bizgirl

international librarian of mystery

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Efficiency pays.

Well, thank-you to everyone who emailed after my last post, and suggested workarounds to the task that lay ahead of me at the start of last week. With the help of a couple of otherwise under-utilised lads within more-or-less instantanteous MSN or Gmail contact, I managed to cut hours from the task that had been allocated me. By the start of Thursday, I had done all the updates, and even eye-balled all the changes, a full seven working days ahead of schedule. I mucked about on Friday, double-checking everything, catching up with email and trying to write a blog entry or two. By mid-afternoon I realised I wasn't going to be able to maintain the facade for a whole week, so went to see my boss-for-the-fortnight, John.

"Coffee?" he asked, gesturing back at his filter, stewing away faithfully behind him.
"No, thunks."

I took a breath. Was I about to do myself out of a week's worth of wages?

"I'm finished, actually."
"Pardon me?"
"I've done all the updates. I've done the input and proof-read it all. I think you'll find it's fine. I'm happy to come back and make any changes if you find any errors, but I'm pretty sure it's all okay."
"Well. Really. Already? All done?"
"Yes."
"Well. Fantastic. I will, uh, be getting a couple of the team to go through the updates before the project can be signed off, and we'll obviously let you know if anything needs a touch-up, but, if you're done, well, you're done I suppose."

I asked (in such a roundabout way that I can't even begin to reproduce it here) about the matter of my pay. John assured me I had been hired to complete the contract at the price agreed upon. The pay was for the job, not the time. Payment would be transferred to my account as soon as the job was signed off.

I sighed with relief. Efficiency does pay.

John stood up, and straightened his tie.

"Natalie, " he said, "it was lovely meeting you."
"And you John."

We parted ways.

How great is New York! I figure if I can keep up this sort of contract work, I could live in this city indefinitely.