Harper's Rules (22 page)

Enforceable? Yes, if the company follows the following tenets:

1. The
   duration
   is limited. Courts prefer six months, but for senior-level positions a year isn't uncommon.
   
2. The
   scope
   of the agreement is limited. Courts don't mind if you say someone can't work within fifty miles or work for a direct competitor, but if you say they can't work within 500 miles for any type of manufacturing concern, the courts will not enforce.
   
3. The relief sought is
   definitive
   . If your agreement says you owe 10K if you solicit customers you found while under the company's employ, courts will likely agree; if the relief is vague or exorbitant, courts will not enforce.
   
4. You have access to
   trade secrets
   that could damage a company's revenue stream or affect market share.
   
5. They don't seek
   injunctive
   relief. An injunction means you can't work for the new company until the non-compete issue is resolved. Contemporary courts are biased toward the “right to work.” They don't like making anyone stay home.
   

Okay, Harper, I know companies have to protect themselves, and I have always understood that as a salesperson what I was being taught was essentially “intellectual property.” But how do I keep them from exploiting me, using what they call “golden handcuffs?”

Non-competes are generally
not
enforceable:

1. If you are fired. Courts don't like to let companies have their cake and eat it too. If you let me go, I have to make a living and can usually go where I want.
   
2. If you signed the non-compete under duress. Non-competes are signed before you start working. If they make you sign a year or two later, it is implied that you will be let go if you don't sign, and that is duress.
   
3. If there is a material change in your compensation, job function, or ownership of the company.
   
4. If you are forced or asked to do anything illegal or unethical.
   
5. If your employment tenure was short. No one will hold up a non-compete when you were there six weeks.
   

As much as I found the idea of a non-compete distasteful, even un-American, I had to look at this in a more businesslike way. Non-competes aren't chains. I guess what bothered me was that I had Wallace on a pedestal, and this disappointed me. Why, if he was going to be such a phenomenal boss, would he need non-competes?

HARPER'S RULE
Motivations of Companies to Enforce

When I ask most general counsels or CEOs, they tell me non-competes send a message to those who remain. They need to know they will be sued and that management takes the non-compete seriously. But I find, like all business decisions, it is deeply personal. If you, as many do, leave an electronic trail after you leave that makes it clear you have been 1) interviewing for months, 2) talking about this to colleagues on staff, 3) dissing the company you are still collecting money from, 4) lying straight-faced about having some personal problem when you were in fact interviewing, and 5) looked your boss in the face when he asked why you seemed unfocused or distant and told him he was imagining things, and then give notice and go to a competitor, you have not just breached a non-compete; you have played someone for a fool. This is no longer about the reasonableness of restrictive covenant law; it's about misleading people who care about you. So they take the only action they can, a business action, and they tell their lawyer to commence a lawsuit.

Do I encourage my candidates to sign non-competes if they are part of my client company's standard process? Yes.

When I can't sleep, I need bad TV. The first channel I turned on was the local news, and the weather forecaster, an overexcited guy with an ill-fitting blue blazer and no tie (When did the local news go biz casual?) was exhorting us to go outside and check out “the rare blue moon in the sky tonight.” It turns out a blue moon is not blue at all but just a really bright full moon. But I didn't move. There is, of course, no logical reason why a single person living alone can't go out and look at nature's gift of a blue moon. It's not a couple's thing. But I didn't leave the bed.

I called Harper. I looked over at the digital readout on the clock and it was after eleven. I expected to get his voice mail.

He sounded wide awake, the same Harper I get at the office.

“I called to say I read your chapter on non-competes. But I didn't have to. I pretty much knew after the trade show I would go along with it.”

“Understood.”

“Sorry to bother you so late.”

“Not at all. I never miss a blue moon. They come once every 295 days.”

“No wonder it's blue. I'm in bed.”

“Well, get out of bed. Go to your window. Now would be good. Are you watching it?”

“Hmmm . . . okay, conceded. It's pretty awesome.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I like that we're both watching it at the same time. That we are seeing exactly the same thing.”

“You and I always see the same thing; that's how we roll.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tomorrow I have my final interview with InterAnnex. If all goes well, I could be employed by week's end. Whether it goes well or not, I will turn thirty-five by week's end. People are weird about birthdays. I remember Hannah freaking when we turned twenty-five; the idea of a quarter-century on the planet made her feel ancient. For me, up till now, I was aware of the significance of certain age milestones only because I was being teased or questioned; it didn't resonate. But today was different.

When the well-wishers started calling to wish me luck tomorrow—my dad, Hannah, Jill—I found my mind wandering. I asked Jill to hand the phone to my niece Sheila, knowing her worldview would not include suggesting I get some rest and “give them hell tomorrow.”

“Let me ask you something everyone's asking me lately: how old are you now?”

“Almost seven.”

“Ever wake up and think, geez, I'm practically to double digits, what have I done? What is it all for?”

“Sure.”

And I cracked up. I just don't have it in me to dwell on my age. Time to focus on tomorrow. The one thing I'm sure of is thirty-five and working will feel better than thirty-five and unemployed. Time to begin my pre–final interview ritual—to get in the zone. No one can define it, but everyone knows what it is: time slows; you are unaware of distractions and able to focus completely. When you are in the zone, you can't lose.

Every top-notch salesperson has been in the zone. Your well-rehearsed script comes out as if you just thought of it. You handle every objection with poise, and you seamlessly integrate your energy, your product's benefits, and the needs of the client into a tight, cogent presentation. You feel charged with energy. You have no idea how much time you have been talking. You just know you are “on.” And they love you.

There is such a thing as an interview zone, and it can be summoned! But you need to create a ritual so that the zone finds you. I have never failed to get an offer when I summon the zone!

Ritual #1: Assemble my look

I always wear the same outfit. Every woman executive knows there are certain rules: no pants suits, nothing too flamboyant (go with navy, black, or grey), closed-toe shoes with no more than two-and-a-half-inch heels, a silk or cotton blouse, and go easy on the make-up and jewelry. So, while some day early in my tenure at InterAnnex I might walk in with my Tahari deep lavender skirt and my hot pink and black blouse, tomorrow I need to summon the zone. So I carefully removed the dry cleaning plastic from my Armani Collezioni navy-with-white-pinstripe suit with the three-button jacket, notched collar, and pencil skirt. I laid it on my bed and chose a simple ivory silk blouse. This was too conservative a look for my favorite black Prada shoes, so I went with my Giuseppe Zanottis, mostly because they had never been worn. Part of the ritual is to lay the entire outfit out on the bed, visualize the power the look will imbue in me, and then rewrap it and do it all over again in the morning. I never try it on.

Ritual #2: Watch my movie

To summon the zone I have to watch
Dumb and Dumber
. The first time was an accident. I couldn't sleep the night before my first big final interview, the zone was nowhere in sight, and I wandered through cable and settled on this 1994 Jim Carrey comedy. Is it a great movie? Of course not, but I no longer need the whole movie, just the one scene that convinced me I could get a sales rep's job that I was obscenely under-qualified for nine months out of college. Jim Carrey confronts Lauren Holly with the burning question:. “What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together?” She tells him they are not good. He asks for a percentage— one in a hundred? She looks him in the eye and says, “More like one out of a million.”

“So you're telling me there's a chance!”

I search on YouTube, and the scene is there in its entirety. I have decided I am not violating my ritual if I watch the scene online and not on my DVD player. Even karma has to get with the times.

Ritual #3: Listen to my music

For me it's Barber's
Adagio for Strings
. My first interview ever was in Manhattan, and I drove a deathtrap of a LeBaron with 170,000 miles and moody brakes, so my
mother insisted I drive her car instead. On the way in, I heard her CD with Barber's astonishing and thrilling piece. By its soaring end, I felt stronger and smarter: the music made me feel the interview was no longer the most important part of my day.

I got the CD out and put it on the kitchen counter near where I hang my car keys. I never listen to the piece unless I am en route to a final interview. I once ran out of an art gallery like it was a bomb scare because Barber's
Adagio
began to play.

Ritual #4: Go see Selma

Selma is a psychic. Laugh if you want; I was once cynical too.

I found Selma the day before an offer interview. I decided to kill time by going to a Bikram Yoga class. When I got to the little strip mall, I saw the sign for the yoga studio and a smaller sign that simply said
PSYCHIC, NORMAL ROOM TEMPERATURE
. I loved that. I found myself knocking on the door. A woman answered, and she looked absolutely luminous. Selma had on a black turtleneck and jeans; she looked like Carole King on the cover of my dad's favorite album,
Tapestry
. When I asked if she took walk-ins, she said, “There is no such thing.”

And for ninety minutes she freaked me out. She knew things she couldn't possibly know. Within a few minutes she said she knew I had something big going on the next day, but I was not to worry, it would work out.

Selma puts me in the zone.

Ritual #5: Do my final check-in/prep call with Harper

In a world where you can find jobs posted on the Web and through social media sites like LinkedIn, it is not until you have had a few jobs that you realize even if you don't always need a headhunter at the front end, they are critical to securing the job on the back end. The final prep is different than the initial, generic prep. Now we drill down: who else is interviewing me? What are their biases or frames of reference? What concerns will I have to address? Harper tells me what they will ask and what I'm up against, and I get to rehearse, even role-play with Harper if I'm unsure what my response will be. You only have one shot at this job. No do-overs!

I got on the Merritt Parkway and headed toward Selma's, and en route I got two calls from Peter and one from Harper. I just didn't have the energy for Peter, and Harper could wait until later; you cannot mess with the order of the ritual. First Selma, then dinner, then a bath, then Harper's final prep! Don't these people read my memos?

I didn't overreact when I saw that the strip mall had been expanded and updated. The Yoga Center was now One-Stop Yoga Mart. I tried to stay calm and told myself that Selma would have some great stories about the renovation, but when I opened the door to go upstairs to her office, there was no upstairs. The receptionist said the “earthy crunchy” lady had left when the building was sold to the owner of the yoga studio.

How could Selma do this to me? My basic sensibility about business was affronted.
If you are going to make a move, you let the clients know! I could feel the zone choosing the “unable to attend” response to my InterAnnex RSVP. I was a fool to let myself begin to hope. The hope is what gets you.

I drove home, I ran a tub of hot water, I added my favorite bath salts, and I used the Bat Signal: I texted Harper. He called me almost immediately.

I gave Harper the lowdown on my ritual, my zone prep, and Selma's disappearance. I told him I realized this must all sound silly to him.

“Absolutely not,” he said, “except for the psychic. That
is
crap. She may be a lovely person, Casey, but she is a fraud.”

“Hmmm, funny . . . When I told her about you, she called you my vocational guardian angel.”

“I take it back; she's special. We have to find her.”

“I can't go on the interview, Harper. It's all going to go wrong.”

“We cannot cancel. Half the senior management team is flying in just to meet you.”

“Harper, I believe in my ritual. I believe in the zone.”

“Okay, well, time to drink a different Kool-Aid.”

“You don't get it! You control your world. But it feels like nothing works for me the way it used to.”

“Casey, you have to go on the interview.”

“I know.”

“Good, then suck it up, and let's prep. Do you have a Quest Diagnostics you can get to first thing in the morning? You need to do a blood draw and urine test.”

This was not part of the usual final prep. I told Harper there was one near my gym, but I had never been there.

“Go there tomorrow. They open at seven. Don't eat anything after midnight.”