nags of a similar ilk

Working alone is going to take some adjusting. Some readjusting is more like it. I haven't worked by myself, telecommuting, on a regular basis for over five years now, no, six years. Telecommuting, sure, here and there, consulting, yes. But I've had Mike and Doyle to work with for the last three years, and VA before that. It's been many years, and many friends ago, since then. I feel older, wiser, and, oddly enough, less interested in embracing the singular lifestyle than I used to be.

Never one to consider myself a social person, I've tended away from the big groups and large parties. Yet, if these past few years have shown me anything, it's the amazing group of people who are in my life, the friends I've made and, holy crap, the friends I've managed to keep. Guy once told me how he selected his friends: they're the people who make him a better person, make him happy. If I look around at all the people in my life, the friends I have around me now, I have to say, I'm doing pretty well, because these are incredible around me, every one of them making me a better person.

Not really where I intended to go with this. I was going to spend 20 minutes complaining about how, now that I don't work with Doyle, I have no exposure to any good music stations and have no idea where to start looking. I just listened to Doyle's music at work, bought the 5% I liked and brought it home to Kris, who then thought I was a music maven with all my song goodies. Now, I'm music-less and have no idea where to start to look for the good stuff...

Instead, I'll just wallow in the goodness of the amazing people around me, and fall asleep smiling.

Gah. It's the ninth of November and I've barely posted anything this month. What a disaster, as I try to catch up on all the posts that I've written but not published, or outlined but not written, or what have you. I hate posts that say, "Uh, duh, sorry I haven't written, so I'll just write about not having written." Stupid crap. No one likes to read that.

The good news for today, aside from the fact I'm actually writing, which is always a good thing, I think, is that we finally fired an impossible client today.

The client is one who has been with us for a while now. Despite our best efforts, and that's my effort, Doyle's effort and Mike's effort, we weren't able to keep the client's projects from heading into scope expansion and feature creep. We thought we'd learned our lesson with the first part of the project, and explicitly spelled out what we were going to do in the second part of the project, and hopefully make back some of that loss. I'm not sure why we thought we would able to correct the failing relationship and management this way, we weren't.

Finally, I just started saying no. Any idea how hard saying no is for me? It's hard.

So, we told the client we were done. We wouldn't be continuing working on his projects. I can't believe how much relief I felt at this. However, I'll believe it when the project is actually transferred away.

Morning time. What better time to go see another Harry Potter film than morning? I mean, just because you walk out of the theatre expecting cool and dark, and get hot and bright, doesn't mean you shouldn't go see Harry Potter at 11:30 in the morning on the company's dime.

Call it a reward for hard work.

I picked up Guy from his home (he deserved a huge bonus for all the hard work he's been doing around the house), picked up Doyle from the office, and off we went to the theatre, me in a huge panic because it's the day after opening day, and everyone knows that means full theatres.

Guy didn't think so. Doyle didn't think so. I had visions of young kids, out of school, swarming the theatre, making lots of noise.

I was so wrong.

When we arrived, there were four people in the theatre already. By the time the movie started, there were only about fifty. Certainly not enough to fill the theatre or cause the undue level of stress I felt.

The actual movie? Just like the book: lots of words and teenage angst.

A client contested an invoice with us today.

0.2% over the quote. $31 over the quote.

Do I really suck this much at running a business, or is this par for the course?

Mike came into the office today, warning Doyle and I we may have lost a client. All three of us were working full tilt on the emergency, get this six week project done in two weeks project, and none of us had worked on the small tweaks the first client needed done.

Just after saying this, Mike turned away, and started working on yet another third project for a different client than the first two just mentioned.

Doyle and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, thought, "eh," and went back to finishing up that two week project.

I'm not sure what else we were supposed to do.

Update: Apparently, Mike is hurt and angry at this post, feeling I left out critical facts about this event. Fortunately, this is my blog and I can write whatever the hell I want. Hell, I can even mother fucking thrice damned curse on this blog if I fucking want to.

So, there. The rest of the fucking facts.