bye!
If I get someone else to contact them or the clients contact me, is that OK?
Think about this.
Your good friend’s wife is gorgeous, and you arrange to spend the evening with her. When your good friend finds out about this, do you think he will find it “okay” just because you have another chum make the arrangements for you?
A lot of being in business is about maintaining your client’s confidentiality.
Does any one know?
Yeah, you do…
I have been a very loyal employee above and beyond normal duties. For this I have been paid late without prior warning, not given a pay rise in 3years and I do 80% of the design work. I even worked on the day of my mother’s funeral!
2 clients have said if I left they would move thier business. So to put it in the way you put it…
If his wife really wants to spend time with me then bring it on! Anyway he has been spending time with someone elses wife for the past 3years.
Thanks LMO! you have given me a great idea!
I know my company inside out and therefore know how to destroy it. I know of 5 things that if word got out would financially cripple the company to join the Dodo.
No company, No contract, No worries!
Thanks mate!
non payment is a fundamental breach of contract.
When a contract is breached, it is null and void.
1 - You can’t take their clients for one year, whether you contact them, they contact you, or their work requests magically appear in your mailbox.
2 - You CAN ask your employer for permission to talk to those clients, just make sure you get their response in writing.
3 - Being a loyal employee does not entitle you to anything.
4 - Not getting a pay raise in 3 years does not entitle you to anything either.
5 - The only thing you’re entitled to is the option to leave your current company and find new employment. Whether that’s self-employment or not, is up to you.
6 - “Non-payment” and “late payment” are 2 very different things.
7 - These are ethical questions, and I get the feeling you want someone to tell you that everything you’re planning on doing is okay. If someone tells you that breaching a contract is okay, then their ethics should be called into question. There’s a difference between finding a loophole in a contract and completely ignoring the document you signed.
Trust me, The design industry is a small world, and you do not want to take this road. People will find out and you will be blacklisted when they do. We are in the buisness of keeping some of the most sensitive secretes that companies have. And any breech of confidentiality, and professionalism will follow you and reflect poorly apon you.
I would sugest leaving asap, because with that attitude toward the employer you are setting your self up for a slip at some point.
As for the company going out of buisness this does not apply to the contract. I was in a similar situation some yrs back were the company basically folded. I still had to (Judge ordered during a real hearing) either purchase the client list in it entirety or uphold the 18 month non compete.
I also had a friend leave the firm and form a start up. He was lucky enough not to have a non-compete as the company was primaraly an RP house when he was hired. But when the clients were contacted by him, they immediatly contacted his previous firm to let them know what he was doing, and that he promised to “under-cut their prices by removing the overhead”. He actually ended up making the clients question his integrity and ethics, and it resulted in him reciving notice from most of the clients not to contact him as they were not interested in working with him.
As designers we are Gate Keepers of highly sensitive knowlege. Many of my clients have multi-tier firewalls and proticol when it comes to the development process and projects…some to the point of having the R&D departmenty computers totally seporate from the main network and internet.
This demands us to have the highest level of professionalism and buisness ethics. Couple that with the smallness of the professional design community, and the fact that once you start playing with fortune 500 clients most know someone in their same jop description in about 100 of the others…and you have a situation were word of your indescresions spread like wild fire.
My advice theave the company on the best terms possible, either find another firm/company to work for, or start your own firm the right way. Take some time and get the equipment, ligidimate professional copies of the software you will need, including any cad or rendering software. The eisiest way for a past employer to smear your name it to find out you are using an illegal copy of sofware and since CAD packages/maintenence are sold through VARs it is easy to track. And I have had a past employer put a competitor out of buisness because they were using an illeagal copy of SWX and the var let it be known to the thier clients…as that makes all the CAD files illeagal documents.
And find your own clients for the initial few months. If you are truely ready to head out on your own this will not be a problem. I know three students who started contacting local companies while in their 4th year and 3 yrs later have a thriving design firm built from scratch.
Depends on if the state recognizes non-competes sepporate from employment contracts. Non-competes can by judge orders in some states remain even after a breach of employment contracts. Many Mid-west and Southern states
An old business adage says, “Contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.” And from my experience in life, I tend to believe it’s true.
The crux of the issue is intent. You read the contract, you agreed to the terms of the contract, and you ‘affirmed’ that when you signed the contract. Are you an honorable person; will you honor* your signature? When the time comes, do you intend to do what you agreed to?
Remember this HR tenet; a person’s future behavior can, with high probability, be predicted by their past behavior. You can’t unring this bell. If word gets out that you can not be trusted with confidential information, you’re done.
The high road is always the more expensive path to travel, but in my experience, is far more fulfilling in the long run.
- honor, 1. high respect, public regard, 3. nobleness of mind, 11. accept; accede to; pay
I have no intension of steeling clients in the short term. Its just some want to come with me, and one even offered to invest!
I helped set up the company and it is with great regret I now need to walk away form something I helped build.
"Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.â€
bye!
WHAT?!? You didn’t hear what you wanted to hear, here?
Possibly more vendictive than I originally thought!
…And yet seaming so familiar in action, inspiration, and language usage…
?
[quote=“ML”]Possibly more vendictive than I originally thought!
Yes I firmly believe always get even, and if someone steps on you make sure they never walk again!
It’s like being the USA 
Anyone remember that Simpson’s episode where Homer quits his job at the Power Plant and as he’s driving away he shouts out “So long suckers!!” while tossing a match out the window onto a wooden bridge, setting it ablaze.
Later in the episode he discovers Marge is pregnant and has to beg for his job back.
This situation sounds a bit similar.
Seriously now, that attitude is is completly unprofessional and immature. If this is truely your philosophy you need to change or you will not last long in this profession, or buisness world in general…especially if you think to start your own consultancy.
Actually, that attitude will probably do them plenty of good. Its not being unprofessional, its being an asshole. There are plenty of those in business and a good pile of them are very, very successful. You run into all types. Some people will hire noone other than the asshole that takes no prisoners.
Check out Bob Sutton’s blog. He’s in the middle of writing a book called “The No Asshole Rule” http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/smiling_makes_y.html
Besides, I would say it sounded more like Deejay66 was joking to me.