Fustrated...

Ok, so I am our Systems Administrator at my current company. I am looking to step down from the role and hire someone in my place because I am tired of all the headaches that come with the job and little to no compensation. I manage over 200 remote sites, our office, do all the project management etc etc etc. I could go on and on. Basically I am the one running the company and keeping it a float. My boss now wants me to move into a sales/management position. So this position would be just dealing with obtaining new clientel for the business and proposing the computer systems that the business needs as well as managing the technical staff on project deadlines. This to me seems like a lot less stress and more pay. I keep my current salary plus i get comission.

Anyhow, so she finally sends me the sales agreement... It has a noncompete clause in there for 2 years after termination or dismisal, if I do decide to go against her she wants a 50k retainer paid and a bunch of other BS. So I just emailed her and told her there was no way I was signing the contract the way it is currently written.

Is this unreasonable?

She knows that I could very well take her clientel tomorrow if I wanted because I manage all her clients and they work with me only. So on her part this is very smart... However, I have been thinking of opening my own shop because her business is POOR on customer support and timeframes as well as a bunch of other poor business decisions.

Think I should just pack my stuff and leave her up ship creek if she doesnt want to take the non-compete and the 50k retainer out of her contract that she wants me to sign?

Seriously if I left tomorrow her business would be SOL for atleast 2 years. I created a crystal report on technician productiviy and I bring in 3/4 of her revenue.

I am going to be meeting with my attorney soon to clarify the rest of the contract.

Any thoughts or ideas?

I really enjoy the owner, however I have been promised things multiple times and its now 2 years later and I am still 10k salary wise below what we discussed last year. I actually turned down a position with another company based on her verbal contract that she would meet my needs.

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Comments

blargoe

Smart thinking taking it to an attorney.

A non-compete is not an unreasonable thing, (why wouldn't she want to protect her own company?) but the 50K retainer seems a bit much. Are you the one that posted a while back about her giving you part ownership? If you sign this agreement, and then take the customers with you to your own company, you could get yourself in deep doo doo possibly.

In some states, non-competes aren't worth the paper they are written on.

Mishra

It's tough to offer opinions because we don't really know the whole story or how things go around there.

Non-competes are there to protect the business and not let you steal their customers. I think they are a reasonable thing to make your employees sign as long as the duration isn't really long. 2 years is probably a little overboard.

Unless you have already started your business planning, then you aren't even close to ready to start a business. Thinking "She knows that I could very well take her clientel tomorrow if I wanted" isn't really the most intelligent thing to be thinking.

It sounds like you are blowing everything out of proportion. Get all that "I can take their business, they can't survive without me, they don't know what their doing" stuff out of your head because its been said before. Calm down and start thinking of what the position is and what YOU want to do, not what the business is interested in. You need to be sure that the position and compensation is what YOU want. Again the best advise here is to see what opportunities this will give you and the things that you will get out of the positions.

Sounds like a tough choice, good luck.

blargoe

It does look to me that she is trying to kill several birds with one stone here. Get you some more money via commission, find someone who IS willing to work your current position for what she was paying you, knowing she can fall back on your knowledge and guidance with the new hire, and not having to hire a real sales guy. All in all, sounds like a smart play for her.

I'm curious to see what your attorney says.

TechJunky

Ok, so I spoke with the owner yesterday because I was beyond fustrated. I explained that I was not going to sign a non-compete. I explained my reasoning. I dont have any throw currently weather the business goes up or down and why should I suffer if she isnt running her business correctly. I have made MULTIPLE suggestions and she always does the opposite and it always bites her in the ass. I keep telling her I told you so, but it doesnt do any good. I see where she is lacking in her business and I thats where I would focus my business plan around.

I have already made the steps to look into becoming a partner reselling certian software from a vendor she is currently using. I think she got wind that I was looking into opening my own shop so thats why she was trying to push me into sales so I would sign the non-compete. A lot of her customers have personally asked me to start my own shop and they want to jump ship. I have already spoken with the vendors, looked into how much it costs to buy in and start up a partner ship etc with them. I have flew down to the actual vendor and spoken with them, asked them about hardware/software requirements, annual goals etc. This is not something new for me or something I am whipping up on a whim. I always research, plan and start my infastructure before I decide to take any big step.

Anyhow, The long and short is she agreed 100% that I take on 80% of the work done and revenue generated here. She said that she didn't mean to scare me off and that she would be willing to revise the contract to meet my needs. She is looking into hiring another technician off of my recommendation to help her keep up with the support here because we are getting horribly behind lately and its causing the companys reputation lately to go down the tubes and make the actual technicians look like we are bad/lazy. We have 28 calls in que that we need to get to just to be caught up to take calls today. So that's $2800 minimum if each call was only 1hr long.

Anyhow, I will see what actually comes of it.

Turgon

TechJunky wrote:

Ok, so I spoke with the owner yesterday because I was beyond fustrated. I explained that I was not going to sign a non-compete. I explained my reasoning. I dont have any throw currently weather the business goes up or down and why should I suffer if she isnt running her business correctly. I have made MULTIPLE suggestions and she always does the opposite and it always bites her in the ass. I keep telling her I told you so, but it doesnt do any good. I see where she is lacking in her business and I thats where I would focus my business plan around.

I have already made the steps to look into becoming a partner reselling certian software from a vendor she is currently using. I think she got wind that I was looking into opening my own shop so thats why she was trying to push me into sales so I would sign the non-compete. A lot of her customers have personally asked me to start my own shop and they want to jump ship. I have already spoken with the vendors, looked into how much it costs to buy in and start up a partner ship etc with them. I have flew down to the actual vendor and spoken with them, asked them about hardware/software requirements, annual goals etc. This is not something new for me or something I am whipping up on a whim. I always research, plan and start my infastructure before I decide to take any big step.

Anyhow, The long and short is she agreed 100% that I take on 80% of the work done and revenue generated here. She said that she didn't mean to scare me off and that she would be willing to revise the contract to meet my needs. She is looking into hiring another technician off of my recommendation to help her keep up with the support here because we are getting horribly behind lately and its causing the companys reputation lately to go down the tubes and make the actual technicians look like we are bad/lazy. We have 28 calls in que that we need to get to just to be caught up to take calls today. So that's $2800 minimum if each call was only 1hr long.

Anyhow, I will see what actually comes of it.

From your previous posts there seems to be quite a history there. Honestly I would forget any ideas to take the business away from them and simply look for a completely new job elsewhere. If you take on management of people you have new headaches. If you move away from support things will suffer there.