Why the long face...?

Not a big fan of Januaries.

I was going to post a glum tale of how slow things are this time of year (as in I've only invoiced out around 2.5 hours of billable time to my bread-and-butter clients when the month is two-thirds done) but then realised that things are not quite as bad as they seem.

I didn't take into account the 'one-offs' I've billed out that are due *this* month, not February, and a have a bunch of files that I'll close and bill out by end of January.

However, that doesn't mean things are all great either.

January is still a lean month thanks to lawyerly types taking protracted time off over the festive season and, I guess, other prospective clients cash-strapped after the Xmas spendup.

February is generally worse. I guess it's all the credit card bills coming home to roost. Not mine, I couldn't afford Xmas.

However, I'll try to keep an optimistic face on hoping (against hope) that something will 'come up' in my hour of need.

And perhaps something has.

A local city official, Mr Merryweather (not his real name) has raised the ire of numerous residents recently to the point where one, a locally famous raconteur and author Mr Bonet (also not his real name), published an opinion-piece in the press asking whether or not anyone knew of a 'public-spirited' PI. It seems that Mr Merryweather has unleased his own PI to snoop on a number of said residents and they are not happy. Mr Bonet proposes to turn the tables on Mr Merryweather by having aforementioned public-spirited PI dig the dirt, as it were, on Merryweather.

I should point out that Mr Merryweather is quite possibly the City's most hated person at the moment, for a number of perceived sins. The calls for his resignation are growing.

While the article was written facetiously, there was still a hint of underlying frustration and anger.

So I emailed Mr Bonet stating I was not exactly public-spirited but I was willing, at least, to listen.

Mr Bonet phoned me back shortly afterward.

He laughed that while he was mostly writing tongue-in-cheek, he did have an axe to grind with Mr Merryweather, as did a number of residents.

So we had a chat and I promised to make some enquiries regarding the hiring of the PI by the City as it seems to have been done outside the usual tendering process. I, for one, was not aware of such a tender (and I keep my eye out for such things) otherwise I would have applied myself...

Will snoop for cash.

Anyway, the upshot of it is there are potentially several thousand irate residents affected by Mr Merryweather's antics, and more who are just affronted by his very being. Now, if two thousand residents donated a mere $10.00 to the cause, well, that's a fair bit of investigative time at their disposal

See where I'm heading with this?

Perhaps something good will come out of all this, but I won't hold my breath just yet.

Will keep you posted.