Legal considerations

Next to administrative work, legal documentation might be the next most disliked aspect of SE life. Honestly, I wonder whether anyone ever reads some of the contracts they sign when joining a company. As an SE, imagine that you just signed your offer letter and you are super excited to get started working for your new organization. As part of the company procedures, they send you about 65 pages of legal documents to sign. Are you really going to question their legal team and begin to redline statements in the contract, asking them to modify it because you don’t particularly like the language on page 15 of their arbitration policy? I doubt it. In fact, unless you are a lawyer, I honestly think that if you did do this, the organization might rescind its offer to you, thinking you are a bit of a weirdo.

Nevertheless, even if you don’t read it, once you sign the documents, they still apply, at least according to a court of law. Let’s take a...