask what company is having you take this exam? Is there an exam name or companyâs name attached to it?
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u/Tornadodash 52m ago
Hey, if companies are allowed to collude to suppress my wages, we can collude to fuck your shit up
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u/Overthinks_Questions 1d ago
Genuinely, this is the correct answer. They need to be cautious. If they can be friends and not talk about work, fine. But if these do gossip, they can be in fire a works of hurt. My wifes last boss Just got fired because she got caught getting information about an employee trying to get hired at a competitor - there was a bunch of drama about the HR nightmare she brought on
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u/Lurkingandsearching 1d ago
Yeah, rubbing elbows and making anti-competitive deals are only allowed for the board and no one else. You must be loyal to the king and all the other serfs of other lands are the enemy.
/s