What stayed on the board after the client left. Not a newsletter, not “useful tips”. Three texts we reread before the next wall.
How we cut the week’s fund if cash dips on Tuesday
Tuesday on Botanica. Summary at 11:00, cash below the plan we hung a week earlier. The owner’s first reflex is “cut everyone’s hours”. On the wall that looks like an even trim. In dispatch it is a hole on Wednesday.
Rule we left on kraft: we only touch fund lines that are not in the next 48 hours of dispatch. Wednesday night shift is not cut on Tuesday evening, even if cash is already red. Overtime that does not close a run is cut, and a household purchase that can move to Friday.
Second rule: the decision is fixed by 16:00 that Tuesday. If the argument spills into Wednesday, mid-week cash still runs on the old fund. The model does not like midnight edits “in chat” — they will not be on the wall in the morning.
The paper strip left the studio at 16:40 after that review. The file went in the same minute. The next weekly handover did not move: Tuesday, 11:00 again.
Scenario B on a Ciocana build
Concrete runs four days late. In mail that sounds like “a small shift”. On a four-metre wall it is two contractor payments moving and a hole in the week that already held an advance for windows.
We hang scenario B before the concrete is late. Otherwise it is not a scenario, it is an incident log. In Ciocana, B meant: windows move a week, that Friday’s cash is not spent on a decorative façade, it is held for mortar and the people who will still turn up.
What we do not put in B: “we will find another supplier overnight” and “the bank always gives an overdraft”. Those are not rows. A row is an amount, a date, a name. If there is no name, the card comes off the wall.
Updated strip after the concrete shift: next working day, 11:00, even if that is Wednesday. Waiting for Monday “as usual” is not possible: cash already lives in another week.
Handover is Thursday, 16:00, not “when it is ready”
The phrase we send back most often: “needed around month end”. By month end in Chișinău the till is already closed somehow, and the material is still being collected. We do not start a wall until the brief has an hour.
Why Thursday 16:00 often works: Friday is payments on the client side, Monday is the weekend leftover, Tuesday we keep for other people’s Tuesday cash. Thursday afternoon you can still argue standing and put an edit in before people leave town.
The hour is written in the model header and on kraft. If we hand over later, that is a separate line “hour moved”, not a quiet “almost made it”. Almost is already another date. The date changes next week’s cash even if the file differs by one cell.
On Columna we do not start the plotter for new strips after 16:00. If a brief arrives at 16:20, print is in the morning. That does not cancel an hour already in the agreement: it means the brief should have come earlier. We write that in the reply.
