Received a contract yesterday. Not even 24 hours had passed before someone started chasing me to come back with comments or they'd assume I had no objection to its contents.
- It really annoys me when people have a deadline in mind, but don't communicate it until the last minute. I'm strongly disinclined to entertain such nonsense.
- If you're going to insist on speed on my part, at least make sure the work you did was properly done, or it's just embarrassing.
- I read through the document once and identified 17 ambiguities or typos that I requested to be clarified/amended before I signed. Ambiguities I can't pass judgement on, since I have no legal background, but the whole document is only 30 pages — surely it's not that hard for a lawyer to avoid typos, since they all still use Word(Perfect)….
- A document with a "reference error" (as might be generated by LaTeX when referencing a section that doesn't exist, e.g. because you called the wrong variable) does not constitute a "pretty much final draft".
Really interesting that someone else, who I know needs to sign the same document, apparently managed to read it way faster than I did — and agreed to its terms.