The Client Who Ate Indianapolis
Dear Demon: After working on two different projects in the course of nine months, I realized that an accounts payable SNAFU had caused my travel expenses to be charged to the wrong clients. The expenses had already been paid in full. I had in fact stayed at the same Indianapolis hotel for both of these projects, and while my visits were for different lengths of time, the related costs were nearly equal. I consulted a partner involved on one of the projects and he said that since the SNAFU had been corrected and the payables were nearly equal, I should not open a can of worms. What's your view?
Dear SNAFU: Here, you have a missed opportunity and, potentially, a barrel of pit vipers. First, you should draft a polite letter to the clients and review it for accuracy with accounts. Then, you should direct the letters to the attention of your project officers, letting them know you plan to send the letters as a matter of course, unless they'd prefer they went under their names. Why all the fuss? For one, this would be a missed chance to look good in the eyes of the clients. The letters reflect a scrupulous care and attention that say: We're still thinking about you, the details matter to us, and we're honest.
Now, about those vipers. It's plain bad to risk clients coming to you with uncaptured mistakes like this. Never mind that you've got excuses ready and that you're confident you can show how minimal the difference is. These mistakes can raise much broader suspicions. Next time, consult more than one partner, and try to include one who's independent of the projects involved.
Dear Demon: A manager at a Big Five consulting firm was asked by a partner to work on a Y2K project early in 1999. Fearing the project would not advance her IT skills into the e-business arena, she told the partner she was not available and mentioned that she and her husband were planning to start a family — a move she indicated could conflict with the project's travel requirements. A year later, the same partner, now in charge of one of the firm's hot e-business initiatives, is actively seeking talent, but, so far, has not approached the manager. While the manager still hopes to start her family within the coming year, she does not want to be excluded from the firm's blossoming e-business opportunities. How can she open the door without undercutting her credibility with the partner?
Dear (Friend of) e-Mom: 'Fess up! Your Y2K partner did not transition to that hot e-business initiative by dint of being stupid. He or she all too likely knows that you ducked out on Y2K, using the handiest excuse available. (Starting a family? Really now, how shameless of you.) No doubt the partner shared much of the same just-shoot-me-I'm-obsolete anxieties, only more so. But right now, that partner is either thinking you lied, however justifiably, and that you don't have the guts to discuss it, or, that you're still on the family track, and that by your own prior admission you can't handle a heavyweight assignment.
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