I’m not sure if lawyers think their words are magic sometimes, or if they’d just really like them to be magic.
I live in a state that prohibits most non-competes from employers, and any effort to try to get employees to sign overly restrictive agreements can actually result in a fine and penalty. My company sent me a legal agreement saying that by signing the doc and continuing to be employed, I agree to waive my state’s protections against non-competes. As if… that would hold up in any court, ever.
It’s a blatantly illegal clause and I could have fought it at the time… but in the end I knew it was totally unenforceable at worst. I’ll go after them for the penalty if they ever try to enforce it, or if I leave under bad circumstances. It was more valuable to me to have this document than it is for them to have it.
My wife bought a new Pixel 8 recently from Google Fi. They sent a Pixel 6a for some reason. She attempted to work with their incompetent, powerless, disconnected and foreign support for a week to get something to happen, desperately reaching out every day for someone to just tell her what was happening. Then, she just purchased a new one because you can’t go longer than that without a phone.
Then it was 2 more weeks of them failing to issue a refund for the original wrong phone, trying to ship another phone that she no longer needed, and simultaneously trying to bill her a penalty for not yet activating the phone that was originally shipped.
All it would take is one person who had information, authority, and a modicum of understanding. Nope. That is not a thing that can be achieved through any level of escalation at Google anymore.
Nokia had the same problem recently during a recent issue. They have intentionally made it impossible to solve issues. This is what some companies want. Don’t buy from them.