Price check

What is anything worth? There is common agreement on acceptable prices for some items and wildly different opinions about the monetary value of other things, but I suppose one has to be an economic theorist (or more of one than I am) to understand what numbers work and don't.

It's a topic worthy of consideration on a day that saw me make what I consider a ridiculous sum of money for three hours of freelance videography. The opportunity was presented to me a week ago. In setting up the deal I tossed out a number that I knew other people in the company didn't blink at when putting together a proposal for a different project. Obviously they didn't think it was as outrageous of a price as I thought it was. All the better for me. Who doesn't like to be handsomely paid for short, easy work?

Nevertheless, I felt a little guilty about it. Not so guilty that I slashed my rate, mind you, but guilty that I didn't deserve it. I accomplished the task required of me, and apparently my price was well within what the market will bear. The thing is that I don't place the value of my abilities as high as the client did. So who's right? Is either of us?

Of course, I've been giddy over this mini-windfall ever since it dropped in my lap. It's probably safe to say that compensation of this sort won't come along often. The last time I did anything remotely like this was three years ago, but it required a lot more time and effort.

For that matter, I was even able to knit while "on the clock". There's usually a lot of down time in video production, so I brought the scarf with me in the event that I would be sitting around until the interview subjects arrived. Sure enough, for about thirty minutes of the three hours I was free to do as I pleased. I plunked myself down in a chair to the side of the milling conference attendees and knitted. I had forgotten to print out the pattern and bring it along, but I thought I remembered how it went.

Wrong.

I wasn't off by much, but as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. It looks fine. I could probably get by with the error uncorrected; however, I've decided that the mistake is leading me to do what I knew needed to be done to the scarf. I should rip it all out. Going by the yarn's stitches per inch, I cast on thirty stitches to get the width I was aiming for. It has turned out about an inch shorter than I hoped. I didn't want to frog it, but now I have a good excuse for doing just that.

In the end it's worth doing because frogging is the price I'm willing to pay. I can't explain why it is an acceptable cost fifteen rows later. Ripping out earlier wouldn't have been as expensive. I guess we value some things more when in a pinch.