Concentrating hard

I worked at home today (management speak for 'skived off') in the hope that I could concentrate on my spreadsheet and remain out of sight and out of mind of the consultants that their inane claims on my time.

My hope was still born. As I was nowhere to be seen, their inane remarks and questions couldn't possibly wait, resulting in a series of calls to my cell phone.

Brenda: "Can I edit the contracts myself?"

Marijke:"Really? What? You mean someone has to
check the contracts and invoices before the get signed and money
paid?

Jimmy:"Am I disturbing...

Yes, very.

Jimmy: "... only I was wondering about my free days carried over from last
year."

Naturally, none of this can wait until I am back in the office.

The news in brief

One of our owners has rented his apartment to two female prostitutes from Thailand and has asked for an appendix to the rental agreement in which states that no ‘personal activities’ (aka brothel) may take place in his apartment. Right – like that’s really gonna ensure this won’t happen. “Come on… come back to my place. Oh no – I’ve just re-read the rental agreement and you’re not allowed to.”

One of our rental clients has attempted suicide by jumping from a third-floor balcony. The first we heard of this was when the owner called making a poor show of concern for the health of said individual, followed by a poor show of feigning disinterest in the probability of threat to his rental income stream.

Another of our rental clients – actually a large party – has tried to sneak in an extra 10 people into a group of apartments for which there is a price agreement on a per-person, per-night basis. The ‘sneak’ factor was weak (verging on pathetic) resulting in us spotting this feeble attempt at deception within five minutes. The upshot is that we can invoice for another Euro 14.500. Not a bad return for ‘seeing something obvious’.

This is the end of the news in brief.

Big bag of money

It gives me no pleasure at all to be right. In fact, there’s a certain pressure that is created from being the source of all human correctness. Sometimes I deliberately make mistakes so that others see I’m ‘just like them.’ For example, this morning I intentionally mis-added some large numbers that were to appear on an invoice in the certain knowledge that one of our better consultants would spot the mistake and pull me up on it. Instead, he immediately approved the calculation (that’s my job by the way), instructed finance to create the invoice (that’s my job by the way), asked the other managing partner – Frank – to give the payment a ‘go’ (also my job) in doing so insisted that all was just fine because I had added up the original figures. The client, on receiving an invoice for way too much calls us – fuming – like we’re total morons and all fingers point at me.

That the official last time that I play dumb. That’s right – official.

The circus guys are checking in tonight. That was the planning, at least. There is the minor issue however of them not having paid a penny of sixty-five thousand Euro. A big ol’ bag of loot. No problem, says the head circus guy (I have an image of him dressed as a clown) – we’ll bring the entire payment in cash. Hamid – our finance guy – has the challenging double task of counting the notes and not keeping any of them.