Ring! Ring!
Them: Acme and XYL Corporations. How may I direct your call?
Me: Hello, Marie. This is Daniel, your computer guy. Is Fred in? I need to speak with him about an over due invoice. I’m sure it just slipped through the cracks, or something.
Marie: Oh, Hey, Dan! Sure, I will put your through to his desk, but have you got a moment to help me with something? At least I hope it won’t take more than a moment.
Me: I will be glad to. What’s going on?
Marie: Every time I click a link in an e-mail, this Microsoft browser opens. When I manually open Google Chrome, it tells me it is not the default web browser. If I click that ‘Make Default’ button, will it cause any issues with the machine?
Me: Nope. No problems, at all. Just follow along with the prompts from that button. Do you have any other applications that are not the default but you need them to be?
Marie: As a matter of fact, I do. PDF’s open in that Microsoft browser, too. But I don’t think Acrobat is installed on this new machine.
Me: Do you need to make new PDF files? Or edit existing? Or just be able to open and read existing.
Marie: Just open them, I think. Well, I do work with some that are a form?
Me: OK. Just open them, then. Hang on a second.
…
Me: OK. I just set the remote admin tool I use to install Adobe Acrobat Reader for you. Give it about 30 minutes. THEN change the default browser. While you are in that default apps settings box, you can change the PDF default to Acrobat Reader, at the same time.
Marie: Oh, that is GREAT! Thank you so much! Hang on a second and I will patch you through to Fred.
Me: Thanks, Marie. Let me know if you have any prob… Ring! Ring!
Fred: This is Fred.
Me: Hello, Fred. This is Daniel with…
Fred: Hello, Dan. We owe you money, right? You are calling about your overdue invoice?
Me: Yes, Fred, I am. It’s been ninety days. I rushed over, when you needed me, performed emergency services for you, pulled your company from a critical down state to limping in 30 minutes and then spent the next 14 hours fixing everything that had disrupted. On top of that, because I knew you guys were starting the merge of your systems with XYL, after you bought them, I did not charge the emergency rates, juts regular scheduled rates. I knew you were in a financial tight spot and tried to help.
Fred: I remember, Dan. And Mark and I really appreciate all you have done for us. But we need a few more weeks, before I can cut you that check.
Me: Fred, as Jerry McGuire said ‘Show me the money!’. That check is less than your average payroll check to your office staff, every two weeks. And it’s been more than 90 days. Which I agreed to give you to pay, when you got the invoice and told me you would get it paid as soon as you could, but your books were all in a mess, with the merger. I’ve got my own bills and debts to pay.
Fred: I need another 30 days.
Me: Fred, You helped me write some of my business policies. It was YOUR suggestion, over a few beers, what 5 years ago? That anytime I extend a favor like this to anyone, to never go beyond 90 days. And If I must go beyond 90 days, then all discounts, rate cuts, ‘understanding’ and even waiving of late fees and penalties should be dropped and everything goes to full price and meet the letter of the agreement. Do you remember why you told me to do that?
Fred: Yeah, I do. So when you go to small claims court you have a much larger bill so when the judge cuts it down, you still get at least what you originally agreed to and that the customer is no longer a preferred client. They have to earn that back, again.
Me: Fred, we’ve worked together for far too long to go there. Let’s make this right, today.
Fred: Dan, I just can’t. I’m sorry. But my hands are tied. One of the previously quiet owners of XYL who was out voted on the sale is raising a stink, because he thinks they should have gotten double what we paid for it. Now ALL of the books, ours and theirs are being audited. We’ve got a big mess, here. I have to get approval from the auditors just to cut payroll checks. Every single one of them has to be approved, manually, by them. They are worse than the IRS, I swear it.
Me: Fred, what can we do to fix this?
Fred: Because that service was a part of the merger, it must come out of the budgeted and set-aside funds for the merger. And that account is frozen by the that out-voted non-majority holding jackass is just making everything much more difficult than it has to be. He is demanding the business should have been sold on its ‘potential value’ not it’s actual value.
Me (flippantly and frustrated): Then tell him he should have been paying the IRS taxes for the ‘Potential’ of his dividends and not his actual dividends.
Fred: I LIKE that idea. I will find a way to float that to him, through the business dealer that put us together. He’s demanding to get paid, too.
Me: But back to me and my invoice. Marty getting paid is not my problem. Though he’s a good man, I believe a lot of this is his fault. He probably could have done something to mitigate this issue from being able to happen. So, do I come by for a check, today? Or send an updated invoice, tonight?
Fred: Send me the updated invoice, now. I will put it before the auditors. I will explain your role to them and see what I can do. But I can’t meet with them, until tomorrow.
Me: OK, Fred. You will have it in your e-mail in the next half hour. I’m sorry it’s come to this.
Fred: One quick favor, please, before you strip us down to the terms of the contract? Check with Bruce and Marie? They both are having minor issues with their computers.
Me: I helped Marie with a browser issue and PDF problem. Do you know what Bills issues are?
Fred: The same, I think. Hold on. OK, Dan, I’ve got you on speaker as Bruce just came in. Bruce, this is Dan, the IT guy. We have an invoice form the merger that is 90 days over due, today. And he needs to be paid.
Bruce: OK. Then pay him.
Fred: I can’t. The auditors have that account locked. Nothing is allowed to come out of it.
Bruce: Dan? I can give you a personal check, tomorrow. Just let me know how much.
Fred: He’s sending me an updated invoice, with the late fees applied. He agreed to float it for 90 days. And you remember how much that used to hurt when it was just us and our kids starting up? Well, Dan is a one-man shop. He has helped us. A lot. And it has hurt his business, but he never complained about it, because he made the agreement in good faith. I suggest we pay him the full invoice, as soon as we can. But maybe from a different account?
Bruce: Dan? How is this going to affect our other agreement with you? The contract to manage and maintain the entire network, after the merger is complete?
Me: It will affect the pricing by about 10% across the board. But keep in mind, the network and system audit provided by XYL’s internal IT guy was off by nearly 30% on system count. Also, many of their computers are so out of date, they will not run your software. And until this merger is complete, I am prohibited from even touching those machines as they are the property of XYL, still, and she has not shared admin access to them, though I understand she has a full-time job, now, at the university. So getting anything out of her, in a timely fashion will be nearly impossible.
Bruce: When can you come by and start taking control of those machines? Hack them, if you have to. We need them under our control and connecting to do our business, immediately.
Fred: Bruce, he can do that, as soon as any check we give him, clears.
Bruce: Fred? Whose side are you on?
Fred: Ours. Dan is our contractor. And he does so much more for us that we don’t even see. Remember last summer when you thought we did not need him anymore? You thought we were paying for nothing?
Bruce: Yeah. Within three weeks we nearly crippled. I still don’t understand how that happened.
Me: I turned off my management tool that ran maintenance on all the machines and also locked myself out of your network so I could not do any work for you, unless I came on-site. Being invisible is my goal, and I was just that for more than 6 months, everything running smoothly and only minor irritants that were fixed in minutes, after getting the ticket. We had our quarterly meetings to keep us on the roadmap for growth and implementation of growth. It’s like you ruled out changing the oil or doing any preventative maintenance on a fleet of 50 delivery trucks. So things started to break down.
Fred: And he worked overtime for almost a full week, just to get us BACK to where we were, before you terminated the contract. And he did not increase our contract, though I believe he should have. Bruce, we get more quality service out of Dan than we pay for. When we have an emergency he is here for us, almost immediately. When we don’t have an emergency, we usually get same day service, still. We NEED to pay him, in full, tomorrow.
Bruce: OK. Then do it. Pay him. Take the money from wherever it needs to come from, but pay him. And we will get it back, when the audit is over and this entire merger mess is finished.
Fred: Dan, I will have your check for you, tomorrow. I can leave it with Marie, before lunch. Just get me the updated invoice, before close of business, today.
Me: Will do, Fred. And Bruce? Fred mentioned you were having an issue with your computer. When can we schedule some time to get it straightened out?
Bruce: Can you look at it, tomorrow, when you come for the check?
Me: Sure. I will be glad to.
Bruce: Great, see you after lunch, then.
The next day, Fred and Bruce were run down, on the sidewalk by an XYL employee who had lost his job, during the stalled merger. Fred was paralyzed from his belt down. Bruce was never the same after the skull fracture. The driver was determined to be too emotionally unstable to assist with his own defense. The ‘unwilling to agree to anything’ XYL partner owner suggested a replacement CEO for Bruce and XYL’s finance office took over the bookkeeping, while Fred was recovering. XYL’s IT person was hired back from the university, leaving me with having lost a great client. I never got paid and within 6 months, the merger had been reversed and XYL purchased Acme for pennies on the dollar.