This is so rich. It turns out if you have a really big important company you don't have to pay people who perform services for you, at least not on time. And it's all because of reporting policies – imagine that! This is all so well encapsulated in some emails I have that I'll just post them here. They're a bit modified, of course, so no one loses business or employment over it.The first email was sent after said accountant returned my call requesting payment for a short consulting job (less than $5,000.00 worth of work) which I had an associate perform in October. At the time I called, the bill was 15 days late on a purchase order with NET 45 terms. I asked the person to respond via email since I received the call in the car.
"Per our conversation, your invoice #XXXXX dated 10/XX/06 for $X,XXX.XX, would normally be paid by our terms of which would be due December XX, 2006. Due to a Corporate Directive during the month of December, XYZ Company suspends vendor payments for fiscal reporting purposes. Our payment schedule will continue the first week of January 2007. I appreciate your concern and thank you for your patience. Please contact me if you have any further questions."Gonna have to get me one of them thar' Corporate Die-rectives!! They come in handy.
I replied ever so politely and blind copied it to my contact at the client company. He was a bit embarrassed and shot me this apology and, uh, sarcastic yet accurate "translation":
"I think the translation goes something like this.I felt bad for him since it was in no way his fault; I sent this reply:
We don’t care about the cash flow of other businesses; we want to try to bogusly inflate our bottom line by a few nickels by not entering liabilities into the system and try to reach our goals by hook or by crook.
I wonder how many raw material vendors they are holding payment on? I think I am going to cut and paste her response and send it off to all of my utilities and car loan holders this month. Sorry about that, but it appears we are probably no different than any other billion dollar corporation that you deal with."
"Thanks; humans invented greed, but it seems that large corporations sure are working night and day to perfect it. Don’t worry about me – I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't have a bullet-proof sense of humor about this kind of nonsense. Honestly, the accountant sounded oh, so sensible on the phone, but I requested this email. I’m glad – though amazed – that I got it; seeing it in black & white is nothing short of High Comedy. Your remark was my immediate thought also, i.e., to put off paying my phone and rent bill as part of a new 'Fiscal Policy Initiative'. We could guess how well that sh*t would float!The only thing I'll add here is this. I've known cases where consultants have, maybe rightly, flipped out when they were not paid on time. Generally that doesn't help much. Hopefully we can find clever and creative ways to shed some light on these unfair practices and show these companies to be the schoolyard bullies that they are. I choose to do that with humor – it's legal ... right?
Rest assured that ____ was paid within a week of the excellent work she performed for XYZ Company. As for me, business is good and my kids will not be lacking any 'Figgie pudding' this Christmas, regardless of corporate Scrooges, multi-national Grinches or the morbid Mr. Potters of a shadowy Industrial Complex.
So please don’t be embarrassed on account of their treatment of 'the little guy'. The Whos down in Whoville will be sated with plenty of Roast Beast this year.
Merry Christmas!"
5 comments:
This does illustrate one of my points with big business. I am guilty too. We hide behind these rules. The rules provide a fig leaf.
It is immoral to withhold payment to you. However the email's author is somehow absolved from responsibility because she was "just following orders."
This is why I don't like them.
I agree with you entirely in the essence of your description. That's why I can't be a W2 lifer in a corporation. I'd get fired at some point anyway for breaking these types of rules left and right. But if I get to know this accountant better in the future, I can have more of a personal impact if I'm gracious and build up some politeness capital now.
I realize that I'm being kind of a lion-tamer here. IOW, the coporation is a lion -- it might bite my head off if I get too close, but if it tries to I'm not going to be surprised even when the audience gasps. That's just the nature of the lion. If I don't ever end up taming the lion, oh, well, at least it will be quite a performance.
If that's a silly analogy or making lemonade out of rotten lemons, please feel free to pour virtual gasoline on me and light me on fire.
After a certain size corporations become tyranical. They get away with this crap becuase it would be irrational to sue them. In the mean time they use your money without just compensation.
This is why to some extent I am "crunchy". I hate that term. It forces us to use craftiness to earn our keep rather than hardwork and skill. In order to do business with the beast you have to become like unto it. It wounds you just a little bit.
Forgive me for quoting a liberal egghead like Adlai Stevenson, Cube, but I'm taking the approach that it's better to light candles than curse the darkness. I don't know if my glow will "warm the world", but I feel like in this case I stood in the breach for my consultant, i.e., I paid her for her work then went to duel the evil, soulless Eye of Mordor.
So maybe I'm like Aragorn, fighting the wars on the borders unbeknownst to the Hobbits of this world. Messy? Yes. Wounded? Maybe. But I count myself blessed to be living my vocation in the middle of the world in this way.
That's somewhat my angle too. Also, the intent is to destroy the enemy not just fight him perpetually.
The hobbits are getting a little taste of Mordor now with outsourcing, rising health insurance, little job security, and always having to be vigilent against finding yourself without a job and no place to go.
I will never kick a person for supporting their family. I light candles by pointing out that perhaps these people who make these rules don't really have the country's best interests in mind.
What you describe is SOP for most businesses. I would probably not pay until the last possible moment before penalties. My light shines on things that might weaken our people strategically, by reducing their econimic power. I see how the wheels work within these corporations, and lets just say they more akin to High Materialism than they are to a just and ordered human society. Perhaps a little too much socialism has trickled into MBA school these days.
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