Thursday was hotter than satan’s cat and I had the opportunity to rip off a client.
My office is above the uninsulated garage with a metal door that catches the sun. By about 10:35 it becomes unbearable. A few hours later and it’s like you’ve been inside a microwave. Everything else comes via Amazon prime, why not a cheap £30 fan? I guess I forget, until it’s too late. Then it usually won’t come in time anyhow.
I could have so easily stuck 8 hours in the timesheet system that day, no one would have known or cared. We’ve got plenty of work and an open cheque book from a happy client. My ‘manager’ is elsewhere in the UK, our client in the US. None of them I’ve met in person. “Go on, take the cash”, says the devil on your shoulder. “They don’t care about you anyway.”
Well, I didn’t. And I wasn’t even tempted. Instead, I fired up slack and wrote to said manager, “It’s a million degrees in here and my brain is fried. I can’t bill more than about 1.5 hours today”. “It’s damn hot, isn’t it”, came the reply.
In hindsight, I should have taken the day off and gone to the beach whilst everyone else in the UK slugged out a sweaty commute. Instead, my diligence and honesty resulted in fractional billing and many wasted hours. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s what I hated so much about 6 month rolling contract arrangements, where Mr Recruiter’s timesheet system required 8 hours to be entered every single day. “Only 7 hours for last Wednesday, Frank? Something wrong?”
No, no. And yes, everything is wrong. I simply can’t do my best work sat in an open plan office, at a nondescript hot desk, listening to the blab around me, for 8 hours straight, punctuated by prolonged trips to the toilet just to get some fresh air. I simply can’t, and worse, I feel terrible being forced to enter those lacklustre ‘work’ hours into the timesheet system.
No, never again. I bill less now, but I only bill for genuinely good work. And I feel a hell of a lot better for it. Excuse me now please, I need a cool ice tea. And to place a next day Amazon order.