Chosen by name, counted from the choice, and yours to read.
This page is about your money. A way of working is the name here for how you run a machine once it has been recorded, admitted and built. Before a job, a person on the crew picks whose way of working runs, by name, and writes their own name on the choice. Nothing moves without that act, and the hours are counted from it. You see the count as it is written, and the owner paying sees the same count. Nobody gives you a total and asks you to believe it.
One person, one name, one choice.
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. They choose by name, because a name is what was asked for and a name is what appears on the record.
Then they write their own name on the choice. The record now carries two names: the person whose way of working runs, and the person who chose it. Neither entry can be made by the machine, and neither is made on anybody else's behalf.
The choice is made on the crew, by a person who is there. Nobody at Even Steven makes it for them, and nobody is sent to the site to make it. The person choosing is whoever on that crew says go, and it is their own name that goes on the record beside the name they chose.
If you want the machine end of this before the money end, there is a page that says what happens on a job: who chooses in the morning, what the machine does once they have, and who can stop it.
What a machine does with itThe clearance and the count begin together.
The act that authorizes the machine to move is the act that starts the hours. Nothing is typed in later and nothing is copied across from somewhere else.
A person chooses, by name.
A person on the crew picks whose way of working runs, by name, and puts their own name on the choice.
The choice is the clearance.
That choice is the human authorization the machine may not move without. Loaded is not cleared. A person's word, given on the day, is.
The hours are counted from it.
The hours are written from that moment, in sessions, on the record that already carries the name of the person who chose.
Both sides see the count.
The person whose way of working it is sees the count as it is written. The owner paying for it sees the same count.
The person is paid for the hours.
The person is paid for the hours in use. One record carries the hours and both sides read it, so the accounting comes with the money.
Neither job was designed around the other. The clearance exists because a machine may not move on the software's say, and the count exists because a person is owed money for every hour their way of working is in use. They share one act because the moment a person says whose way of working runs is the same moment that way of working starts earning, and writing it down once, with a name on it, serves both.
No default, no last-used, and a refusal is a fair answer.
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.
No default
Nothing runs because nobody said otherwise. A way of working that is loaded is a way of working that is waiting to be chosen, and it can wait all day.
No last-used
Yesterday's choice ended with yesterday's job. Today's choice is made today, by a person, with today's name on it.
A refusal is fair
Sometimes no way of working on offer suits the ground, the machine or the job. Then the person chooses nothing, no count starts, and the machine works as it always has, with a person in the seat.
Choosing is an act, not a setting. A setting is something a machine remembers. An act is something a person does, on the day, with their name on it.
Written where the work is, by the person who cleared it.
The count starts on the crew, with a name, before the pass. It is not put together afterwards from anybody's memory of the day.
The count is kept in sessions.
The count is kept in sessions. A session is one recording, with its own identifier and its own signature, so it counts itself rather than being counted for you. The hours are attributed to the sessions in use, and a session is what you take back when you end it.
Most arrangements run two sets of books. One side writes down its own hours, the other side writes down different hours, and afterwards somebody sits the two lists side by side and argues out the gap between them. There is one set of books here, and the record is it. Nobody is asked to make two lists agree, because there is no second list to agree with.
What is counted is hours in use: the time a licensed way of working is actually running, taken from the record that shows who cleared the work. There is no second ledger kept somewhere else to reconcile it against, because the record is the ledger.
- What is counted
- Hours a way of working is actually in use
- In what unit
- Sessions, each with its own identifier and signature
- Where it is written
- The record that shows who chose and who cleared
- Who keeps it
- The Tacit Tessera register, read by both sides, with the money owed by us and the accounting owed with it
- What starts it
- A person's choice, by name, with their own name on it
- What ends it
- A different choice, the job finishing, or notice given
Sessions are the unit because a session is the thing that can be pointed at. Hours on their own are a number somebody wrote down. A session is a signed recording with its own identifier, admitted under a written procedure, and the hours belong to it. So when you ask what an hour on your count was, the answer is a session you can open and a name that cleared it, and not a figure on a statement.
The count is not a score, not a ranking, and not a timesheet for you.
It answers one question: how long was a named way of working in use, and who cleared it. It carries no opinion about you, and nothing here is built on it that grades you.
Not a productivity score
A productivity score would need the count to say something about the pace or the quality of the work, and it says neither. It records that a way of working ran, under a name, for that long. A count of hours cannot see what did not happen, and what did not happen is what the crew asked for. Whether the work was good is a thing the people who asked for you already know.
Not a ranking
Nobody is picked from a ranking. People are asked for by name, by somebody who has seen them work, and the count shows that a name was chosen and for how long. A list of names sorted by hours would put the busiest name at the top and say nothing about the ground it worked, so the count is never sorted into one.
Not a timesheet for you
The count is not a record of your day. It counts a way of working in use, in a seat you may not be sitting in, on a job you may never have seen. It does not count you: where you were, how long you worked, or what you did in your own seat that day. Your own work, on your own machine, for your own employer, at your own rate, is not on it. You own your skill, always and forever, and the count has no claim on it. What we build from your record is a tool that runs under your name, on your licence, pays you every hour, passes to your family, and you can end it. We make the tool. You own the skill. The count is the hours the tool ran.
It is not supplied against you, and it is not an estimate.
A recording is licensed for the uses you said yes to, and the count is a record of those uses and nothing more. The people who read it are the person being paid and the person paying, and each of them reads the same lines.
- It is not supplied for discipline or a dismissal. A use you did not say yes to is not one we supply it for.
- It is not a share of somebody's net that you cannot check. What you are paid on is hours, on a record you can open.
- It is not one party's word. Both sides read the same record, and neither is asked to believe the other's total.
- It is not an estimate. We pay on real, checked hours and not on an estimate.
The same count, read from both ends of the money.
A count that only one party can see is an invoice. This one is read by the person being paid and by the person paying, and it is the same record for each.
If it is your way of working
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.
If you own the machines
You see the same count, the same hours, on the same record, and it is what you are charged for. Your person's name is on every choice, so when somebody later asks who cleared a job and whose way of working it ran, the count is the answer.
Most of what is called AI learns from people who were never asked and never paid, and you are right to distrust it. The count is the part of this built against that. Nothing runs under your name that you were not asked about, every hour it runs is written down with the name of the person who cleared it beside it, you are paid for every one of those hours, and you can open the record it was written on.
Your own record on one side, the owner's account on the other, and the same hours in both.
Both of you read the same record as it is written. What differs is which part of it is yours to open, and what the hours come to at your end of the money.
| What | If it is your way of working | If you own the machines |
|---|---|---|
| The hours | Every hour your way of working was in use, session by session, wherever it ran. | The hours a licensed way of working was in use on your own machines, and nothing else from the operator's record. |
| The name on the clearance | Whose name cleared each job it ran on. | Your own person's name, on every choice they made. |
| What it comes to | What you are owed, against those hours. | What you are charged, against the same hours, at or under the ceiling on the covenant. |
| When it is written | From the moment a person on the crew chooses your name, and session by session from there. | From the moment your person chooses, before the pass, and never typed in afterwards. |
| Where you read it | Your own record. It is yours, and not your employer's. | Your own account, for the machines you run. |
| Where it stops | The day a withdrawal takes effect, and the true date every copy is gone. | The point a different choice was written, or the job finished, and nothing past it. |
Neither of you is shown a total and asked to believe it. The hours are written against the record that shows who cleared the work, so a line on your side can be checked against the same line on the other, and a question about any hour has a session and a name for an answer.
Move one and the other moves with it.
The name of the person who cleared the work and the hours billed for it are written in the same place at the same moment. Neither can be quietly adjusted without the other.
Move the hours, and the clearance moves
An hour added to the count is an hour somebody's name says was cleared. There is no column where hours go without a name beside them.
Move the clearance, and the count moves
A choice struck out or shifted takes its hours with it. The count cannot outlast the authority it came from.
Nobody counts alone
The count is kept in one place, by the register rather than by us, the party paid can audit it, and the party paying reads the same record. A quiet change would have to get past all of them at once.
The hours and the name that cleared them are written in one place.
Move one and the other moves with it. Neither can be quietly adjusted without the other.
One record carries the hours, both sides read it, and the accounting comes with the money.
The count is kept in one record that both sides read, so you get an accounting and a right to audit it. That is not generosity. It is the arrangement we would need in your position, and we would not accept a different one in ours.
The covenant, clause three
What an accounting is
The sessions that were in use, the hours under each, whose name cleared each job, and what it comes to. Every line of it is written against the record, so every line can be checked against who cleared the work rather than against our word.
Who owes it
We do. The hours are counted in the Tacit Tessera register and both sides read the same record, the money is owed by Even Steven, and the accounting is owed with the count and comes with it. It is not something you have to go and get. You are never asked to take a total on trust.
What you can do with it
Check it against the record that shows who cleared the work. Ask for it again when a withdrawal takes effect, to the day it stopped. Show it to whoever you like, because it is an accounting of your own hours and it is yours to read.
A count that only the paying side can see is that side's word, and a right to check it that the person cannot use is a clause and nothing more. So the accounting comes out of the one record, with the same names on it, read by you and by the owner paying, and it is owed with the money. Every clause is written against its counterpart on our side, and this one passes the same test as the rest: we would need it in your position, and we would not accept a different one in ours.
One way of working at a time, chosen at its own handover.
A machine runs one named way of working at a time. Where a job passes from one to another, the second is chosen the way the first was, and the hours under the first stop where the second is written.
Nothing runs blended, and each count stops where the next one is written.
The ground changes, or the next part of the job wants a way of working nobody on the crew has, and somebody chooses again: by name, with their own name on the choice, the same act as the first. The first count stops at the handover and the second starts there, on the same record, so each person being paid reads their own hours and the owner reads both.
Nothing is blended on the machine. It runs the way of working that was chosen, under the name that was chosen, until a person chooses again or the job is done. There is no in-between state where two are running at once and nobody can say whose hour it was.
Where two people's work is in the same built thing, both are paid out of the same half, and each is paid for the share of it that came from their own sessions.
A share of a built thing that more than one person is in is a contract right to money on Even Steven's paper. It is not a claim to have written the thing and it is not a figure printed anywhere. It is the proportion your sessions came to, applied to the count, and paid to you.
Where more than one person's work is in the same built thing, each of them said yes to that on its own, because being combined with others is its own consent. The people whose ways of working are in use receive half of the gross take, the gross take being everything the owner pays before any cost comes off it, and their half is divided between them in proportion to each person's sessions in the built thing. Our half carries Even Steven's own costs: the paper, the pay, the accounting, the roster, and what we collect ourselves. Nothing is deducted from theirs, and leaving costs them nothing: from the day a notice arrives nothing new starts under it, and a job already underway finishes. Payment is weekly, by electronic transfer, with a statement to the person's address every time. The same terms are on the covenant.
A count ends the way it began, with an act.
Nothing runs on until somebody decides it should, and nothing is counted past the point they decide it should stop.
- 01A different choiceSomebody on the crew chooses another name, the basics the machine came with, or nothing. The hours under the earlier choice stop where the new one is written.
- 02The job finishingWhen the job the choice was made for is done, the count under it is done. The next job begins with a fresh choice, or with none.
- 03Notice givenThe person whose way of working it is gives notice, and nothing new starts under it. The job already running finishes, and its hours are counted and paid like any other.
None of the three is a penalty and none of them is a clawback. The hours counted up to the point it stopped are paid the same as any other hour, and the accounting runs to the day it stopped. What changes is only that nothing new is counted after it, because nothing new is running.
Your own death is not one of the three. For as long as the licence runs, the hours go on being written the same way, and the money, the licence and the right to end it pass to your family. That is ruled, and counsel is writing the clause. It is something to leave behind, and the count is where they read what it earned.
The rate is written once, on the covenant.
What an hour is worth to you, and the most it can cost the owner running it, are written on the covenant, and echoed in the same words only where the price is the subject of the page. One place to read them, and one place to check they have not moved.
This page is about what the count is: how it starts, what it is kept in, who reads it, and what ends it. What an hour is priced at is a term, and terms live on the covenant, where they are read against their counterparts and where the agreement is being built around them.
What an hour is worth is written once, on the covenant.
One place to read it, and one place to check it has not moved.
For the owner, the operator and the people who can say no.
Charged for the hours in use, counted in sessions, at a stated ceiling. You will see the hours. So will the person being paid. Your person's name is on every choice, there is no default and no last-used, and the most an hour can cost you is on the covenant.
If you own the machinesYou see the count as it is written, session by session, and you see whose name cleared each job it ran on. You get an accounting and a right to audit it, and you are never asked to take a total on trust. Your own record is the door to it, and it is yours and not your employer's.
Your own recordThe count starts from the act that clears the machine, and it moves nothing and stops nothing. It is the record of who cleared what, and for how long.
SafetyThe rate is on the covenant, and this page does not repeat it. The count is kept in one record that both sides read, so an accounting and a right to audit come with it. The terms under it are still being written and nothing is signed yet.
The covenantAsk what the count would show.
Write to us if it is your way of working and you want to know what you would see, and when, or if you run a crew and want to see the count before it runs on your iron.