Built for you, and asked for by name.
Even Steven exists so that what you know is protected, is there to use on your terms, and pays you. You own your skill, always and forever. What is made of your skill is ours, for you, and the skill itself is never bought. What we build from your record is a tool that runs under your name, pays you every hour it works because you kept the original, passes to your family, and you can end it. We make the tool. You own the skill.
A way of working is this site's name for your tacit skill once it is recorded, admitted and built. Tacit means the part of the job nobody could write down for you, the part you learned by doing it on ground that was never the same twice. If you want that said slowly, read the plain page first and come back to this one.
What a tacit skill isA number would rank you last.
On blind, wet or soft ground every measure you could rank by turns on you. The careful hand works slower, right up until the quick one is in the water. Feeling for a bottom you cannot see takes constant correction, so a count of corrections reads the skill as its absence. It is the same on a panel: the operator who sees a process drifting and moves early looks busier than the one who waits for the alarm.
So a name goes on the list because people who have worked with you asked for it, and it stays there on what you record and never on a score. Being good is not the bar. Being asked for is.
The best operators are known for what does not happen. A record can show that. A score cannot.
What you get, and what we will not move on.
You keep your job. Nobody here employs you, no owner takes you on, and nothing about your ticket, your seniority or your seat changes. What you license is a record of how you work, and the skill in it stays yours. The five below are the five the agreement is being built to hold up: your skill, your pay, your name, your right to end it, and the count. The count is the hours your way of working was in use.
The machines are learning how you work, with or without you. Most of what gets called AI learned from people who were never asked and never paid, and you are right not to trust it. Even Steven was built by people who run machines and are old enough to distrust it too, so it is built the other way round. You are asked, one agreement at a time, and there are four of them written on the covenant. You are paid every hour. You can end it. Your name is on it. Your skill stays yours, forever. The machines are learning. Even Steven keeps it fair and square.
- 01Your skill stays yoursNothing here takes it, buys it, moves it or learns it out of you. Nothing here stops you working, teaching, bringing on apprentices, or going somewhere else tomorrow. We never ask for that and we would not take it.
- 02Paid every hour it worksNo lump sum and no handshake. A share for every hour your way of working is in use, for as long as it is. You are paid because you kept the original. Paid weekly, by electronic transfer, with a statement to your address each time.
- 03Your name on itIf a machine is working your way, it says so. The name is the point, and it stays attached to you.
- 04You can end itGive notice and nothing new starts under it. The job already running finishes, and that is the one delay in it. No penalty, no clawback, no fee for walking away. A right that costs money to use is not a right.
- 05You can check the countThe count is kept in sessions, and each one carries its own identifier and signature. You see the hours it worked and what you are owed, and you can check both against the record that shows who cleared the work.
A day nobody chooses your name is a normal day, and nothing is owed for it.
Does this replace you.
No. Your skill is yours, and what a machine runs is a tool built from your record, under your name. A way of working proposes and never authorizes, so a machine running yours still needs a person on the crew to clear the job, on the day, and a person at the machine who can stop it. Whether anyone sits in the seat while it runs depends on the machine and is the owner's call, not ours. What is fixed here is that you are paid for every hour it runs, wherever it runs, under your name, and that you can end it. How many seats an owner runs, and who sits in them, was always the owner's call and it still is.
What a machine does with itEvery one of those is written against its counterpart on our side. The test each clause has to pass is whether it would still be acceptable if the two sides swapped places.
You are told what is recorded, in plain words, before it starts.
Nothing starts with a form. Before the first session you are asked for, told, and asked, in this order, and each step is a person's act with a name on it.
Asked for by name
Somebody who has seen you work asks for you by name. Nobody is picked from a ranking, and nobody is put forward because of a number.
Told what is recorded
You are told what the record holds before anything is switched on, in the words of the trade rather than the words of a form. What your hands did. What the machine did back. What you were looking at when you acted. All three timed against one clock and sealed together, with the photograph of the disconnected state inside the record. What the ground did is recorded too.
Asked, one agreement at a time
You are asked for four separate yeses, one at a time, each on its own paper, and never for one signature that carries all of them. The fourth is the one that lets a record be used to build a model, and what it pays goes on the covenant before you are asked for it. Each is given on its own and withdrawn on its own, so you can say yes to one and no to another and the no is honoured without emptying anything else. The four are set out below.
Checked when it happens
Consent is checked when the recording happens, not looked up afterwards. A session made while the agreement covering it was not live is refused, and the reason says so.
Your yes, or no session
If the answer is no, nothing is recorded, whatever has been arranged. There is no signature buried in an equipment contract that stands in for your yes, and no yes is assumed from a file.
The four agreements, one at a time, in the order they are put to you. Each one is a separate yes, and a no to any of them leaves the others standing.
To be recorded at all.
Yes to making the record on the day you agreed to, and to nothing past that. Permission to make the record. Nothing else follows from it.
To be combined with others.
Yes to your work sitting inside one built thing with other people's work, a built thing being what a machine ends up running. Permission for your work to go into one built thing with more than one person's way of working in it.
To run under your name.
Yes to an owner licensing it by name, for a job of their own, with your name on it and the hours counted from the moment somebody on that crew picks you. Permission for a way of working to be licensed under your name, for somebody else's job.
To be used to train a model.
This is the one you can refuse and still be recorded, still be licensed by name and still be paid, because a no here empties nothing else. A record used to train a model rather than to run a machine is a different thing, and none of the three above covers it. It is asked for on its own paper, in plain words, and never folded into another yes, and it is what founds a learning licence, given for one person and one set at a time, for a stated use, a stated place and a stated term.
The limit on it is stated before you are asked, never after. A model cannot be un-trained. So if you end that yes, nothing new runs from the day your notice arrives, and the material comes out at the next revision of the model, with that date stated first. Nobody here will tell you a model has forgotten you.
Nothing is signed yet. The agreements are being written now, and the points they are being built around are set out on the covenant in plain words. Nobody is asked to sign anything before then.
Somebody who has seen you work asks for you by name.
Nobody is picked from a ranking, because on the ground that matters every number turns on you.
You run the machine as you always have, and nothing of ours is connected to it.
The recorder watches from outside it, wired to nothing, and a photograph of that state goes into the record.
No harness cut, no controller touched, no power taken off the machine.
Your controls feel the same. If it changes the feel it is not fit to record the feel, and that is checked before any kit is fitted. It cannot move a machine and it cannot stop one, so no part of any safety case rests on it, and the machine's own safeguards are unchanged and still operating.
It starts when you say so and it stops when you say so. It comes off, photographed before and after, and leaves no mark. A session carries the who, the what and the how of that day, so that years later nobody has to remember and nobody has to be believed.
Every part of this is something a person can walk up to and check, and the photograph is there so that somebody can check it years later.
- Nothing cut, nothing tapped, nothing powered off the machine.
- The controls behave as they did before anything was fitted.
- The recorder comes off and leaves no mark.
- The photograph of that state is in the record, before and after, where it cannot be swapped out quietly.
- Who was in the seat, which machine it was, and which agreement covered it, written into the same session.
Refused is not a criticism of you.
Before anything is built from a session it goes through the same checks as every other, and it comes out admitted or refused. Refused always comes with its reason, and every reason is one of these.
- A field missing. Something the record needs is not there, and the reason names the first place it failed.
- A consent that was not live. The agreement covering the recording was not in force at the time it was made.
- A set-up that cannot be shown. Something was connected that should not have been, or the photograph or the check is missing, or the machine is not the one the session says it is.
Every reason is about equipment or paperwork, and no check anywhere grades how you worked. A refused session is kept rather than thrown away and the reason travels with it, because a record of what went wrong is worth as much to us as a record of what went right.
Built away from the machine
What we build from your admitted records is a tool, and we build it away from the machine, from records you said yes to and nothing else. What reaches a machine is a release, and a named person signs it. If a release is ever wrong, there is a name on it, and the question of what went in and who signed is answered by the record.
Nothing is learned on the machine
No machine on a site is learning while it works, and no machine is changing its own way of working between one pass and the next. Nobody on the crew is the subject of an experiment.
The person clearing a job sees your name, and the count starts from their choice.
Before anything runs, somebody on the crew chooses whose way of working is in the machine: the basics it came with, the way the owner's own operator taught it, or a specialist licensed by name. A person picks, and the choice is written down with their name on it.
Chosen by name
Before a job, a person on the crew picks whose way of working runs, by name. Their own name goes on the choice, and no way of working runs until it is made.
Counted from the choice
That choice starts the count. The hours are written from that moment, on the record that already carries the name of the person who chose, so the count and the clearance cannot be pulled apart.
No default, no last-used
A machine that starts the day on yesterday's choice has moved on nobody's authority. So there is no default and nothing carries over. Each job begins with a person choosing again, even when they choose the same name as yesterday.
You see the count as it is written, session by session, and you see whose name cleared each job it ran on. One record is kept and both sides read it, so you get an accounting and a right to audit it. You are never asked to take a total on trust.
A count ends the way it began, with an act: a different choice, the job finishing, or notice given. The rate is on the covenant, and this page does not repeat it.
The count starts when a person picks your name.
The hours are written from that moment, on the record that already carries the name of the person who chose.
Your protections travel with you, not with whoever is paying.
This is the part written for the person with the least room to say no.
You are asked first
An owner can arrange a recording. Only you can agree to one, and you are told what is recorded, in plain words, before it starts. Without your yes there is no session, whatever has been arranged.
The right to withdraw is yours
You gave the consent, so you can take it back, and it does not require your employer's agreement or anybody else's.
It does not travel without you
What you taught your employer's machine stays with that employer, and goes nowhere else without a fresh agreement carrying your signature. The skill behind it is still yours. It is still licensed under your name, the hours it runs there are still counted and charged, and you are still paid the half of every one of them and can still end it.
It is not supplied against you
A recording is licensed for the uses you said yes to. A use you did not say yes to, your employer wanting it for discipline or a dismissal included, is not one we supply it for.
What happens inside your own workplace is not ours to promise, and we do not pretend to speak for it. What is fixed on our side is set out above: no yes, no session, and the taking back of it is yours and needs nobody else's agreement. What is asked of an owner who arranges a recording, so that a refusal is never recorded, reported or made a condition of the work, is one of the points the agreement is being built around.
The second signature is built in, not worked around.
The instrument is our word for all of it together: the agreement, the roster and the pay that sit under somebody else's machine. Where the place you work gives a works council, a union or another body a say in whether recording happens at all, the instrument is built to take that second signature rather than to work around it. Where it is asked for, it goes beside yours on the same agreement, in the same plain words, and the recording waits for that answer as it waits for yours.
Whether a recording arrangement affects your employment agreement, your obligations to an employer, or your position under a collective agreement is for your own counsel or your own representative. We will not offer a view on it, and anyone selling you something who does is telling you what suits them.
What we can show your representative
What we can show you is how the thing works: what is recorded, what is not, where it is kept, who can reach it, and what happens when you say stop. You are told what it can and cannot do, in the same words we use with the person paying for it.
Why the columns are the same length
Every protection on the operator's side has a counterpart on ours holding it up, and the two columns are the same length. A protection with no counterpart is a favour, and favours get taken back.
Give notice, and nothing new starts under it.
Give notice and it comes out of service. No penalty, no clawback, no fee.
The covenant, clause five
From the day it arrives, no new job starts under it. A job already underway finishes, because stopping a machine mid-pass is its own hazard, and that is the one delay in it. Deleting every copy takes longer than taking it out of service, because backups run to a horizon. You are told both dates, and the shorter one is never allowed to stand in for the longer one.
What was done and when it was done stays on the record, so the withdrawal can be shown to have been honoured. A change of ownership should be a reason to withdraw, on its own, and what that obliges us to do is on its own page.
One door, and it is yours and not your employer's.
What was recorded, what was built from it, the hours it worked and what you are owed, behind a door only you can open.
- What was recorded, session by session.
- What was admitted and what was refused, with the reason named.
- What was built from it.
- Where it is listed, under your name.
- The hours it has worked, and what you are owed.
- The day a withdrawal took effect, and the true date every copy is gone.
What a listing under your name carries.
A listing is a named way of working, for the family of machine it was taught on. An owner finds it by the family of machine and licenses it by name, for a job, and the name they see is yours.
- The name
- YoursThe name is the point, and it stays attached to you
- The family of machine
- The one it was taught onNothing is offered for a machine it was not taught on, and if the family does not match, no listing shows
- The work and the ground
- What it was recorded doing, and whereThe ground, the material and the weather, as the crew found them
- What it is not for
- Said in as many wordsSo nobody licenses it for a job it was never recorded doing
- The sessions under it
- Each one admitted, each one signedA session carries its own identifier and signature, so it counts itself
- Who released it
- A named personIf a release is ever wrong, there is a name on it
- The hours it has worked
- Shown to both sidesYou and the owner read the same record
- Where it stands
- In service, ended, or withdrawnWith the date it changed, and the name of whoever changed it
A listing is found by the family of machine and chosen by name. It is never sorted, and there is no way to pay to be seen first. What the repository refuses, it refuses for everybody.
- A ranking, a score, a leaderboard or a rating.
- Paid placement.
- A listing without your yes.
- A recording sold as such, or the whole sold flat.
You are not being hired, and you are not being replaced by yourself.
It is not you on somebody's site and it is not a person for the day. What is licensed is a way of working, it cannot be passed on to anybody else, and it runs only while somebody on that crew says so.
And it does not end your work. Everything you know is still in your hands tomorrow, on your own machine, for your own employer, at your own rate. What changes is that a second thing can earn while you are doing something else. And one day it will earn on the days your back has decided otherwise.
It outlasts you, too. When you are gone, the licence, the money and the right to end it pass to your estate for as long as the licence runs, and your listing comes down unless your family asks otherwise. That is ruled. Counsel is writing the clause, and it goes on the covenant before anybody signs. What you know is not lost with you. It is something to leave behind.
Over the yearsNot a performance review
Nothing in the record grades how you worked, and nothing anywhere else does either. The checks a session goes through are about equipment and paperwork.
Not a score
Nobody is picked from a list sorted by anything. You are asked for by name, by people who have seen the work. We do not sell one operator's record against another's.
Not a sale
There is nothing there to acquire. You license a record of how you work, and the skill in it is yours. What we build from that record is a tool, and a tool is all it is: it runs under your name, on your licence, and you can end it. An instrument that took the skill outright would extinguish the reason to keep paying you.
Bring us the clauses that fail the test.
Fair is fairFor the owner, the operator and the people who can say no.
Your own operator's way of working, taught on your own machine, runs on your iron and goes nowhere else, and you are charged for the hours it runs and your operator is paid the half, the same as for a specialist's. The skill is theirs. A specialist's way of working comes under their name, for your job, and somebody on your crew still says go.
If you own the machinesYou keep the seat you have, and what you know stays yours. What is made of it is Even Steven's, for you, and Even Steven administers your rights under all of this and nobody else does. You are asked before anything is recorded, one agreement at a time. Your name stays on it, you are paid for every hour it works, you can check the count, and ending it costs you nothing.
Your own recordA photograph of the disconnected state goes into the record. A way of working proposes and never authorizes, and a person on the crew clears every job.
SafetyWe give no legal opinion, and you should not accept one from a vendor. The agreements are being written now, and when the terms are settled they go up on the covenant in plain words. Nobody signs anything before then.
The covenantTell us who asks for you, and what they ask for you on.
If people who have seen you work ask for you by name, write to us and say what you run. What you know stays yours either way.