In Writing Archives - Page 2 of 2

DeAndre Jordan Goes Silent

In July 2015 the center DeAndre Jordan verbally agreed to a four-year, $80 million contract with the Dallas Mavericks. During the league’s eight-day moratorium, a handshake agreement was the only deal allowed.

Within days Jordan had second thoughts. He ignored repeated calls and texts from the team’s owner Mark Cuban and the player Chandler Parsons. Cuban wrote that Jordan “never responded to me at all yesterday. Not once.” Jordan re-signed with the Los Angeles Clippers and apologized: “I am sorry to have a change of heart.”

Asked about the moratorium, Cuban said: “Until you get him to sign on the line that is dotted, nothing happens.”

The change order

The American answer to scope creep is a document. Either party proposes a change in writing, the supplier delivers an impact assessment naming the effect on fees, timeline and acceptance criteria, both sides approve, and only then does the work proceed.

The standard clause is blunt: work performed without an approved change order is performed at the consultant’s risk and may not be billable.

The American supplier is not defending the boundary of the work. He is building the machinery to price its expansion.

Roommate Agreement

On The Big Bang Theory, an American television show about a group of physicists and the girl next door, two of the main characters share an apartment together. In order to ensure that things run smoothly from the beginning one of the roommates drafts a roommate agreement that outlines all of the rules by which the two characters will abide.

Additionally, anytime there is a change in the characters’ status (for example, if one of them starts dating), this roommate will write a modified version of the agreement to accommodate the new arrangement.

However, the second roommate hates having a fixed list of rules, and rather than being a way to solve disputes, the roommate agreement actually becomes the source of many arguments.

1990. Bush. Gorbatschow.

Robert Zoellick, former Deputy Secretary of State under President George H. Bush, addresses Putin’s claim that the West broke a promise it made in the 1990s not to expand NATO.

This is about the topic Agreements, and the American logic. Listen carefully beginning at around 2:30, especially at 3:56, where Zoellick reveals crystal clear the American logic: “Nothing’s really final until you put the words on paper.”

This video was posted on YouTube on February 1, 2022. It is not clear when it was recorded. Russia had amassed conventional forces surrounding Ukraine. The invasion began on February 24.