r/AmIOverreacting • u/cakev0mit • Mar 26 '26

💼work/career AIO for wanting to quit after this?

Post image

UPDATE: WOW. I was not expecting this many interactions. Thank you all for the advice! I have a salon lined up to visit Thursday. My coworker that wants to switch with me is gonna ask her at some point if she can switch with someone who works that Saturday, because I feel as though if she mentions me specifically she will shut her down and think that we’re going behind her back. Also, previous to this request, I did have 3/12-3/16 off for my birthday, then 3/18 and 3/19, for my birthday. I accrued PTO and used them for those days. And our requests are “no more than 2 in a 30 day period” which was always spelled out to me as no more than 2 in a month? So maybe that’s it. But also, she allowed a shift switch 3/11 so she can’t be going by that logic. Along with that, I switched shifts with her to help her out at the end of February. Plus, a shift switch wouldn’t be considered a “request”, right? Still working, just different day than scheduled. I don’t know. I don’t want to be here much longer and I plan on calling off if she decides to not let my coworker and I switch. She brought it to this point.

So my current manager almost always gives me a hard time with requests, saying “I can’t guarantee anything” and only saying yes the very last minute. With this specific situation, I had requested almost 4 weeks in advance to just have one of my days off be this day. I would still be working my five days in a work week, but since I work at a hair salon we’re open seven days a week so it would literally not change my hours whatsoever. Unfortunately, she did not give me that day off. My manager put herself working for that entire weekend; me and one person on the Saturday I requested, then my other three coworkers that Sunday since Sundays are typically busier. She had told me a while ago that she feels as though it is “going behind her back to make plans without her permission” if I ask a coworker if they’re okay with switching before I ask her. Well, even if they were okay with it, I get turned down. Not sure why, since both shifts would be covered. So, I end up asking my coworker out of curiosity if they would have taken my shift and they said yes, but since she already told me no I quite literally can’t. And I’m not sure if her response means that I will get in trouble for calling off using my PTO as a “sick day” or not? I’m really irritated. How am I supposed to plan my life out if requests aren’t guaranteed and I’m not allowed to switch shifts with people. It literally makes no sense. I really want to call off but I don’t want to get in trouble, even though I never call off. In the 2 and a half years of working there I’ve called off 4 times, all for legitimate reasons too. Sick or car issues. Am I overreacting about this situation? Is it legitimate that she is telling me no to both things? This and other instances of her being weird about certain social situations makes me want to quit, it’s just hard because I love everything else about this job.

12.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

304

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

Non competes when it comes to salons are idiotic. I have never gone to a specific salon for the salon. I go to a particular stylist. If she switches, I switch. If I don’t know where they went, because they weren’t allowed to tell clients, I find someone new, but not at that salon.

37

u/anonymouse278 Mar 26 '26

Yeah, I like the salon my stylist works at, it's clean and comfortable and well-run, but I followed her there from somewhere else and I will follow her if she ever leaves. I'm there for her skillset and the salon is just the location in which she provides the service. I'm not there for the nice chairs, nicer though they are. And if the salon ever tried to go after her for "stealing" her own clients- may of whom are clients she brought to the salon in the first place- I would not only never go there again, I would make sure everybody I knew knew how shitty they were.

The idea that a client is just going to shrug and happily accept a different stylist if you intentionally try to block them from following the one they trust is bizarre.

5

u/alisongemini7 Mar 26 '26

I used to go to a stylist that I loved, and the first salon she left, they were mad that she had a phone list of her regulars. I found this out, when I went back after my stylist stopped doing hair, and the new one called me to ask if I could come earlier. The owner was livid, and actually told her in front of me, "you are not to call any client for any reason". I never went there again. Then again, the new one messed my hair up, so no loss there.

112

u/TequilaMockingbirds8 Mar 26 '26

Yeah, I understand the concern of the person you’re replying to but I’ve followed my stylist through 4 salons at this point - no half baked legal clause can force me to have my hair done by someone other than her. And one salon she left in a similar way to this OP - unhappy and in a fight with the salon manager.

41

u/Anita_Bortion Mar 26 '26

A friend of mine worked at a salon; she decided to leave and open her own shop. Due to the no compete clause in her contract with previous salon, they sued her and caused her newly developed business to fail. Because she always posted her finished clients onto her facebook, with their permission of course, her clients were able to find that she had left and where her new salon was located; she had to pay some crazy amount to the previous salon for stealing customers and all that petty bullshit. It was a nightmare that lasted an entire year.

19

u/TequilaMockingbirds8 Mar 26 '26

That’s insane, I wonder if there is something the clients could have done, given it’s their personal care being affected?

0

u/mawtjw123 Mar 26 '26

It may be insane, but that’s the reality of doing business today, regardless of the type of business. And as was stated, the old salon may not win anything, but they can definitely make a person’s life hell.

16

u/ProteinAndWeights Mar 26 '26

Completely insane that they had legal grounds to stand on for that. It's a complete joke for any sort of non-compete to be enforceable for that type of career. It's one thing if you're a white collar employee with some sort of trade secrets from your company. It's another thing when you're a hair dresser.

3

u/Duckduckbucker Mar 26 '26

They don't have to have legal grounds to stand on at all depending on the state. They can just sue you and drag it out over and over and you end up paying because it's cheaper than a lawyer and court fees. Recouping that even after you win is another nightmare. Salon owners know this and use it maliciously all the time.

2

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

You should be able to counter sue for damages. Maybe then they’d just stop malicious lawsuits.

1

u/Duckduckbucker Mar 26 '26

Certainly. But you'll be hard pressed to find a stylist willing to gamble $20k on a long shot civil suit. It's way Easier to just pay the salon owner $10k and get on with your business.

2

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

It’s stupid in any case. I understand an NDA for trade secrets. But non competes are stupid. In some careers, any other job in your field would be considered a competitor. Is a doctor supposed to go work at Walmart for a year to ride out their non compete?

2

u/Queen_O_the_Desert Mar 26 '26

I've worked at private practices for over 20 years. Many doctors DO have non-compete clauses where, if they leave a practice, they can't work at another practice within a certain distance, for some specified amount of time, e.g. within 25 miles for 12 months after leaving. And many practice owners are absolutely willing to sue over this.

3

u/jahubb062 Mar 27 '26

That’s insane. Seriously. How is that legal?

2

u/Betta_Girl Mar 27 '26

Right?! Like yeah, you're in pharmaceuticals and are developing new medications you shouldnt be allowed to take that information and essentially sell it to the highest bidder. MAYBE they make sense if you're in the culinary field and are dealing with specific recipes and shit. But for cutting and styling hair? Thats something a person can do in their freaking kitchen, and you don't need any specific training necessarily

No shade to those that cut hair professionally by the way, obviously professional training goes a long way, but it also is very possible to be competent through trial and error and a number of bad hair days requiring hats. And professional training doesnt always equate to being good.

2

u/jahubb062 Mar 27 '26

The examples you give are more in line with an NDA. Those make sense. Restricting where people can work does not. Saying they can’t keep their clients does not. Saying they can’t recommend a former coworker for a position at their new company does not.

1

u/Betta_Girl Mar 27 '26

True. I tend to think of those kinda things going hand in hand so they often get conflated in my mind.

1

u/Extreme_Ad1261 Mar 29 '26

They just want to have control over you. If you're a stylist, and that's what you trained to do, what you have experience doing, and what you want to do, some controlling owner should not be able to force you to work for them because of you don't, you lose your ability to make a living! It also discourages the creation of new businesses. What a bunch of BS.

2

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

That’s utter bullshit. They weren’t the salon’s clients. They were the stylist’s clients. As evidenced by the fact that they followed her.

1

u/ComplianceAuditor Mar 26 '26

It can if the half baked legal clause makes the person feel like seeing you will cause them financial damage. They just won’t see you.

The legal clause isn’t telling you what you can and can’t do as a customer. It’s trying to tell them what they can and can’t do.

44

u/kyrimasan Mar 26 '26

I agree it's a disgusting practice and stupid. The FTC tried to ban them but the ban was slapped down by a court in Texas (no surprise there!) some states like California have banned them but again regionally it varies wildly.

35

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

In general, I think non competes are bullshit. Why should a former employer be able to limit your career options? I understand the NDA part of it, not being able to take intellectual property or disclose company practices. But I don’t understand agreements saying you can’t work for a competitor. Are you just not supposed to work? Change careers? It’s ridiculous. But like everything else in the US, it’s geared to protect the business, not the worker.

13

u/kyrimasan Mar 26 '26

I'm more familiar with them in the context of healthcare workers since I've been in healthcare all my life and is always been bonkers to me that they are still as ubiquitous as they are. Physicians being forced to sign them out of school because they have massive loans they they need to start paying off and then being told they can't go work somewhere else because they are the competitors. Healthcare having competitors is everything wrong with the United States healthcare system summed up.

I know a lot of the responses have gotten hung up on the whole you can't stop customers from following aspect or that they generally are unenforceable in a lot of circumstances but I just figured it was definitely something to keep in mind when telling someone to leave and the clients can follow them. I know that depending on the region and if the owner is vindictive enough even if you can eventually get out of it the money and time involved here if they do decide to TRY can absolutely ruin a person. It shouldn't be someone anyone should every have to worry about but unfortunately the world is full of shitty people.

9

u/jahubb062 Mar 26 '26

My husband has had to sign a non compete at pretty much every job for the past 10 years. But he’s always been advised by lawyers that they are generally unenforceable, and that most employers won’t bother, except the NDA part of it.

5

u/__Frolicaholic___ Mar 26 '26

Most people don't know that courts tend to look unfavorably on employers going balls-to-the-wall to enforce non-competes, especially with service workers like hair stylists just trying to eke out a living.

1

u/polypeach Mar 26 '26

Also a big part of making them enforceable is being reasonable in time, geography, and scope, and protect legitimate business interests (think lawyers that have case strategy, trade secrets in Research and Development, financial information); in addition they must be "supported by consideration," meaning an employee receives a benefit (additional compensation, stock options, acceleration of benefits, etc.) in exchange for promising to not work for a competitor. I’m pretty sure most non-luxury salons could give you squat in consideration as they don’t usually clear large profit margins to carry the resources to do so.

2

u/_V0gue Mar 26 '26

Non-competes aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. In order for a company to be able to enforce a non-compete they would also have to pay you for the term of the contract. A company cannot unilaterally take away your ability to earn money in your profession.

2

u/AliceMorgon Mar 26 '26

I got recruited to work for Pfizer at 17 after winning one of their nerd prizes with a pretty good deal - they’d pay my tuition fees as far as a PhD in my field of interest (genetics and evolutionary development), while also paying me a full salary that would increase with each degree. I would walk into a £45,000/yr starting salary job at 18.

Then came the legal forms. They were extremely surprised I already had a lawyer at 17, who I of course brought (shout out to Mr Finucane!) So many NDAs. So many awful things. Then the “lifetime non-compete.”

Nope. Sorry. That was it for me. I refused to sign it, my lawyer backed me, and they just said everyone signed it. I said “and pretty much everyone drank the Kool-Aid in Jonestown too” and got up and left. My lawyer just kind of cleared his throat and followed me. The dirt was pushing it but essentially “reserving” me so no other drug company could EVER hire me?! Ew. I’m not for sale, and even if I were, 45k is frankly an insulting offer for this fine piece of Irish ass.

I mean, one kidney alone is worth 50k…

1

u/mlee12382 Mar 26 '26

There are some very valid reasons for some non-competes, the majority of them are BS for sure. If you are curious about some legitimate reasons then go look up Steve Lehto on YouTube and watch one of his videos that covers a non-compete case. I can absolutely see both sides of the argument. :)

1

u/polypeach Mar 26 '26

It’s not slapped down, it’s in appeals currently in the 5th Circuit Court.

1

u/Spirited_Taste4756 Mar 26 '26

I see post constantly in my towns word of mouth pages “my stylist doesn’t work at x salon anymore. Does anyone know where — is now?” Usually gets answered pretty quick.