Know-How Exchange : Other

Dear Shamrakov

Where do you live? The reason I ask is the Russian sounding name and in Russia there are two laws – one for those who rule and prison or bent knee-caps for those who don’t.

If you signed nothing then it’s down to assumed contract which is the law of the land and works in your favour. He owes you the statutory minimum, you owe him nothing.

If this was in the UK, He’s a bastard and you could take the clients and set up on your own. If he sues, counter sue for exploitation, bad manners, bullying, racial harassment, poor use of punctuation, bad breath, sexism and so on. Get the backing of a Sunday newspaper!

Basically under most Western Contract Law, he’s stuffed and as he’s a shit, you needn’t waste any time feeling bad about it!

If on the other hand it is Russia, buy an AK47 first!

Steve Alker
Xspirt

I'm making the assumption that you are not in a country where an AK47 will make the rules.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't think it's really blackmail in the strictest sense of the word, but it might be illegal, and at the very least, on some level, immoral to leave and take all your clients with you.

However, it could be seen as blackmail to threaten your boss that if he won't raise your pay you'll leave and take the clients with you. That's like holding a gun to his head.

As with most dilemmas, there are two sides to this.

Side One
Your boss took you in and gave you a job, and office, the equipment and supplies you needed, paid you a salary, gave you a client and in return expected you to grow the business. Which you have done - maybe in a far more successful way than your boss may have ever dreamed of.

Side Two
Your boss gave you a job and expected you to work hard at increasing his wealth while offering you only a flat base salary with no bonus or incentives for increasing the business. Now he sees you have grown the client base, he perceives your value as low and decides to replace you with a cheaper resource.

What to do from here?
Now you could sit down and have a grown up conversation with the boss and explain you feel you have contributed in a big way to increased profits (do you have the figures to prove it?) and instead of a raise, you'd like to have a share of any further increase in profits that you make from here on.

Alternatively, you could invest whatever you need to set up your own business, leave, and take the clients with you. If they will come. You may have no written contract preventing you from doing so, but your clients may have some kind of a contract with your boss. You need to know about that.

Up to you. If you stay and negotiate, you will not be burning any bridges. Leave, and you'll burn that bridge and the boss may find some way to get even, e.g. through the courts.

Perhaps you could discuss your ideas with one of your closest clients in strict confidence and see what they say.

Chris - stop being un-Australian! Drink some Fosters and support the guy! Sure he should check the law and quietly talk to his clients, but trying to negotiate with a class A1 prick is offensive (Unless he secretly tapes the interview as evidence!)

Steve

I don't have all of the facts (we need to hear back from you), but you almost certainly should not talk to the clients about your new business while you are still employed elsewhere.

If you are comfortable that most of the clients would follow you and that would bring you enough business to stay alive, I would lean towards going on your own (then again, I am comfortable without the security of a paycheck).

Two things you need to be concerned with. One is setting up a business. Assuming you are in the US, I would recommend you read the book listed at this blog post from a while back:
https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2005/08/start-up-book-recommendation.html

I've recommended it to many people, and no one has said they regretted getting it and reading it.

The second is the issues of how do you bring customers with you without getting into a lawsuit. You'll need to check under what you signed and what the local laws are to see what is allowed legally (though, even if legal, you may not avoid a lawsuit). May be worth spending some cash to check with a local attorney on this issue.