Not Again

     I have an observation of the mechanism that tells exactly why business as usual will never work again.  I have been working as an editor on a series of agriculture books while building a working team for the author in the background.  The idea is to blend the talents of people coming on board and evenly distribute the workload, so that products are available for sale - in this case books.
     We recently brought a person onto the team with publishing experience - somebody who understands the game to take us from the assembly process into print.  The group is diversified and lives in many locations scattered around the states - coordinating over distance is like herding cats.  Especially when the group is tethered by air - there is no cash flow and the production of the first few items is supposed to pay us back later down the road.  We finally get people to agree on one time and date (and four time zones).
     So, because of technical glitches on the net, the communications portal starts knocking people out of the room - as people plug in devices and change browsers to find the best working system.  After a half an hour, the six people left in the room run the meeting and have a full hour to meet and greet over a skype type line - but with only four active and two passive - determined at random by the computer server.  We start to take care of the little chits of business, avoiding the elephant - no cash flow to anyone currently working hard.  
     We are currently 'invoicing' hours - a process made up by a beancounter somewhere that tells me that 20 hours of up front work per week is all i can afford - the rest of my time belongs to thyme.  I never know when to pursue an idea - so i commingle my time working on this with other time - to leverage my work by symmetry. Those of you who read this blog here know the depth at which i produce.
     Well we get to distribution and the new person says, well thank you for the time that you put in, but the cash flow only starts when the cash flows and past time doesn't count.  And doc says - oh - oh - i have heard this before, i am not going to get paid for work already pumped into the trough.  Nor are the people that i brought on board who have not been invoicing their time for pay, but have been accounting for it.  And I say Oh - No - not again - if i am not going to be reimbursed, I'm outta here.  And everything breaks down.
    This is not the way to run an operation and it will not come to pass by the usual means.  All accounted for time at 20 hours per week for x weeks has to be paid at the full rate - not discounted once cash flows - or the system collapses on the shoulders of the people who already did the base work for gratis or severe under compensation.  Because the work needed to be done.  Before the money was flowing.  
     Yet, current way to do things for peeps is to be paid first or not do the work.  Or to skate in when the work is mostly done and change the rules.  So, tell me again why i should ever put work out up front to get anything done, if nobody really ever compensates me on the back end.  And why should i get competent people to help me gratis, when once the money flows it gets directed to the newcomers who will not work until paid, and the pioneers go off to their same always broke lifestyle.  We are difficult, because we wish to be paid for time invested and are not on-board with the new latest and greatest.
     Easy people get taken advantage of in this system - all the time.  I came back to work to help a friend and now i have to worry about equity distribution and money shit.  Not what i signed up for.  I am not playing.  This team will be back compensated, because the change in approach will work, once we get the word howdt into people's vocabularies.  The old way is transformed to the new weigh and nothing, nothing is owned by the beancounters and currency printers.  And pay follows work at adequate compensation and past work in development gets recognized as such.
     Doc will finish the current book editing commitments and reassess the situation when the time comes in december to launch the game portal.  He is not happy about the way things are turning out and is likely to return to the monastery, rather than try to play in this stacked house of cards that we usta call a country.  The Faux News slogan says it all - Fair and Balanced.  Yeah, right.

namaste'     doc