As Billy Short reflects on some of the more challenging jobs he has encountered this past year, all those stats we typically see — budgets, scopes, figures, totals, yields and percentages — aren’t the real indicators of what makes a job hard, he says. Ultimately, the hard jobs are the ones you are not prepared for.

I’ve found that there are three basic functions that need to be regularly and continuously accomplished to be able to run a business.

It’s three months after the completion of a fairly routine water loss, and you are still waiting to get paid.