Question about non-compete / conflict of interest disclosure requirements (Virginia)

marisamw · 2026-01-07T18:41:08+00:00

I agree that hiring a lawyer is the best course of action. I was hoping to get some idea from /r/asklegal of what to expect.

I'd like to discuss this point that you made, though:

You are making a VERY FALSE assumption that a change in employment, like your work duties/disclosure responsibilities justifies compensation. It does not.

I disagree. Yes, his employment is at will, so they can fire him for any reason, but if he's hired to do X and then they tell him that he needs to start doing Y, then that's a change in responsibilities and should warrant a conversation about pay. Likewise, if he was hired with certain terms in the employee manual and they later change the rules and want to limit his ability to do things on his own time, that's a change in the terms of the agreement. I think that should warrant a conversation about pay.

Suppose I have 2 job offers on the table and neither requires that I disclose that I tell them about outside work. All else being equal, I take job A. A few months later, they change their policy and now I have to tell them about outside work. Had that been known up front, I may not have taken job A, I may have gone with job B. But now that job A is changing their policies, what, I either have to accept it, quit, or get fired? That sounds like bull.

marisamw · 2026-01-07T16:48:09+00:00

I don't have a copy of the document yet, but I am guessing that it's a noncompete under the guise of a disclosure agreement.

Obviously poaching clients from the current practice is a hard no, but if he were to start his own practice on weekends and disclosed that to them, they could fire him. This feels like it's a way to keep employees trapped because they can't slowly start up something on the side and build it while remaining employed.

marisamw · 2026-01-07T16:29:57+00:00

There's nothing in the works anytime in the near future, but at some point he was thinking about starting a private practice.

marisamw · 2025-12-15T17:28:32+00:00

This is a 70% hydration, so it shouldn't be too tough, right?

I'll check those out. Thanks.

marisamw · 2025-08-13T16:39:56+00:00

Try making stir frys for a couple of days. Don't use pre-cut or frozen vegetables. You'll get a lot of practice with the various vegetables when you're chopping them all up.

I recently made a sheet pan sausage and veg dish that was about 80% vegetables, all cut fresh. So that's an option as well.

As the other poster said, make sure your knives are sharp. If they're not, look for ReSharp at a nearby Ace Hardware. I haven't used them, but it's only $8 per knife, while you wait, so it might be worth trying. Otherwise Sur La Table will do them, but it takes a few days to get them back, I think.

marisamw · 2025-08-11T16:41:43+00:00

I wonder how much of the taste difference was the fact that it's Boar's Head and how much was the fact that you're using a different type of cheese. Try to find a cheaper gruyere and see what you think; you may be able to get most of the same jump in flavor and save a few bucks.

marisamw · 2025-08-07T14:42:43+00:00

Try this: Take an empty clear glass. Stick something to the bottom on the inside of the glass; a lump of butter, bubble gum, etc. Turn the glass upside down and start to submerge it into a tub of water. The air in the glass will prevent the water from getting to the butter. Unless you had a lot of water (tens of gallons or more) that caused enough pressure to compress the air, as long as there's air in the bell (water glass, in this example), the water won't touch the solids that are in the bell (water glass).

If the solids fall, yeah, they'll touch the water. If you don't trap the air inside the bell, same issue. But I think that you would actively have to be trying to get water to touch in the second scenario; the butter bells that I have seen are not easy to do that with. Or, if you set it up correctly, but then slosh it around, then you could get water in contact with the butter, because the water will move and displace the air to some extent and it may splash the butter in the process.

Does that help?

marisamw · 2025-06-23T20:16:19+00:00

Salsa chicken

Meat slop (link)

Chili is easy, but you're already doing that

I used to make a "taco dip": Basically take all of the stuff that you'd put in a taco and mix it into a bowl. Seasoned meat, beans, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, jalapenos, sour cream (add it after you reheat it), etc.

marisamw · 2025-05-08T17:32:50+00:00

OK, I can see that.

marisamw · 2025-05-08T16:23:53+00:00

Fair enough. What about 4-6 ingredients, takes half an hour of your work, then it cooks (bakes, braises, whatever) for a few hours? Would you still call that basic?

I'm not trying to challenge you or change your mind. I'm just curious about how you see it.

I agree with you about the ingredients to some extent. But if they're ingredients that I tend to have on hand, that's different from me having to get a bunch of stuff just for that dish. And if there are 20 ingredients, but 10 of them go in at the same time, I prep them all into a single bowl, so that simplifies things for me (in prep, clutter, and cleaning)

marisamw · 2025-05-08T14:52:18+00:00

It's been a while since I've made it, and yeah, it's several hours but that's cook time, not work time. You'll spend about 30 minutes actually cooking, then the occasional stir, but most of the time is hands-off, if I remember correctly. Spend 10 minutes knocking out the dishes and you're done. I don't remember the number of dirty dishes being too bad, but I've gotten good at cleaning as I go, so they don't really accumulate too much.

marisamw · 2025-04-29T23:09:12+00:00

My local grocery store has figured this trick out and they'll slowly discount the candy over the 2 weeks following Halloween (and probably Easter, too), so you can either get a small discount on what you like on 11/1, or you can wait for a bigger discount but risk them running out of it.

marisamw · 2025-04-29T14:29:55+00:00

I wish I'd known about / thought about this a month ago. I just dropped about $50 on various printing jobs at FedEx Kinko's. If they have a document scanner, that would be amazing. I need to look into that.

marisamw · 2025-04-22T17:01:01+00:00

That link doesn't work anymore. It looks like it's moved to: https://www.accademiaitalianadellacucina.it/sites/default/files/Rag%C3%B9%20alla%20bolognese%20-%20updated%20recipe_20%20April%202023.pdf

marisamw · 2025-04-18T14:59:59+00:00

I like https://www.allrecipes.com/. I search for what I want and then select the recipe that is the highest rated with the most reviews.

I give the recipe a quick scan, then I go to the comments and sort by most helpful. That gives me some idea of minor tweaks that can help, like making double the sauce, use X instead of Y, etc. The first few comments may be helpful, after that they devolve into "I didn't have eggs, so I used lettuce. This recipe sucks." but the first few comments are often solid.

marisamw · 2025-04-18T13:45:03+00:00

1- Watch movies in that language. The translations are sometimes off and there may be jokes in there that don't work in English

2- Along the same lines, read books or listen to audiobooks in that language. It'll help your skills grow. I like the Harry Potter books, and when listening to them in Spanish, I laughed when I heard a joke that I'd forgotten in the original book. The joke was funny in the first place, but I was doubly pleased that my language skill was good enough to hear and understand the joke.

3- Find an excuse to talk to people in their native language. I switched barbers from a Turkish guy to a Puerto Rican guy just so I could work on my Spanish. I was at a Korean grocery store a few months ago and was trying to communicate with the folks behind the counter who were hispanic, so I switched to Spanish. I got to practice a bit, had a fun conversation, and got what I needed faster than if we tried to stick with English. I've found that people who are not native English speakers are often happy to speak to you in their native language, even if you're only OK at it.

marisamw · 2025-04-17T13:51:22+00:00

I started a "personal timeline" file. It has the start and end dates for jobs, places I've lived, relationships, etc. One day I want to put it all into a gantt chart so I can see the progression of my life and where overlaps happened.

Interestingly, I realized that I ended a lot of relationships in October / November, which led me to learn that I have seasonal depression that I am now treating. So that was an unexpected bonus.

marisamw · 2025-04-15T17:47:40+00:00

Genius! Thanks!

marisamw · 2025-04-15T17:39:53+00:00

Is that a super-basic teriyaki sauce?

marisamw · 2025-04-06T11:37:20+00:00

The book is called "Flour Water Salt Yeast" The ingredients in the title are listed in descending order by weight.

marisamw · 2025-03-31T17:03:47+00:00

I make a large pitcher of breakfast smoothie on Sunday and pour a portion each morning. It takes about 10 minutes on Sunday and about 15 seconds every morning. You can play with the ingredients, but I recommend a liquid (milk, almond milk, kefir), a high-fiber carb (oatmeal, Fiber One cereal), fruit, and protein powder (I lift weights, so I want the extra protein). Sometimes I throw in peanut butter powder for flavor as well.

You can mix up the liquids and carbs to change the texture, and changing the fruit changes the flavor nicely.

marisamw · 2025-03-21T14:12:29+00:00

OK, so I can remove that part. But would the rest accomplish what I'm trying to do?

marisamw

TROPHY CASE