is it normal for a company for a company to make you sign a non compete contract if you leave or get terminated unless you pay a substantial amount of money if you do not stick with them for a certain amount of time.  My problem is that WFA offered me a job and it says that I cannot leave for 5 years otherwise i have to pay 45k$.  I can avoid this by not signing on with a competitor for atleast a year.  I just want to find out if this is typical and something you just need to deal with.