Just to Be Clear

Early June, and hot. Eight weeks since the layoff, not nearly long enough for it to stop feeling personal. I could feel the sweat rolling down my back in my unairconditioned apartment. The “no, thanks” I’d braced for — the denial wrapped in careful, self-protective “procurement-ese” — hadn’t come. Somewhere between transmission and reception, it had turned into “Sure, let’s do it.”

I checked the signal bars on my phone. Full. Quick math: the rate I’d pitched against the hours the first deliverable would eat. Rent covered, groceries this month? We’d see. I needed a graphic designer. Later. All of it in nanoseconds, and then I heard myself say it, too loud, too eager: “Great. I’ll send a statement of work tonight.” Trying to sound grown-up and unbothered, I felt like a tower of stacked Muppets, labeled Business Owner.

Then this was out before I could stop it, the disclaimer no one asked for, the one I seem hardwired to offer against my own will:

“Just to be clear, I don’t have the resources of a large firm behind me anymore.”

Painfully obvious already, and frankly just painful. The words were the leader on an old cassette of head-trash. It wound around the capstan, and as the tape reached the head I noticed the stop button was jammed flat, broken. You’re a small player. It’s just you. Settle into that like an old leather recliner, because it’s where you’ll spend the next several years.

And there it was: the crossroads.

Believe the client, who had just, with one “sure,” told me what they thought I was worth — or believe the tape that said the win was smaller than it looked. They hadn’t asked for a firm. They’d said yes to me. The resources I’d just apologized for lacking were never what they wanted.

I’ve never built a better statement of work, or a faster one, in all the years since. Out the door in under two hours. Signed by the end of the week.

I stopped apologizing for the resources I didn’t have. No one had hired “the firm.”

They’d hired me.
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Photo by Bruno Guerrero on Unsplash.