The retainer meeting
Thirty recorded hours, one number, and an owner who has already been told what the last person charged. Concessions made in the first minute do not come back in the tenth.
Branching, and constrained: an early decision closes options later on. There is no undo inside a run. That is the point of running one rather than reading about it.
Rate held
6
Scope clarity
4
Standing with the owner
6
Decision
1
The owner's office, Friday afternoon. Three months of records are in your folder: 30.5 hours a month, minutes per format from the timer, the inbox log, two monthly reports she has read. She opens with: "So, going forward, what are we talking about, roughly?"
The first number spoken frames everything after it. Whose is it?
