Last night, I attended an industry party for the last industry I worked in. The pandemic has screwed everything up, obviously, but here we are. A year and a half later figuring how to navigate the world and other humans and all of the living we missed. In my case, I’m also reckoning a bit with the before-work and the after-work. Until August of 2019, I had spent 4 years breaking ground in the industry of Interior Design. It was my dream field and the deepest connection to work I had ever felt. Until I found myself pushed out.

I’ve spent a lot of time going back and forth over whether I was actually pushed out or just failed at it. Well.

Walking into the party with my friend, Shelby–a former co-worker at the interior design firm where we worked together on some incredible projects–my eyes were peeled for our old bosses. Shelby was invited because she was spec’ing tiles from the company throwing the party (as a badass interior designer with her own firm), and also because she had designed tile for said company while employed at our last firm. I was thrilled for the invite: thrilled for the connection to the old world that I loved so dearly, and to stand by her incredibly tasteful side for the evening. I saw the tile company owners right away, and then an installer we worked with daily in our days at that last firm. The installer, a veritable good dude, was definitely the one to talk to.

• Him: “So, did you just walk away and not do any of this anymore?” 
• Me: (pause)
• Him: (looking at me)
• Me: “I wasn’t allowed to take design credit for any of my work.”
• Him: “Oh shit, they caught you in a non-compete??”

No, but yes.

They (my husband-and-wife pair of former bosses) didn’t phrase it that way. There wasn’t the contract up front designating what I could or couldn’t do after I left my employment with them. In fact, when they hired me, we were crystal clear about who they were hiring: I had over a decade of experience as a video games producer, and I had left that work two years earlier to pursue my passion of interior design. I had done work in interiors, but not enough to get hired as a designer. But I also had a substantial skillset as a producer/project manager. When they advertised looking for a project manager, I applied right away. In that initial meeting with them, I was frank: I loved interiors, but lacked the experience to fully harness it as my full time, wage-earning gig. I didn’t love games, but brought from that industry an incredible skillset for managing large, expensive, creative projects that would translate to other industries. We talked, and they agreed: I was the right kind of oddball they were looking for. They were happy for me to do the PM work, and because of the small team environment, I would be able to learn design skills and even get design credit on the jobs I was assigned to.

I’m going to be very clear in restating why I took this job: It was a job that used skills I already had, but also one that would give me experience to parlay into my future, ongoing career in interior design. Using my past to reinforce my future. Remember this.

The next 12 months were a dream. To this day, they are some of the best working experiences and projects that I have ever had in my life. My primary focus was on commercial restaurant spaces with local chefs that I already admired, and I became even more impressed with them as I worked with them. Seeing their decision points, the way they held their vision for the brand, their space, their concept, and their menu was truly delightful. And in the course of the work, we made truly beautiful spaces. Some of which have been nominated for design awards, but all are at least photographed incessantly.

But then around the 12-month mark of my being at the firm, something went wrong. One half of that husband-and-wife team turned cold toward me. You might think that’s an odd way to describe your boss, but our computers were back to back on either sides of a 3’ wide desk, and every morning when I would smile, sometimes wave, and say good morning, I would be ignored. Patently, stared downward, ignored. Every morning starting at the 12-month mark. I wasn’t the only employee to get the cold shoulder like this, and it’s my fault that I only started seeing it once I was receiving it. But this owner had (and I’m sure still has) an on/off switch. If you’re a client or supplier, it’s always on: you are greeted with a hug and a long conversation when you walk in. If you’re an employee, you’re on until you’re off. And then you’re off forever.

From there it was a slippy slide downhill for me. At the 12 month mark, I received no new projects except from two clients that my bosses actively didn’t like (a total of two exploratory projects). Within 3 months, they implemented policies that turned around their prior “core hours/but flexible” policies, and instead insisted on butts in seats from 10AM to 5PM. But we were only allowed to bill for project work. So if we didn’t have the projects to support a full day of work, we still had to be on-site or else reprimanded, and good luck to us if we could get paid for it.

I asked for more projects. I asked for more work regularly. I was turned away each time. I did the math and found that I was making about $15/hr for highly skilled work that the firm was charging $120/hr for.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I put together one plan after another to wrap up the outstanding projects I still had. One in particular was an anchor restaurant for a new, boutique hotel on the east side of Austin. We lined up a ton of custom work for it: banquettes, tables, light fixtures, murals, even painting custom installations in the bathrooms. I was the person on-site for several days coordinating all of these installers and fabricators, and I tell you what: I have never felt so alive as when I was doing that. I knew at that moment that I had fully harnessed all of these aspects of my new set of skills, and I had the respect of these contractors, and the space was beautiful, and the clients were happy, and this was going to be my life forevermore.

I was so wrong.

There were a few remaining decisions that were not mine to make as I was not the principle of the firm. I made a book outlining options for our principle (the not-cold-shoulder boss), and let them know how quickly the client wanted an answer. After a couple of days with nothing from that boss, and them admitting that they had lost my packet, I put it together again. And again. I’ve lost count of how many times I reprinted that packet for them. A lot of paper, ink, and apologies to the client were spent that month just because this half of the boss team would not spend any time finishing out this project. Ironically (irritatingly), every single person involved was desperate for it to be done and the final bill to get sent in. Said boss included.

A month after that big hotel-restaurant install, I was OOO for foot surgery. When I pulled the bosses aside to let them know, their words were reassuring, but their faces were disappointed. I wondered if they were hoping to fire me within the next few days but had just lost their shot. My partner and I talked it over, and he begged me to quit. It wasn’t the first time he had, but every other time I had been deep in a project that I loved for a client that I respected deeply. Every other time was not the right time. This time, after my surgery break, it was bound to be.

Two weeks post-op, the first day I was cleared to drive again, I was heading into work. Ready to pull the bosses aside and have the conversation. On my drive in, I got a text from the not-cold one: “Can you meet me at the coffee shop when you get here?” I knew what they meant. I pulled aside and called my partner. We agreed: this was a firing ambush. But I was already on my way in with a quitting ambush. My best bet was to see what they had to say first before showing my hand.

They (both of them) were ugly about it. I wasn’t surprised that they were, but I am so prone to expect the best in people that I was shocked more than once by what they said. The hotel-restaurant project not being finished? It was my fault. And a litany of other issues that largely boiled down to “we don’t like you being here” were laid down at my feet as my wrongdoings. More than once, they made the neutral “part ways” statement and then immediately followed it up with finger pointing and blame. I expected all of this. The cold behavior, the being cut out of work that I had been on, even being kept away from clients that I knew and had worked with previously: it was all the flavor of petty behavior that aligned with the other petty behavior I had seen directed towards me and other co-workers in the prior 8 months.

So okay, they want to fire me instead of me quitting. What’s the difference?

• “We’ll pay you your next paycheck as severance.” Okay.
• "I (the not-cold-shoulder-one-who-is-actually-an-interior-designer-of-merit) will write you a letter of recommendation.” Okay. 
• “We’ll let you have access to photos for the projects you worked on.” (This was actually a month-long fight, but…) Okay.
• “You can’t take design credit for the work you did here. Your title was Project Manager. That’s the only work you did here.”

Umm.

When I joined the firm, the offer was that despite the title of Project Manager, I would get design credit for any projects on which I did design work. And while I did not design on all of the projects I was assigned to, I did design for most of them.

When I left, I told my former co-workers about this exit clause. I told my former clients about this exit clause. I told my former collaborators and installers and makers about this exit clause. They all had the same response.

“That’s bullshit.”

And in the moment each time, I felt so righteous. I felt puffed up, and supported. Like I could just say FUCK IT and claim my own work and go forth in this industry that I loved so much.

But I knew I couldn’t.

The people who knew me, knew my work, and supported me weren’t at the level that I needed to believe me. Those people were bound to believe my old bosses first. And why not? They had and have a reputation for being cool, kind, open, and just damn great to work with. I’m sure that every client they’ve sandbagged on a bid thinks it was just the one time, or the clients that have had to beg to stop the excess billing think there was a miscommunication along the way. And all future employees who find themselves caught in the web of watching a husband and wife fight openly at the office, but unable to address the palpable discomfort in the room as a result, I’m sure many still think they’re just seeing it all wrong until the day they need to leave. And that boss team. I know they think of their firm as a place to spend a long time learning high-level lessons when actually, the little bit of knowledge they do have is picked up on quickly and easily by anyone paying attention.

I walked away with an empty bag. There’s a gulf of a difference between someone who can say they were a designer on two of 3 “best designed” restaurants in a foodie town like this vs. a project manager who claims the same. I went to them with two years of work in this industry. My industry credibility was tanked the moment they said I couldn’t take credit for my work.

In case it wasn’t clear already: I designed on those projects. We would sit down as a team and make decisions. I would find inspiration, find sources, find materials. Work with the installers or climb on a ladder to make the judgement calls on what went where.

I did that work. And I’m not bent out of shape because I wanted a chance that I didn't get. I’m pissed off because I found the chance, took it, did a great job with it, was praised for it, and then was cut out entirely.

So seeing that installer last night and hearing, “Oh shit, they caught you in a non-compete??” it stopped me. And seeing today’s executive order that strives to “… ban or limit non-compete agreements.” Well.

These two humans I used to work for are not the worst of the worst by a mile.
But they are short-sighted, selfish, and they have systematically taken steps to limit the economic mobility of their former employees. 

If that weren’t the case, I could have parlayed those incredible, beloved interior jobs into future work. Instead I had to change industries. CHANGE INDUSTRIES. I'm not the only one of their former employees that has had to do so. This is the cost of non-compete agreements. This is the cost of failing to, per the AIA, "recognize and respect the professional contributions of their employees, employers, professional colleagues and business associates.” This is what selfish people do.

Learn from my story. The signs were always there. They usually are.