This quarter's fight
Who pays when the tool is on all night.
Ops shrugs. Finance doesn't. Models got cheaper per token. Your bill didn't. That's usage sprawl. Bigger files. More retries. Tabs left open. I left a tab open over a weekend once. It wasn't free. It was just quiet.
A Q3 review where nobody could say which jobs used AI, only the vendor name. Backwards. Name the job first. Vendor second. If you can't name the job, pause the vendor.
A cap beats a vibe
Pick a dollar number. Write it down.
When you hit it, you stop. You don't 'see how it goes.' I saw. It went over. If a job can't live inside the cap, it isn't a job yet. It's a hobby. Hobbies are for nights. Company cards are not hobbies.
Caps feel childish until the invoice lands. Then they feel like adult work. Put the cap on the same sticky as the kill date. Two numbers. One paper.
Three jobs, not a catalog
Estimate chase. Intake. Review replies.
That's enough for a quarter. If you add a fourth, you're collecting. Collecting is how sprawl starts. I collected. I had seven 'small' experiments. None of them were small on the bill together.
Cap the noisiest one for 30 days. Review the bill on day 31 with the person who does the work, not just the cardholder. The cardholder will say it seemed reasonable. The person doing the work will say they pasted around it. You need both sentences.
- Job named.
- Cap written.
- Owner named.
- Day-31 review booked now, not later.
Paper invoices
Screenshots get ignored.
Print. Bring. Put it on the table. If someone says that's old-fashioned, good. Old-fashioned is visible. Visible is the point.
Highlight the line you can't explain. That's the agenda. Not a new model announcement. Not a blog someone forwarded. The highlighted line.
What to tell people who want the new model
After the cap. After the job name.
If they can't say which queue gets faster, they don't get a model. They get a maybe in the parking lot. Parking lot maybes don't get cards. I've given parking lot maybes cards. That's how weekends stay on.
Monday
Name three jobs. Cap one.
Book day 31 on the calendar before you leave the room. If it's not on the calendar, it will slide. Sliding is how Q4 looks like Q3. I don't want that. You don't either if you're reading this instead of buying another seat.
Then turn off anything that ran all night with no named job. If you don't know how to turn it off, that's your first task. Not a strategy offsite. A settings page. Sit down. Click. Confirm the bill dropped next week. If it didn't, you clicked the wrong thing. Click again.
Tab open all weekend
Quiet. Not free. I know now. Close the tab. Caps exist because I didn't. Caps feel childish until the invoice. Then they feel like adulthood.
If you don't know how to turn it off, that's task one. Settings page. Sit. Click. Confirm next week's bill. If it didn't drop, you clicked wrong. Click again. Strategy offsites don't click.
Vendor name without a job
Pause the vendor. Job first. I sat in a review that only had vendor names. We sounded informed. We weren't. Informed is a job name on a sticky next to a cap.
Parking lot maybes don't get cards. I've given them cards. Weekends stayed on. No more parking lot cards from me if I can help it.
Seven small experiments
None small together. Collecting is sprawl. Three jobs this quarter. Fourth is collecting. I collected. I paid. I'm not collecting this quarter.
Day 31 with the person who does the work. Cardholder says reasonable. Worker says they pasted around it. You need both sentences. Book day 31 before you leave the room. If it's not on the calendar it slides. Sliding is Q4 looking like Q3.
Highlight the line
That's the agenda. Not a forwarded blog. Not a model announcement. The line you can't explain. If you can't find a line, maybe stop looking for a crisis. Peace is allowed.
Paper on the table. If they say old-fashioned, nod. Nodding is cheaper than another seat.
Turn off the unnamed night job
If it ran with no named job, off. If you're scared, that's the feeling of a cap working. Sit with the scare. Then click. Then watch the bill. Watching is the second half of clicking. I used to click and not watch. That's how quiet weekends cost money.
Tell ops you turned it off. They might cheer. They might yell. Both are data. Yelling with a job name can earn a capped trial. Yelling without a job name doesn't.
If You Only Do One Thing
Write the Q3 hold on a card. Read it at the next planning meeting before anyone opens a laptop. If they open a laptop first, you already lost the hold. Close the laptop. Read the card. Then open the laptop. Order matters.
I laminated one card because coffee kept winning. Lamination is not a strategy. It's a coffee defense.
What I Won't Do
I won't reopen the three debates as a 'Q4 vision.' Q4 can have new messes. These three already have names. Named messes stay named.
Before Anyone Opened A Laptop
I read the Q3 card out loud. It felt theatrical. I did it anyway. Two people had already opened laptops. They closed them. That was the win. Not the words. The close.
Then we planned. Same mess, named. Named mess is smaller. Unnamed mess eats Q4.
What I'm Leaving On The Table
A new model a vendor wants us to 'just try.' Trying is how the overnight job came back. The card says no overnight jobs without a name. The vendor can wait. Q4 can wait. The card doesn't wait.
If you want a Q4 vision, here's mine: fewer tools, same holds, invoices I can explain. That's not a vision. That's a grocery list. Grocery lists ship.
Next step
Cap a project before you chase a new model.