Once in a while, I learn a few things in the business world and use this blog to share my experiences, lessons and consequences to those who may be thinking of doing similar things.
Alright - for whatever it’s worth, this really pisses me off and since I have a blog and I free to voice out my feelings right? I’m not going to provide details because that’s just not cool - but I will provide some general insights into what pissed me off to actually post 
To illustrate my point, let’s take this scenario:
Ever worked in a company and thought the few people you connected with are your friends and at least have decency? Well, there’s no such thing. As much as someone bitches about how bad the company is treating them, or how political a company is, and how someone else got a promotion before them, or their other complaints - DO NOT TRUST THOSE PEOPLE. At the end of the day, you will regret trusting.
Recently, you got a lead (and NOT PAID FOR THESE REFERRALS!) that another company was looking for a director of biz dev - so what do you do? You thought of a couple of people you knew and deem as friends, and informed them. Hindsight 20/20 what a fucking big mistake. Why do you even bother…
It you ignorance and blind trust, you forwarded that opportunity to one or two people - whom you thought were friends. Keyword here is trust. But you got ratted out and now you realize the trust was not reciprocal.
Perhaps the person used your goodwill to their advantage in attempts to get brownie points, so you hope it was worth it at the end of the day for them, wish them the best and move on.
Well, that “trust” was burnt, obviously - you just got a C&D letter telling you that you tried to solicit an employee for another company. Of course, you are at fault for contacting old friends (at least you thought so), but how dumb of you to expect that at the first chance someone gets, they will take every opportunity to get into the good graces of someone else.
At the end of the day, this is a life lesson and I hope the 3 readers of my blog don’t make the same mistake.
So what is the first lesson I learn in 2010 from the scenario I created?
- don’t violate your contract. It’s not worth helping someone out for. (Yes, almighty company, I admit my mistake. You have deeper pockets than I do LOL…)
- don’t trust that the people you are helping out of goodwill is going to return the favor.
- don’t try to connect someone with a better opportunity. chances are they won’t see it until its too late.
- don’t take others’ complaints to heart. in other words, DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR THEM. Just give them some whine with that cheese.
- don’t break the rules for ANYONE - no exceptions, no IFs, ANDs, or BUTs - especially when you don’t even get friendship in return.
I’m sure these things happen all the time in small, medium or large companies - but I guess its a complement to you if you ever get the C&D letter. Those who have gotten one probably knows what I mean.
SUMMARY
Companies hate to fess up, but they send those C&D letters out to defend against something that “threatens” them - fear of losing. I don’t care if you are Yahoo, Google, or one of those smaller online companies. Great people leave and you start sweating, monitoring their every move…it’s a great corporate safeguard. And it works.
Anyone know or been through my made-up scenario before? I’d like to hear from you.
Keep it real.
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