Tales From The Non-Compete Crypt

As of about 88 minutes ago I am no longer bound by the terms of the non-compete clause of the shareholder's agreement I signed while an employee at Somnio—the creative agency I helped start in 2002. It has been one full year since I resigned my position there on January 18th 2007. It's been quite an interesting year for me in terms of work and my career. I've experienced a range of emotions while thinking about the events that led up to and included my decision to sever my relationship with the company I had worked worked so hard to build. While I've felt it unnecessary to publicly discuss the circumstances under which I left that position, I would like to share a few of the things I have learned since I decided to "go in a different direction" one year ago.

First, I learned that if you are asked to sign a document that was written by a lawyer who is not your lawyer, it probably contains some language that can severely hinder you in some way, shape or form. No matter how benign it might look, or how sure your best friend is that your newly hired project manager's lawyer-buddy says it's kosher, it's not. Read any and all documents you sign very thoroughly. Have legal counsel read them. Have more than one legal counsels read over them. Question everything in the document. Don't assume you know the law because you don't. Nor, apparently, does your newly hired project manager's lawyer-buddy, despite your best friend and co-worker's adamant belief to the contrary.

Second, understand and embrace two age-old adages: If it looks like garbage, and it smells like garbage and it tastes like garbage then it probably is. Tigers don't change their stripes. If something doesn't feel right, it's probably not. If that something is the behavior of a person, it's probably going to continue and they most likely won't change. If these two things cause you to think that you may need a change of scenery, you probably do. Don't wait around for the tiger to change into a leopard, because it's not. Don't let your well-intentioned but highly gullible and easily fooled co-workers convince you otherwise. If a superior is being confronted about the same problem for the fourth time, it's always going to be a problem. Always.

Finally, have a backup plan. Even if things are seemingly going well and you're not looking for something else, you should be looking at least at what's available. Doesn't mean you have to be looking to leave, just that you know what's out there and know where you'd go and what you would do if you had to. When the decision to make a change comes, and it probably will at some point—and maybe very suddenly like it was for me, be prepared. I wasn't and I paid the price for it.

Fortunately for me, I made it through this experience in one piece and I've got all of my career options once again available to me. Some people never have any to begin with and that fact is not lost on me...ever