Rick Maher’s Professional Notes

Out of nowhere today I found myself in the first black and white moral dilemma of my life. I was alerted that my name was being considered for a position at the company where I am currently consulting.
My employment agreement is very clear - I am not to take a job in any capacity with a client of my employer for at least 6 months after the end of my employment.

The letter of agreement that my employer presents to any potential client is also very clear - to proceed with a project, both parties agree not to hire any employee from each other for at least six months following the end of the project.

My first reaction was flattery - I was flattered that my work thus far has been worthy of interest for a full time position on what I perceive to be a fairly prestigious team of my client’s.

Then came the guilt. One of the primary reasons for my company insisting upon a non-compete agreement with each employee as well as each client is because my company does not want every client to abandon the potential of purchasing services through hiring consultants on full time.

So, how did I respond?

I immediately thanked the client who let me know that I was ‘talked about’ as he put it. He definitely noticed my discomfort and put the silver dagger in the situation saying, ‘and no-one has to know about it at this point.’

At that point I briefly mentioned the non-compete agreement and politely changed the subject.

Next question, do I leave the opportunity open for myself and keep it between the client and myself or alert my manager and risk humiliating the client for trying to circumvent the non-compete?

I decided to alert my manager - my whole team for that matter. I’m confident it was the right decision, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a bit worried about the potential trust I may lose from the client as I assume the issue will be addressed over the next few days.

Yes, I long ago accepted a job offer, but none the less… A site like RickMaher.info just begs a resume.

As such, you can now browse over to http://rickmaher.info/resume/ to see if you think you might want to hire me!

Eventually I will get around to putting up more of an “About” page with a little bit simpler bio, but for now if you want to get to know the less professional me, click on over to http://rickmaher.com.

Being that my mom has worked for America West Vacations (now US Airways Vacations) for 11 years, I have long been lucky enough to have many opportunities to travel around the country. I also was very lucky to catch a once in a lifetime trip to Italy in 2000.

In the past year though, I have spiked my traveling even more so, making trips to:

• Chicago
• Las Vegas
• Minneapolis
• Charlotte (twice)
• Bostin
• Austin

And in the next month I will be making two of my most exciting trips yet. First is this weekend, heading up to Las Vegas (again) for a playboy type trip with the boys. I’ll leave the preview of this trip pretty bare other than mentioning that it will surely warrant a post and photo galleries over at my other site.

The most exciting trip on my mind though, is my quickly approaching spring break trip to China. Chris and I are going to visit Alex in Shanghai with planned side trips to Bejing and Xi’an to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers. There is a very good chance that this trip will warrant its own section here on rickmaher.info, so check back in late March after I get back to read all about it.

My name is Richard Riley Maher (I go by Rick Maher). Sure I’m no red headed Patrick O’Sullivan, but my geneology traces rather directly back to the Gaelic Ireland, Tiperrary to be specific.

While in Tucson this past weekend at my grandparent’s house I came across the “Irish Family Names and Seals Map” by John Bartholomew & Son. I decided to do a little research on it and here are a few of the things that I found.

It turns out that the name Maher was has evolved somewhat from around AD200 as O Meachair to O Meagher in the 1600s to Meagher and finally, as recently as the late 1800s transitioned to Maher. The roots of the word Maher come from a Gaelic word meaning “hospitable,” and in fact were in an early “census” described as “being all descended out of the house of O Meager” translated to modern day english meaning that the clan was very family oriented. The Maher family was throughout the Gaelic times known as Maher of the Sword.

The Maher family coat of arms shown here, is “Azure two lions rampant combatant or supporting a sword argent pommel and hilt of the second, in base two crescents of the third.”

Also very interesting to me were many of the other coats of arms that were on the map and their obvious influence of current corporation logos.