The Office Dwight Phone Call. Stopping the clock ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I'm curious as to what other consultants do about taking breaks. Do you stop the clock when you get a phone call unrelated to your client? Lunch seems obvious, but what about when you take a coffee break? How about when a neighbor drops by for a chat? How about when you just need to walk around the block to clear your head? How about when you are posting to newsgroups, and then looking for responses?

A. I was just discussing this with a lawyer friend; my model is basically the same as they use--bill in 1/4-hour increments, and assume that any 1/4-hour in which you spend more than 3/4 of the time working for the client is a billable unit. Research (including looking in newsgroups for info) is billable; the assumption is that your billable rate should be inversely proportional to the amount of relevant experience you can bring to bear for the project, so if you are going to be spending more time than usual on research, you should presumably be billing less per hour. If your walk around the block is just a walk, I wouldn't count it as work, but if you spend the time trying to work out an algorithm or something, then I would. I charge for the time I am at their office, unless I am on a lengthy personal phone call, and even then, if I am running a lengthy process, and am making the phone call instead of staring at a screen, I still charge them. One of my clients is a law firm, and one of the partners sometimes travels to DC, and is involved in some very interesting work. When I run into him in the lunch room, I always try to draw him out in conversation, just because he is so interesting, and I *always* make it a point to deduct that time from my invoice. As I explained to him, I don't want to disincent him from gossiping with me. I also have a home phone and a work phone. I always answer the work phone - but seldom answer the home phone during the day. My friends know not to call me on the work phone unless it's very important.

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