Sunday. Max got back from the lacrosse tournament around noon. He said it went fine in the way that means neither great nor terrible and moved directly to the refrigerator. Doug was mowing. Zoe would be asleep for another hour at minimum. I had approximately no excuse.
I went to the guest room closet.
The box was where I said it was, third shelf, under a bin of craft supplies I keep meaning to donate and a garment bag that has been in that closet since 2007 without being opened. I knew this because I had moved those items aside mentally at least a dozen times in the last week, which is a form of preparation I am apparently comfortable with but that does not actually retrieve the document.
I brought the box to the guest room bed. It was heavier than it looked. This will be relevant.
I expected administrative paperwork. What I found was a lot. More than that, it was organized. I had apparently done this in 2011 with color-coded folders and a labeling system I have not used since. Blue for employment. Green for benefits. Yellow for tax. I did not know this version of myself existed until I met her again today.
The blue folder had five documents.
Three offer letters: 2002, 2010, and 2015. I had never put them next to each other before. I was not planning to read them. I read them for about fifteen minutes.
The 2002 letter offered $48,000 base and described the role as “account coordinator” with room to “build toward senior responsibilities over time.” I want to say $48,000 felt like a lot in 2002, but I have actually checked this: median household income that year was around $42,000, and I was 25 and single, and so it was fine. Fine. Not a lot. It was fine.
The fourth document was a letter from a client in 2006, addressed to my manager at the time, saying I had “probably saved the relationship.” I did not remember this letter. I cannot explain why it is in this box instead of whatever account file I was managing in 2006. I found it the way you find a twenty-dollar bill in a coat pocket. With the same brief and slightly complicated feeling.
The fifth document was my employment agreement.
The non-solicitation clause is on page three. It is 184 words. I have read it four times. I understand most of the words individually. What they mean in combination, in my specific situation, is not something I can determine on my own. The clause distinguishes between “direct solicitation” of clients and “general market activities” without defining either phrase. It references a defined term, “Restricted Clients,” in an exhibit that does not appear to be attached to the copy I have.
I know what I need to do next. I need an employment attorney, I need to hand them this document, and I need to ask them to tell me what I can and cannot do in July. This is no longer a general-rules question. I have the document. I know the question. There is now a specific action standing between me and an answer.
I put everything back in the folder. I put the folder back in the box. I sat on the edge of the guest bed for a few minutes with the 2002 offer letter face-up on top.
Twenty-four years ago I signed something that described the role as having room to grow, and I did grow, and here I am reading the fine print of what I agreed to back when I thought this was a stepping stone. I thought it was two or three years. I thought I was passing through. I was twenty-five. I signed it without reading the exhibit. I kept my head down and worked hard and I did not ask the question I am now, at forty-nine, finally trying to answer.
“Probably saved the relationship.” That line is in a letter, in a folder, in a box, in a closet. A client wrote it to my manager and my manager presumably nodded and moved on, and somehow it found its way into my blue folder and sat in the dark for fifteen years.
I keep thinking about what it would mean to do work that doesn’t end up in a box. I don’t know exactly what that is yet. I’m working on it.