☕️ (R)emote Expresso #82

☕️ (R)emote Expresso is global. Remote. Slightly feral. Weekly.

You did a version of this too, this week. The "no" softened into a maybe. The opinion you filed down before it left your mouth. I'll go first.

Twenty-some years in corporate, and then I struck out on my own.

I had a plan. I had a chatbot. I had a mission.

I did not have a price.

Every time I sat down to name a number, a guy showed up. You know the guy. Polyester suit, too much cologne, sells used sedans in a commercial that only airs at 2am. "What's it gonna take to put YOU behind the wheel TODAY?"

My head had decided he was what sales IS. So asking an actual human for money felt like borrowing his blazer.

Try naming a price out loud, with a straight face, while THAT is the f***ing soundtrack. Go ahead. I'll wait.

So I lowballed. Looked at a person, guessed what they could probably afford, shaved the number to match. Never asked them. Just quietly decided on their behalf and called it being considerate.

Took me about a year to catch that one.

But money was the easy discount to spot. It came with a dollar sign attached. You can see a dollar sign.

The one I almost missed didn't come with one.

The DM slides in. LinkedIn, Slack, the Circle community - doesn't matter which.

Hey! Can I pick your brain sometime? Won't take long, promise!

Old me didn't even finish reading it before I was typing back. YES. Of course! How's Thursday?

I'd block thirty minutes. Thirty went to fifty. Fifty went to "well, while we're here…" A few turned into standing calls - a recurring slot on my calendar, free, running until one of us moved or forgot.

I walked away wrung out. They walked away with the good stuff. And I felt… generous. Like I'd done a nice thing.

It was the same move I made with the price. I looked at my own time, decided in advance it was the thing to give away, and handed it over before anyone asked how much I had.

So I went and counted, because I'm the type who counts. Last year: fifty-some different people, one-on-one. A handful were real trades - they had something I needed too, and we walked away square. The rest were me, setting my brain out on the curb with a FREE sign taped to it.

Nobody was picking my brain. I was running a small unpaid business I'd accidentally founded and forgotten to charge for.

Something's different now. When the "pick your brain" DM slides in, I don't fire back a yes at 11pm out of guilt. I sit with two questions, and I answer them on my time, not theirs.

Can I actually help this person? (Sometimes the honest answer is "no, but I know who can.")

Does my week have room? (Sometimes it just… doesn't. That's allowed.)

If it's a yes, it's fifteen minutes. Not thirty-that-becomes-ninety. Fifteen. Unless it's obvious we'll need more, in which case we plan for more, on purpose, like grownups.

Fifteen minutes, it turns out, is plenty to actually help somebody. The rest of it - the swell to fifty, the "well, while we're here" - was never for them. That was just me, still lowballing. Still sure my time was only safe to keep if I'd given enough of it away first.

Turns out the salesman was never really selling cars. He was selling me one idea, on repeat: that I'm only allowed to want a thing if I shrink it first. Want to get paid? Shave the number. Want your afternoon back? Fine, keep a sliver, after you've given most of it away. Want the credit? Hand it off and hope your name comes up. Make it small enough that nobody can be annoyed you wanted it at all.

I'm not cured. I still get the flutter of guilt when I say fifteen minutes. Still hear the guy from the 2am commercial.

But the time I keep now is mine. And I've stopped apologizing for keeping it.

Now serving. Market price. The market has decided your price is zero.

STARTERS

MAINS

SIDES

THE BILL

The chef is weeping in the walk-in. The food is EXCELLENT. Please tell your friends, they'll want a table too.

Your turn this week, and it's small.

Pick one thing you redo every week that makes you sigh. The recurring update. The message you rewrite from scratch every single time for no reason.

Hand the ugly first draft to AI. Not to look impressive. Just to buy back twenty minutes.

Then - this is the actual assignment - do not spend those twenty minutes on more work.

Spend them on something that's only yours. The walk. The book. The staring out a window doing gloriously nothing.

Don't pick your own brain either. Give it the twenty minutes back.

Mark every square you've pulled off this week. Or, fine, this year.

Five in a row, any direction, and you win. You win nothing. The prize was your time, and you already handed it over, plated and garnished, to someone who said "SO helpful" and was never heard from again.

Blackout, all 24, and congratulations - you're not playing bingo. You're running a small unpaid business you forgot to charge for.

The center square is free. So, apparently, was your brain.

The uncomfortable truth? I send the DM too.

I've got a "quick question" sitting in someone's inbox right now, and it is not quick, and I know it.

So maybe the fix was never charging harder or guarding the calendar like a dragon. Maybe it's just remembering that the person on the other end has a fifty-some of their own. And answering like I know it.

— The (R) Generation Team 💻 🧡 🫶

PS: I said fifteen minutes to someone yesterday and physically felt the guilt in my knees. Still did it. That's the win now. Wobbly knees, held line.

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☕️ (R)emote Expresso is published weekly for R Generation - a global community of remote professionals, designers, product people, facilitators, consultants, and freelancers who believe remote work should fit the human, not the other way around.