19.09.2026 Diary XIX The two-facedness money creates
Everyone is warm until money comes up. In the offer the budget is no problem, in the invoice everything is too much. The two faces money brings out in working life.
19.09.2026 Diary Page XIX
Money does not change a person. It only lifts the cover off them.
Saturday. I want to leave the tiredness of the week a little behind and write about one thing. It has been on my mind for a long time.
Money.
Or rather, those two faces that money brings out in people.
Until money is talked about
Everyone who does their own work knows. At the start of a job everything is lovely.
You meet, you talk, ideas fly through the air. The other person is excited, you are excited. “Exactly what we were looking for.” “We'll do such good work together.” “We're flexible on budget, what matters is a good result.”
Then the figure is talked about.
And sometimes, not always but sometimes, that warm table suddenly goes cold. The tone of voice changes. The smile gets a little smaller. “Isn't that a bit high?” “We hadn't actually thought of something this extensive.” “We're like friends, we'll sort something out, I suppose.”
We're like friends. I have heard this sentence a lot. Usually when payment is being discussed.
Pictures I have seen over the years
I am not writing these to point at anyone. The people change, the picture stays the same.
Generous in the offer, stingy in the invoice. Someone who says “budget is no problem” when the job starts and, when the invoice comes, says “did it really cost this much.” As if two different people.
Payment in visibility. Someone who asks for free work with the sentence “it will be a good reference for you too.” A reference does not pay rent, but saying so always feels as if it is shameful.
A small thing. Jobs that begin with “it's a very small job, it'll take five minutes” and last five days. What is small is not the job but the figure they want to pay.
Those who earn the most haggle the most. This still surprises me. Sometimes the ones with the most comfortable budgets are the ones who want to cut the most. Someone with no money says they have no money; someone with money belittles the worth.
Inflating their own labour and shrinking someone else's. Someone who, while explaining how valuable the work they do is, describes the work you do as “a couple of clicks.”
Invisible labour again
Under most of these pictures lies the same thing: invisible labour.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the work I do not being seen. When money is talked about this invisibility turns into a price. The invisible thinking time, the ideas thrown out, a solution that comes in the middle of the night... None of it stands as a line on the invoice. That is why it is so easy to say “is that all?”
It is very easy to belittle the worth of something you do not see.
What it brings out in me
Here I have to stop and look at myself too. Because money does not bring out only the other person's two faces. It brings out mine too.
My voice dropping when I say a price. My adding an explanation right after I say the figure. My stepping back with “but if you like we can cut here” when no one has asked. My belittling my own labour before the person in front of me does.
This is a kind of two-facedness too. On one side I complain that my labour is not seen, on the other I am the first to shrink it.
And there is this: sometimes I too do not say something that bothers me, to protect a good relationship. I smile and accept, then in the evening I get angry inside. While criticising the other person's two faces, noticing my own two faces is not very pleasant.
Learning to talk about money is also learning a little to be honest with yourself.
Money is not bad
Writing these, it may look as if I am angry at money. I am not.
Money is a return. A return for labour, for time, for thought. Asking for it is not shameful, paying it is not a favour. Both are an ordinary part of a job.
The problem is not in money itself but in the strange shame we build around money. In its becoming something that must not be talked about, hinted at, brushed over, “we'll see later.”
Money relationships that are talked about openly do not break. Money that is not talked about breaks them.
What I wrote to myself today
Say the figure to the end, do not add an explanation behind it.
When the sentence “we're like friends” comes, remember that friendship does not require not paying, it requires openness.
Make invisible labour visible. First see it yourself, then show it.
When you notice the two-faced one, move away, but do not take every tense table for two-facedness. Sometimes people are just really in a hard place.
And keep noticing your own two faces too.
Money does not change a person. It only lifts the cover off them.
Seeing what is under my own cover is part of this work too.