I did not know what Daniel had told Richard specifically. I knew he had called him in August, but Daniel’s account of that call was brief: he had explained what I did, he had corrected the previous picture, Richard had said okay and that was largely that. This was Daniel’s summary and it was possibly complete and possibly a compression of something more complicated. I would find out at dinner.
Richard is a practical man. He worked in construction management for thirty years and retired early into a life that involves a lot of travel and a lot of opinions about professional sports. He is not unkind. He is the kind of person who says what he thinks without a lot of decoration, which I can appreciate even when what he thinks requires pushback.
At dinner, about halfway through, he turned to me and said: “Daniel tells me you do consulting work. Operations.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“What does that actually mean?”
I gave him the short version: midsize service companies, workflow analysis, identifying friction in their processes, making recommendations. He listened in the way of someone who has been in operational contexts and knows the difference between business-speak and real description.
“You go on site?”
“Usually yes. A day or two per engagement, sometimes more for bigger projects.”
“And you charge how?”
“By engagement for most projects. Day rate for shorter or more defined work.”
He nodded. “That’s a real business.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I didn’t understand before that it was a real business,” he said. This was the most direct acknowledgment I got from Richard, and I had not expected it. He said it without apology and without elaboration, the way someone says a factual thing and moves on.