Chasing cheques

Back to the phonecalls again. The agency that proved so good at paying on time has, alas, slipped into the overdue bracket. But I'm still solvent as the current place I am insisted on paying me early for my first couple of weeks. Still have several more cheques due in before Christmas.

And today is my last day here. What was a 3/4 week stint has turned into 6, and if I wasn't flying off on a short break tomorrow I'd probably still be here as the project is dragging on interminably. It's in its death throes but the clients are still faffing and refuse to finish it off. Still, it's meant a couple of weeks of extra money for me, which means I can now enjoy some time off leading up to Christmas. And replace the bike that was stolen at the weekend (galling).

The agency also won the big pitch they had a couple of weeks ago, which is great news. It puts them on the map, it's all over the trade press, and means they can expand, move offices, hire more staff. And hopefully they'll hire me again too. Lovely people, even if the project and client have been... um... difficult.

I have been working at the client's site, at their insistence for the past few days which was painful to say the least. They wouldn't allow us to connect to their network meaning that I couldn't email any files across, and couldn't print anything out to proof it. They also trapped us in endless Kafka-esque meetings with multiple rounds of amends from around a dozen different people - every few hours. A truly dreadful way of working and extremely non-productive. Still, on the plus side, the suit and I bonded well.

Ah well, sit back and think of the cheques in the post... and pack suitcase. Sunshine here I come.