Monthly care, without the fog
A month is a fresh allocation. It is the hourly rate times 30.
Both have to be visible.
The month is arithmetic, then a note.
Website care, support, content, capacity, and integration care are monthly lines. Take the hourly rate on that line and multiply by 30. That is the figure in large type. The hourly rate stays underneath so you can check the multiplication on the page instead of trusting a bundle.
The month does not roll. Hours you do not use are not a credit. This is the rule that keeps a retainer from becoming a balance nobody can explain in March. If you wanted a bank of hours for a defined job, that job should have been a fixed block with an end.
Inside the month, work is still named. A sentence is enough: the price list, the broken form, the three pages, the endpoint that changed. A month with no note is a feeling that someone was busy. We will not run it that way.
A request that does not fit the month is sent back before the hours are spent. A new section of a site is not care. A new product surface is not capacity. A rebuild of a workflow is not support. The reply should point at the fixed line that matches, which you can decline.
Three monthly mistakes
Hiding a project
The queue was actually a launch.
- Say so in the first week.
- Move it to a fixed block.
- Do not let the month absorb the surprise.
Hoarding hours
Unused time treated as savings.
- The allocation refreshes.
- There is no balance to spend later.
- A fixed block is the tool for saved-up work.
Skipping the note
Busy, with nothing written down.
- Each chunk of the month has a sentence.
- You should be able to read the month back.
- Care without a note is not care.