Sunday.
Jon spent $130 bucks yesterday on clothes, but because he also earned $130 bucks, he was net neutral at $350. Today’s goal was to follow Miss Ella Moren, and refine his website. He already managed to design a relatively professional looking website using one of the many publicly available web templates.
He also had a friend. Of course, Jon had friends. Fellow commoners who did gruntwork like him. Fellow oppressed workers. Rise up! Jon wanted to say. But it’s okay. He’ll pay him back for the beautiful web templates stolen from one other clients. With the right amount of modification, it took him hardly a day to get it up to par.
Next, he needed to figure out a way to dangle it to Ella, while somehow obtaining more details on what’s the deal with the investor. He took his laptop with him, and then went to the area where he roughly knew where Ella lived.
As far as he knew, Ella made decent amounts of money, and is thus likely to be found in the posher places near her home. His search was unsuccessful, but it was quite a workout for him.
***
“Didn’t go well, eh?” Lena laughed.
Jon sighed. “Yeah. I went to all the cafes but I didn’t see her.”
“Maybe she’s at home.”
Jon nodded. “I need to get her details tomorrow, and then see whether I can arrange a subtle meeting.”
“Why do that? Can’t you just bring your laptop to office and pretend to work during your break time?”
Jon paused as he stared at the housewife like she just said something so incredibly obvious that he felt like an idiot. It certainly wasn’t unusual for janitors or such part time workers to have other arrangements outside of their usual work hours.
“You have a point.”
“Of course I do. I always have a point.” Lena smirked proudly. “By the way, I also found some news articles about Mister Khan.”
Jon’s eyes skimmed through the headlines. Mister Khan was fairly well known in the business circles focusing on small-medium sized operations. He had a passion for industrial products and companies, and gave many interviews about the industrial products sector. He was also on some kind of business to business committee.
“He’s quite a proud fellow. He may not want this to fail.”
“It would be a bad look for someone with a record of successes.” Jon nodded. “Hmm. Let me see how I can work this. I need to find out what they agreed.”
“Yeah.”
***
Monday, it’s time for work.
He had a few goals for today. First, he wanted to get the details of both Ella and Mister Henry Pool, and as it turned out, it wasn’t even too hard. Mister Pool was the owner of the company, and naturally, his name was on every single government form as the beneficial owner. Every company, even one such as Poolman, had many forms to fill.
And many documents to shred.
But it’s always the janitor’s work to bring the documents to the shredder, and very often, it’s only done at the end of the week. None of the employees wanted to do it, and it’s certainly not a high priority task for a company like Poolman. Their poor data privacy meant all Jon had to do, was take the big pile of documents from the to-be-shredded pile and go through them slowly.
At least the HR lady had the mind to tear some of the salary related forms, but beyond that, everything was the way it was. Pristine and untouched. His next goal was to investigate Mister Henry Pool and Ms Ella Moren’s home, but, he’ll do so tomorrow.
***
Mister Pool did not turn up in office today, but Ella was, and she looked absolutely stressed. She was calling different people at different times, and each demanded an obscene amount of money for rushed work. As was normal. No one would take a job without adequate compensation for the stress needed to rush something out within a short frame of time.
No one she knew, at least.
Her stress showed, and it was during lunchbreak that Jon decided to set the bait. She ate alone, so Jon intentionally sat close to her and took out his laptop. He started to work on some websites and models, and then, very naturally, he picked up the phone and called one of his actual, real life friends.
Sam.
“Hey, Sam!” Jon said. “How’ve you been?”
“I’m good.” Sam actually answered. “Funny you’re calling during lunch hour. Have you found a job? I heard you got sacked from the old place.”
“Ah. You heard. You know, it’s actually alright that I got sacked. It was a shit place anyway. By the way, I’ve gotten back into the game, freelance developer stuff.” Jon said rather loudly, something which Ella noticeably heard and then stopped eating. She immediately looked at Jon. “Do you know what’s the market rates these days? With the full suite of services like shopping carts, payment gateway, user tracking, customer logins, self-service product updates platform, remote server management and all that.”
Ella’s ears perked up, and she stared. Sam was genuinely helpful. “Think we charge like $40,000 for a webpage with basic functionality. More sophisticated services which need like 1-2 years work, we’ll go like $200,000. If we’re working with big brands, that amount is easily triple.”
Jon immediately felt he was shortchanged in his previous company. “Are you serious? That’s crazy expensive. I got paid less than that for the same sort of work.”
“Of course. It’s the risk of freelancing here. If you got no clients, you ain’t eating shit for months. To be fair, bro, you’re too good for that old place. Everyone knew it. It’s a shit place and it doesn’t appreciate you for doing good work.” Sam’s words certainly made Jon feel good. “Join me in the freelance world! It pays better. It’s not elite tier, but at least we’re not eating instant noodles!”
“Goddammit.” Jon cursed. “Thanks. Let me do up a portfolio and a price list.”
“Sure thing.” Sam said over the phone. “See ya soon. We could catch up sometime.”
“We should. I’ll be able to bitch about my old place.”
***
As Jon closed the phone, he took out his laptop and then started to work-
“Hey-” Ella was next to him already.
Jon turned to see Ella right there. “Oh. Hello Miss Moren.”
“I overheard your conversation- You said you’re a freelance developer?”
Jon laughed. “Well, kind of. I do odd jobs. This janitorial gig is just something to pay bills while I try to reel in a big gig. Want to see a sample of my work?”
Ella nodded instantly. “Yes.”
Jon’s laptop immediately turned to a mockup of a website he did for a fake company. But it was so similar to Poolman Limited that all he had to do was switch the logos and names. He had overheard Miss Moren’s discussions with the various developers over the phone, so se roughly knew what she wanted. When the website sample appeared for Ella to see, her eyes brightened.
“I want it.” She said instantly. “I want this website.”
Jon looked at her, and then shook his head. “Sorry, no.”
“What do you mean, no?” She said.
“I want to be paid, Miss Moren. And there’s a bunch of tests, a bunch of trial runs and beta tests before a website actually goes live. Surely you know that. And I’m a janitor, not your developer.”
“Then I’ll pay you. What do you want for it? $20,000?”
“The market rate these days is at least $40,000, Miss. Especially with the services involved. More if you want it done quickly.”
She paled. “But it’s already done, can’t you just change the logo and stuff-“
“No it’s not. This is just a mockup.” Jon answered. “You can’t click any of this stuff. And the rest of the site has to be updated too. And you’ll have to provide the specifications, all the details.”
“Then what’s the final price?”
Jon thought for a moment. “How soon you want it?”
“Next week.”
“$120,000. Because next week means working late from today.”
“There’s no way-” Ella shook her head at the number. Her budget couldn’t absorb that sum. At best, the company could pay $30,000. But her job was on the line, and not just that, her boyfriend’s company was on the line.
Jon shrugged. “It’s alright. I’ll find some other company willing to pay me. I’m just a janitor here. The Company’s rich, right?”
Ella frowned. At this point, she had no choice, and instead decided to give Henry a call. “I’ll make a call.”
***
“Henry?” Ella called in a private corner of the office.
“Yes dear?”
“I need extra money for the website. $90,000.” She had a budget of $40,000, and she spent $10,000 on some promotional materials. If Jon wanted $120,000, she needed to get more.
“-I thought I’ve already given you $40,000 for it. There’s barely two weeks left, why do they want more money now?”
“I know. But we need more money to get it ready. The previous developer flaked on me, so I’m trying to get a new one.”
There was a tense silence, before Henry shouted over the phone. “What the fuck, Ella?! I thought you had it handled. Didn’t you show me this mockup that was all beautiful and shit.”
“I’ve been trying to fix it for the last week.” Ella was a little taken aback by the shouting. “That mockup was just that. A mockup. It’s not a functional website.”
“How sure are you this new website is going to work? It’s $120,000 we’re talking about.” Henry’s tone was harsh. “No. I’m not paying for it. You figure out how to sort it out. Stick to the budget.”
“But what if we don’t have a website?”
“Then it’s on you. I trusted you, Ella. I thought I could let you run this thing without me meddling. If you need more money, well, the Company doesn’t have any money.”
“I thought we did.”
“It doesn’t. And even if it did, I’m not approving $120,000 for the site. I love you, Ella, but work is work, and if this shit goes to hell, you’re getting the boot.”
Ella frowned at the double-standards. Henry certainly didn’t consider the company as a separate thing. The personal expenses he charged to the company was excessive. All those dinners, were all on the company’s tab. Why didn’t he approve it when it’s actually a real business need? Certainly, some rules only applied to others, but not to him.
“Ella. Sort it out.” Henry said firmly, and then shut the phone. She sighed quietly. That didn’t sound right, and she considered the consequences for her career. She certainly didn’t want to be sacked. The conversation was over.
“Jon.” Miss Ella Moren approached him after the conversation. “Can we negotiate the fee?”
He was sweeping the floor and cleaning the trash. “Ah, wait a moment.”
The two moved to a side of the office where it was quiet.
“The best I can pay is $30,000.” Ella said. “I’ve tried to ask for more money-“
Jon gave Ella the biggest frown ever. “Miss Moren, no offense. Money is money. We’re talking about a $90,000 dollar difference for doing rush work, and intruding into my personal time. I’ll be working long hours, probably midnights, just to make your timeline.”
In truth, Jon was pretty good with this sort of work, and he certainly didn’t need that sort of hours. Not when he already expected to do it and had done far more detailed work than necessary. All he needed was to link everything together, upload and link whatever new materials Ella gave to the platform.
“Please?” Ella tried her best to sound gentle and sweet.
“No means no.”
Ella tried a bit more, but Jon just shrugged it off. Maybe if he never met Lena, he would’ve fallen for it. But Jon’s tolerance for seductive women has increased significantly since Lena came along. He just shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Moren.”
“Come on, help me out, please?”
“Miss Moren. I’m not giving up $90,000 without adequate compensation. I can take my talents elsewhere.”
Ella’s face turned absolutely furious that her attempts to be gentle didn’t work. If she wasn’t so stressed out, she may not have lashed out in this manner. “Ugh! You’re just a janitor! I’m already paying $30,000 for you to do it. It’s already a lot of money!”
Jon looked at the woman, and frowned. “Miss Moren, if you’re talking to me like that, then there’s nothing more I have to say. I have work to do. Goodbye”
Jon ignored Miss Moren, continued to sweep the floor and clean the offices.
Miss Moren stood, and stewed. She instantly regretted her own outburst.
