I have become part of the problem. 

In an effort to cleanse my conscience I confess my transgression here.  I received a call this week from a client who owes about a thousand dollars for about fifteen searches done about three months ago (about).  We have never received another request and I was close to handing the account over to collections.  The call was in response to an e-mail I sent.  I could tell by the lady’s tone of voice that she would pay – just not the amount billed.  She wanted to fight about our “unreasonable” fees.  I simply told her to just pay what she wanted.  After a moment of stunned silence she asked if I would like to go through the invoices one by one and I said no – I told her to just pay whatever she felt like. 

I have become the Radiohead of the abstract industry and I am ashamed. 

In my defense, I was able to roughly calculate the time and expense that would have been involved trying to get the client to pay what was owed – knowing as I did so that in the end the client was going to end up paying whatever the hell they wanted anyway.  It was wrong I know – I ask your forgiveness.