Here are the missing details. Thank each of you for your replies and advice. Being too close to it, I’m not sure if it is all clear enough to help. Please let me know if you have any questions.
I ran the (internally and sales-focused) Training department of a sales-driven company. I am a subject matter expert in the field the company operates in, had been at the company for 4 years in a high visibility position. I have a 20 year background and am fairly well known in the field. My reputation at the company and in the industry was outstanding.
I had mentioned to my boss (one of 2 VP’s) before the end of 2008, and again in a Training update brief I had turned in just prior to the end-of-January board meeting, that I was interested in opportunities for my department to contribute in a profit-generating role. However, on several occasions over the last few months, my VP had suggested that my job would be safer if I moved into a sales role. Although it wasn’t what I wanted, I thought creatively about that option and about ways to serve the company meaningfully and profitably should the company ask me to take a demotion in order to save my job. It was clear that business was steadily declining for the company. Feeling financially vulnerable, I thought about which markets might be profitable over the next several years – “Where will the money be?” Chasing a “dead niche” held no interest for me, and having been self-employed for much of my career, I know how important it is to “follow the money”. Quickly, the government came up as a big-money potential client in my market. It seemed equally obvious that minority or women-owned businesses held a greater chance of success in the government market, so I decided to look into it. Having never done business with the government before, I was under the common perception that working with the government is a difficult and bureaucratic process, so further research was necessary.
I ran the concept by a close colleague (“Colleague 1”) at the company, who had successfully pitched new business ideas to the company’s board in the past. Her advice was to not bring a half-developed idea to the owners. To have a prayer of success, the plan would need to be to be fully developed; I’s dotted and T’s crossed and not a stone unturned. There would be tough questions, all of which would require confident answers for the idea to have a chance.
I also ran the concept by another colleague, (“Colleague 2”) a peer of mine (both of the people I shared the information with were also let go, at the same time and for the same stated reason). She shared similar concerns about her role at the company. The market had changed dramatically and her boss (let’s call him John – John was the one who discovered our research and was the one who let us all go) likely was motivated to remove Colleague 2’s layer of management to secure his own position in a potential downsizing. Colleague 2 felt vulnerable and believed she might also be asked to step into a sales role. She mentioned to me that she knows someone who had pitched a women-owned spinoff to a prior employer who embraced it whole-heartedly and to a profitable outcome.
It became quickly evident that in order to research opportunities with the government, one must be registered as a government contractor. Government agencies will not even talk to you unless you can first feed them your “cage code”, which identifies you as a registered contractor. In order to register and receive a cage code, one must first register a DBA with the county. I filed a DBA the day I was let go. Our research was at a standstill until we took that step.
Since this was a project to benefit the company, we briefly discussed what name to use for the DBA over the company’s email, and never thought twice about doing so. If we had intentions of starting a competitive business, we never would have used company systems or time. If we had intentions of hurting the company by establishing a competitive business, or to access the company’s data for our own purposes, there would be a record of such acts, and yet none exists. If I had been planning to leave the company, I would have protected the data, training and materials that I brought to the company when I joined. None of that happened, because our research was about a new business line for the company.
We were at such an early stage in our research that we were not at all ready to disclose the idea to anyone. When the time came, we planned only to disclose it directly to the partners, and perhaps to my VP.
Colleague 2 and I were confronted together by John and a witness (leader of the local Admin. team). Colleague 1 is in a remote location and was called later that day to be let go. John quoted a couple emails between me and Colleagues 1 & 2 (which the company is unwilling to send me copies of) about the name to use on a dba with the county. One of the emails was created on my personal email account. I opened that email on the company system the morning of my dismissal. They must have somehow “ghosted” my screen (not sure if that is the right term) in order to see it, which is part of my question - is that proper??
The confrontation could best be described as an ambush. I didn’t report John, my boss was not there, and I refused to answer to John. John took that to mean I was guilty. We were simply not ready to pitch the idea of securing government business for the company. In hindsight, we wish we would have handled a few things quite a bit differently that day. If we had been guilty, we probably would have better prepared ourselves for an ambush.
We had neither the intention of leaving the company nor that of starting a competitive company.
The company sent an email after our dismissal that we were let go for “attempting to start a competing company”. That being damaging to our reputations, we sent a letter to the board (this is a modified version of that letter – here, names and some details that wouldn’t make sense to you were removed) asking them to retract incorrect or slanderous information given to the team or anyone else. Since then, the company has back-peddled on their language to the team. Should I request severance, or initiate a suit?