Dear M,

Since I replied to your text message in which you have announced that “you will not be available” since today I gathered a few reflections which I feel I need to share with you (and anyone interested).

First — I want to say that I sustain what I wrote in the SMS last night. I do feel responsible for the situation and I do understand, respect and accept your decision.

However having read, early in the morning today, again your initial message I cannot restrain from saying that I find the intimate thought behind it a bit unfair. You seem to imply that I have acted dishonestly against you by not paying you on time for the translations you’ve done some time ago (two months, maybe a bit more) and that you were out of the bargaining process or something like that (I don’t have my mobile on me, I quote from memory). Generally speaking — it is very bad not to pay people on time. You know it. I know it and I can rest assured that you very well know that I know since we discussed this problem over and over again on many occasions. And, you see, this is precisely what surprised me a bit. Because, having had this discussions with you individually and with the whole of the team, I know very well, that you know very well that there is nothing like a bargaining table were our people try cut out a bigger portion of the cake for themselves. What you know as well is that we suffer from enormous delays in payments from our clients and that this causes severe problems and kindly helps in accumulating debt since we need to pay the VAT and the PIT taxes at the end of each month without having received the taxed sum. I can easily recall having loyally warned you numerous times that we are entering a turbulent period and that money is really short and that I expect obvious problems that this can bring about. And it was not exclusively your problem, but ours — we all, in full solidarity, suffered (and continue to do so) from it. Of course, we can now get really technical and start valuing if the once cent paid to X or Y is more important than the one not paid to Z or A or L, but I see no sense in doing so. Everybody in the team were paid for their work with huge delays. It is not good and it might be no excuse and I do not write it as such. I just want to point out, what by the way I’m pretty sure you know, that we are equally all victims of the fact that we’re starved of money. Read the rest of this entry »