Admittedly, this is a bit of a hot button for me right now. If you look at my blog, you can see a prime example. My roommate got scammed and blew her share of this month’s rent. This meant, in part, that I had to call someone, with whom I had just repaired years of problems and tell him that I would be a week late paying him back. I dreaded making that phone call, but I did it anyway…and the response was just about what I had expected it would be. After my friend had a day to calm down, though, he agreed that I had to have been dreading making the call, and that I got points for making the call anyway. He’s not happy about having to wait for the money, but my integrity is less damaged for letting him know immediately that there was a problem so he could make what arrangements he needed to to work around things.

otherdeb (Deb Wunder)’s last blog post..How my roommate accidentally blew this month’s rent

@ Patrick: It goes with the territory. Sometimes new people let you down, in which case you don’t work with them again. When it’s an established writer, you need to find out what’s happened.

@James: Believe me, I think it must be something like that, because this person is usually reliable. It would have been nice if she had taken a couple of seconds to communicate, though.

@ Allena: I’ve found myself in that situation, and sometimes you have to come clean with clients. I usually try to sort it out without doing that, though.

@ Dana: I know this has happened to you and you’ve had to work through the night to make up the shortfall. Not fun.

@ Sue: The other writer managed to finish the articles today, and the client was understanding as I’ve always delivered early before.

@ Katherine: Leading a team is not for the faint hearted, that’s for sure.

katherine’s last blog post..Keeping Track of All Those Accounts – Spreadsheets are My Friend!

sue Jeffels’s last blog post..A Mother’s Lament

Dana’s last blog post..When Do You Do Your Self-Promotion?

Still, the person should tell you. I don’t know about others, though, but I hate hate hate telling people about my private life issues. They always feel like excuses. Sound like excuses. I mean, if you were me, would you want to share all this with clients? I didn’t.

Allena’s last blog post..Thanks! Job Lists Are Fixed

Working with a team, I know very well how it feels when a deadline comes and goes and how much pressure the situation can cause. In the years I’ve been doing this, though, there has been only one single case of a person deliberately screwing up.

Everyone else has had good reason. Assuming that they don’t doesn’t help anyone. Just a thought.

Sorry to hear that happened, I guess that’s part of running a business.

Patrick Britton’s last blog post..Discussing The Supreme Court Decisions: Open Thread Friday

Make sure you take deep breaths before confronting the writer who fell behind. Imagine if something had come up and caused the situation to be reversed. Wait until you know all the facts before reprimanding. Then make it very clear exactly how this has affected you, your business, and your business relationship with this person.

*hugs* I hope everything works out and you have smooth sailing on this commission the rest of the way. Here is to uneventful sub-contracting in the future.

Oh, and keep me in mind too.

Rebecca Laffar-Smith’s last blog post..Do You Schedule Your Day?