I'm glad you did that. It shows principle. You may have been able to negotiate it out but the fact that they wanted it shows you a good deal about the company character.
It was a privilege I had and exercised. I later found out that the company was notorious for pursing violators of their NC, and sort of well-known about it in my industry- which has companies from 1-person shops to multinationals, all operating within the same price point (food and beverage). So the NC was absolutely insane.
