Non-Compete Agreements: An Employee Perspective. Ron Hummer

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СКАЧАТЬ why shouldn’t I look for a better opportunity. Just stay in my job until I retire.

      Of course, my answer is not going to be let me prove to you that I’m making my quota. Here. I have all the sales reports from the last year. You see, I’m not only making my quota but exceeding it. Yes, I realize that I can’t do that since that would be stealing information.

      Let’s go back to what I said earlier. Why ask me this question if you’re not going to believe that I will answer it honestly? I have a lot of reasons that I want to leave my company. My salary, that hasn’t been increased in seven years. How about the fact that my commission has been cut to the point where I have lost over $30,000 a year over the past five years. This isn’t due to the economy. This is due to the fact that my employer just wanted to make changes and shuffle my territory, which more than contributed to my loss in income. Sure, I’m losing money but that really doesn’t seem to matter since I have a job and I’m going broke and I have to consider telling my wife that we have to move out of my apartment at some point in order to live in a smaller one. Of course, my company can do whatever they want because they know that I can’t work in my industry due to my non-compete agreement.

      In any case, I can only say so much because as we all know, I don’t want to say anything bad about my company since we know that we’re not supposed to do that. Doesn’t matter that this human resource person will grill me for more information and I’ll end up having to admit this in any case.

      The interview continued and the human resource person said that this is a junior level position and it sounds like I can be considered for it. It will be an inside sales position where I will deal with lawyers. Wonderful news. I should be able to consider taking a $10,000 - $15,000 cut in salary if they want to hire me.

      So, the human resource person leaves and after about another 20 minutes, a a woman walks in. She’s the person that would be my supervisor if I managed to get hired. No reason to ask me any questions since the Vice President of Sales will be coming in next. Let’s just shoot the breeze for another 20 minutes and she can tell me how she met with 50 candidates over the past two weeks and she is exhausted now. Then she is gone and nearly half an hour later, the VP comes in.

      So the questions begin and the first question is why do you like sales so much. Nice question to ask someone who is 21 years old and just graduated from college. Very impressive. I’m twice as old and a few years as well but that really doesn’t matter. I mean, here I am, giving this guy my resume with all the sales that I made along with the types of accounts that I have worked on such as law firms and the fact that I have closed business that has amounted in $50,000 to $100,000 a year if not more and this is the first question. I shouldn’t complain too much since this is a junior level position and I have over 15 years of sales experience.

      The questions continue and here is another great question.

      You’ve been with your company for a long time. Why do you want to leave all of a sudden?

      Yes, why do I want to leave all of a sudden when I have been looking for a job for more than 6 years. Can’t say that though because he’ll wonder why I’m looking for so long. No, better to ask this question and figure that no matter how I answer this question, the answer to the question is already clear. There is a problem and I’m not making my quota and I’m afraid that I’m going to get fired.

      In any case, the VP did give me a chance to answer important questions such as how I dealt with other law firms and how I closed business for my company. These law firms were listed on my cover letter and resume. I was prepared and gave him the stories behind this.

      As far as the rest of the interview was concerned, the questions were about my company. What kind of product it was? What types of clients did I work with? If anything, I felt that I was giving more of a sales presentation or a Q&A on my company and their products but I found out at the end of the interview that there was a reason for all this.

      As the interview ended, I asked the big question. Do you have any thoughts, concerns, or reservations?

      Here, he smiled, then clapped his hands together. “Well, nothing crazy Ron. I had looked over your resume and thought that your qualifications didn’t really match what we’re looking for. My feeling is that our product is multi dimensional and your product isn’t. I’ll think about things though.”

      I tried to answer this objection by saying that I have worked with law firms in the past again but that didn’t seem to do any good based on this answer that he gave me. In any case, the interview was over. He left without even shaking my hand, telling me I know the way out.

      Chapter 6

      Hairdressers and Non-Compete Agreements

      As you can see, this book really isn’t about me. Of course, I don’t know too much about hairdressers so in this case, I can talk to you about my hairdresser named Janet. This also gives me a chance to let you know what she thinks about that discussion that Amy Robach had with Sam Champion on GMA.

      First, let me give you a little background on Janet. She used to own her own hair salon. I had already explained to you how someone that worked for her stole names out of her appointment book in order to steal clients from her. That woman was fired.

      After a few years, Janet decided that she didn’t want to own her own business anymore. She wasn’t making any money - big surprise in the hairdressing industry - and she wanted to spend more time with her husband and children. To her, it was much easier for her to work at a hair salon since they have two incomes coming in between her and her husband. If she was lucky, she could pull in $40,000 a year.

      In any case, she managed to find a buyer for the salon. He made an offer and she accepted. Somehow, the offer was changed at the last minute because he wanted to lowball her. I mean, it wasn’t like she had 100 people at the door waiting to buy her salon. So after a lot of haggling and a tremendous amount of aggravation which kept her and her husband up at night wishing that they could sell the business, they finally had an agreement and Janet would go to work for this man.

      Of course, this man had other plans once this started. His first order of business was to steal Janet’s clients so he could fire her. Now, in case you think that she might be making this up, I can assure you that that isn’t the case. You know why? Because I was one of those clients that this man approached. Bet you didn’t see that coming. As Jim Nabors said in the TV show Gomer Pyle surprise surprise surprise. This went on for a few months and he kept pressuring me to have him cut my hair instead of Janet. By then, Janet had had enough of this and decided that the best thing to do was to leave.

      Yes, I followed her and I’m very proud of making that decision. Why on earth would I want to stay at that salon and let that greedy rotten bastard cut my hair? You think I would want to associate with someone like that. No way. Yes, it wasn’t enough that this man lowballed Janet to try to get her place for a discount but on top of it, he would steal her clients from her so he could fire her. Why, because they showed up at his salon? Yes, this is the type of owner that I should feel sorry for when he cries that he doesn’t like ObamaCare. Maybe Fox News can put him on their network and the Republicans can have another one of their cult meetings and listen to this creep and give him a box of tissues when the broadcast is over.

      It wasn’t like things were much better for Janet. She managed to find a job at another salon. After a few months, the owner said that he would not allow her to have her commissions anymore. In case you’re wondering what that is, it’s money that she would earn being a colorist. For example, since she was working in a low end salon that had a lot of elderly people, she would color their hair as part of their haircut and the salon would charge $120. I think in other places, something СКАЧАТЬ