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I started work for a company about a year ago. The company sells insurance to insurance brokers, but my role is IT. At numerous times during my employ, I openly discussed the fact that I worked part-time for a small home-based insurance company doing general IT work. The part-time job is one I held prior to beginning work for the new company. I made no attempt to keep it secret, I discussed it openly in my interview as it was evidence of my direct experience in the insurance industry as it relates to IT. Additionally, I was never asked if I worked elsewhere, and I was never told that it was frowned upon. In fact, the employee handbook given to me along with my offer includes language the says part-time jobs are allowed, as long as they are not with a competing company. The two companies are both in the Insurance Industry, but the similarity ends there. They perform vastly different functions for largely different markets. Event the insurance products do not overlap. There is no direct or even indirect competition. In December, I was called into a meeting with HR and one of the principals of the company to discuss the sudden realization that I worked for another insurance company. When it was expressed that I only did IT and had no involvement in their insurance business, the principal said "I'm ok with that" and I thought the matter was settled. Today, in January, I was again summoned into a meeting with the same people and told that I had 2 days to decide which company I wanted to keep working for, that I could no longer work for both. Is this a legal position for them to enforce, and what are my options?
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