The HR Rulebook

Dealing with human nature is a tricky business and it takes a trickster to survive! Over the past several years, since I've had my own business anyway, I've sort of hidden the fact that I'm going on vacation right up until the last minute. This isn't because I want to just sneak away or shirk work. It's because I have a deeper, darker rational and a healthy appreciation for the way people work.

The truth is, all of my vendors are really quite wonderful but also human, which means that they're inextricably tied to the Human Nature Rulebook. That rulebook clearly states that anything and everything that can be interpreted as a reason to delay, cease or deter a particular project, will be used as a ruse to actually delay, cease or deter that project. In the world of the solopreneur, this translates into bad cashflow, also know as a poverty lifestyle. And so speed, efficiency, and obfuscation are the strategies I use to keep myself out of the poorhouse.

Unfortunately, being human myself, I couldn't help but daydream and ruminate - a little to much, I admit - on my upcoming vacation to Hawaii. (See section 5, part A, paragraph 11119-289765 of the Human Nature Rulebook to learn more about Ruminating and Daydreaming.) Of course, part of this is not my fault, and in fact can be blamed on the weather in Seattle, which has been particularly wet and miserable.

The end result is that I somehow forgot to be tricky and actually blurted out that I was planning to leave town. Not hours before boarding the flight as I usually do, but an entire 10 days in advance. This sort of faux pas, which actually borders on bragging, (see the rulebook) has resulted in a complete disppearance of all of my vendors. They have, in essence "gone dark" taking my projects along with them. I assume, (Making Assumptions, section 254, part X) to the very bottom of their slush piles with no hope of ever being completed until I return alive and demand completion of the work. At which point I will finally be paid. And boy will I need it after foolishly thinking I could afford a vacation in the first place. (See Irrational Spending section.....)