A 'Grey's Anatomy' Love Contract

Everyone from my mother to my postal carrier has been buzzing about "love contracts" in the workplace since "Grey's Anatomy" popped that fateful question earlier this month:

On the television hit, "Grey's Anatomy," nurses' objections to Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan's trysts lead to a new "date and tell" policy.

(Getty Images/ABC )

"Which of your co-workers have you slept with, and could you please put that in writing and sign on the dotted line?"

Thing is, most of us will never see a love contract in the workplace like Meredith Grey and her fellow employees at the fictitious Seattle Grace Hospital did.

"The love contract was popular about 10 years ago around the time of the Monica Lewinsky thing," said Garry Mathiason, an employment lawyer with the law firm Littler Mendelson in San Francisco and one of the contract's creators. But today "it's a very rare occurrence."

Instead of making pledges of love, the average working Joe or Jane is far more likely to be asked by an employer to pledge their "noncompetition," "nondisclosure" and "nonsolicitation," usually in the job-offer letter or employment contract they're given to sign upon landing a new position.

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And while it may not be as sexy as pondering who's hooking up with whom in the supply closet, knowing exactly what employment terms you're agreeing to -- and whether there's any wiggle room (so to speak) -- is every bit as important. In some cases it could greatly affect your livelihood should you leave the company.

Noncompete Clauses

The biggest thing to pay attention to in an employee contract is any noncompete language it contains. A noncompete clause can state that you won't moonlight for the competition on the side and that you won't work for a competitor within a certain geographic range (for example, a 50-mile radius) for a specified period of time after leaving the company (often a year to 18 months, though it can be as much as five years).

So does that mean if you lose your job or jump on a better offer, your hands are tied and you can't work in the same industry for however many months the contract specifies?

Not necessarily. Employees successfully negotiate these clauses away or down to a shorter time frame all the time, Mathiason says, especially those at the higher rungs of a company. And I can tell you from 16 years of my own experience that freelancers and contract employees do, too. Many free agents won't even work for a firm that insists on a noncompete.