If you work in the USA tech industry, you've probably been asked to sign a non-disclosure / non-compete agreement with a new employer. It may be that even your current employer asked you to sign a new one.
If you're not familiar with it, let me describe it for you in a nutshell: Anything you witness or produce on company time becomes the property of your employer. Even if you think of something, if you thought of it on company time, that idea is your employer's property. This explains a lot of what I've observed during my career -- many coworkers are so poignantly aware of this that the second they clock in, they empty their minds completely of thoughts and go about their duties thoughtlessly.
If asked to sign a non-disclosure / non-compete agreement, what should you do? This ebook from IEEE should help:
https://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf
Good luck!
