Sensual Networking (Realistic Erotic Thriller)

Friday, April 1st, 2011 - APRIL FOOL'S DAY (II)

Jarvis works the keyboard fast and efficiently. He is examining yesterday's incoming receipts using an old-fashioned Excel sheet. Despite being online, the young man performs the work the traditional way. He manually checks the names of clients conferring which installments were paid and updates the client's classification. The scale varies from 0 to 3. When the first payment is credited, the client gets a 1 rating, and on paying the second installment, a 2 rating. Classification 3 required additional internal processing. Once customers reached 3, Jarvis transfers them to another spreadsheet titled Retired Accounts. This arrangement allows him to have a quick estimate of the actual values received as well as the expected income of the firm just by glancing the computer screen. The boyish fellow completes this accounting task daily, closing out customers one by one. It is a monotonous chore, but Jarvis actually enjoys it; he ponders it is safer than using an automated program: "Too many variables, troublesome to match names and people make their payments through different financial institutions. Not worth the trouble." This is quite a contradiction for someone such as Jarvis Lindemann, considering how efficient he is about everything, but the fact is that the young professional does not want to leave anything to chance.

The hard-working man makes a daily transfer to the firm's bank account from Paypal leaving it free to take in tomorrow's payments. Operating this way makes it easier to identify a client who might want to make a complaint or attempt to stop payment. That has never happened though, no one has ever complained about anything, a few tried to negotiate, but the company does not do bargaining. It is pathetic the way some try to weasel out of a situation. The firm has one a simple principle: "We made a deal with you and there is no way to back track even though you, the client, may be having second thoughts. It's life; you do something stupid, there's no going back in time to erase it."

"People are such douche bags, they dive into a shallow pool or river where there are submerged rocks and hit their heads." In his middle school, he learned in a famous book by a Brazilian writer, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, himself paraplegic, that the major cause of persons going around in a wheelchair the rest of their lives is from stupid diving when drunk. "So you see some tetraplegic and you assume the dude, must have been in some kind of horrible auto accident. You know, something serious, but most likely the guy was all high and dove head-on into the cement! I bet he would do anything to wind back the clock and erase that moment. But he did jump in and there is way to change this event. Is there?"

"Yeah, I bet my clients are also regretting, but I got news for them: Too late, pals. Now is pay up time and you better do it. Well, they always do, don't they? They might get a little pushed out of shape and upset, but they make the deposit. Anyway, it is just good for their soul. Who knows, perhaps some of them even change their ways and become model citizens because everyone should change for the better. But as far as negotiating goes, they can forget about it." Jarvis' mind is keeping him busy as he entertains these thoughts while performing his brainless activities on the computer. "Besides, the man who works this side of the business is Daniel. My job with the firm is to take care of the receipts that arrive everyday like clockwork. I make bank transfers, draw up contracts with online companies, pay partners and that is all. No client involvement for me." Once finished with the customers, the young man proceeds to close out the suppliers' accounts by logging to www.vWorker.com, which is a worker-for-hire webpage. The internet has many such sites. Some of the most well know, in addition to vWorker, are Odesk, e-Lance, Freelance and Guru. It is simple. A prospective contractor logs into one of these websites and specifies the type of work he needs done. Frequently something of a virtual nature such as creating a website or a computer program. With the advances in technology, other tasks such as the translation of a text into another language and accounting chores are also becoming popular. The site then advertises and manages this request by placing the work description on their webpage and opening up a channel for those interested in making their bids specifying their fees. Every contract is quoted in greenbacks and the people that perform the specific job can be located anywhere: China, USA, Peru, India, or in countries you never even heard of. The contractor is free to pick and choose among the bidders. He may select not necessarily the cheapest, but instead the one with the most qualified curriculum who has already done similar work or has the highest performance category rating at the site, or a combination of these. As one should expect, high-ranked, experienced workers charge much more than low-graded ones, and so forth.

Jarvis always uses one of the famous worker-for-hire sites depending on what type of service he is looking for. This time, he clicks the Pay Now icon in the vWorker site, which indicates the job was satisfactory performed: time to settle the payment and finish this transaction. The beauty of this system is Lindemann does not need to know anything about the company he has hired: if it pays its taxes or not; if it is a one-person firm or a huge corporation. All of that is irrelevant. The young man's firm has no further obligations or ties with the contracted company / individual once the deal is over. Better yet, Jarvis settles with vWorker, not the firm or person who performed the task. Sure enough, vWorker takes a cut, which varies from two to five percent of the price of the contract bid. Even though both companies indeed lose a little going through the vWorker middleman, they still prefer doing business this way because of the isolation factor. There is no tangible connection between the two firms. If one day Jarvis should be questioned about child labor or whatever problem the contracted company may face, he has absolutely no way of knowing, influencing, or otherwise. He has no insight into their business practices. Of course, the same works the other way around, which is even better: Jarvis definitely does not want to have some company from India putting their nose in his dealings. "To keep all transactions compartmentalized into their own little boxes and create buffers of isolation is the key to success in this business!"

Lindemann manages to nearly close out the bookkeeping for the preceding month and is ready to open the following month, which he considers a shitty and tedious job. "I will prepare the new spreadsheets later." The new accounting month begins on April 3rd and a lot of work needs to be done to kick-start a new month. The really tough work, however, is Daniel's responsibility. "Daniel will have to put his act together over the weekend. But now it is time to go to bed, old boy, you been up all night," he yawns. "It is already another freaky Saturday, in fact is has been Saturday for over six hours now."

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