Fatima finished the invoice late on a Thursday night, tired from a week of back-to-back projects. She sent it off to her client Winston without giving it a second read. It wasn't until the following morning, reviewing her records over coffee, that she noticed the number looked wrong.
法蒂玛在一个星期四的深夜做完了发票，已经被一周接连不断的项目累坏了。她没有再多看一遍，就把它发给了客户温斯顿。直到第二天早上，她一边喝咖啡一边查看自己的记录，才发现这个数字不对。
She had billed Winston for twelve hours of design work, but the total listed on the invoice reflected only eight. Somewhere between her spreadsheet and the invoice template, two line items had been accidentally deleted. If she let it go uncorrected, she would lose nearly four hundred dollars for work she had already completed.
她给温斯顿计的是十二个小时的设计工作，可发票上列出的总额只反映了八个小时。在她的表格和发票模板之间的某个环节，有两个条目被不小心删掉了。如果她不去更正，她就会为已经完成的工作白白损失将近四百美元。
Her stomach tightened slightly at the thought of raising the issue. Winston had already replied that morning, thanking her for such a "reasonable" bill. Correcting it now felt awkward, almost as though she were asking for more after he had already agreed to pay.
一想到要提这件事，她的胃就微微发紧。温斯顿那天早上已经回了信，感谢她开出了这么“合理”的账单。现在再去更正，就觉得很尴尬，好像是在他已经同意付款之后又去多要钱。
Still, Fatima knew that saying nothing wasn't really an option. The work had been done, and the hours were logged and easy to prove. A freelancer who quietly ate her own mistakes wouldn't stay in business very long. She opened a new email and began typing before she could talk herself out of it.
不过，法蒂玛知道，什么都不说其实不是个办法。活儿已经干完了，工时有记录，也很容易证明。一个悄悄地自己吞下错误的自由职业者，在这一行是干不长的。她打开一封新邮件，趁自己还没来得及说服自己放弃，就开始打字了。
"Hi Winston, I owe you a correction," she wrote. "The invoice I sent yesterday was generated with two line items missing. It undercharged you for eight of the twelve hours actually logged on the project. I've attached a corrected version below, along with the time log for reference."
“你好，温斯顿，我得向你更正一处错误，”她写道，“我昨天发给你的发票生成时漏掉了两个条目。它少收了项目实际记录的十二个小时中的八个小时的费用。我在下面附上了更正后的版本，同时附上工时记录供你参考。”
Winston replied within the hour, and to her relief, his tone stayed entirely friendly. "Thanks for catching that," he wrote. "I'd rather pay the right amount than have you shortchange yourself over a formatting error."
温斯顿一个小时之内就回复了，而且让她松了口气的是，他的语气依然十分友好。“谢谢你发现了这个问题，”他写道，“我宁愿付正确的金额，也不想让你因为一个格式错误而吃亏。”
Fatima exhaled, surprised by how much lighter she felt once the message was sent. She had spent the whole morning assuming the conversation would be more uncomfortable than it turned out to be.
法蒂玛长长地舒了口气，消息发出去以后，她感到轻松了许多，自己都有些惊讶。她整个上午都以为这场谈话会比实际情况尴尬得多。
That afternoon, she built a simple checklist into her invoicing process, a habit she had been meaning to start for months. Now a deleted line item would be far harder to miss next time. She saved the corrected invoice, attached her updated payment terms, and moved on to the next project already open on her screen.
那天下午，她在自己的开票流程里加了一份简单的核对清单，这个习惯她几个月来一直想养成。现在，下次再有条目被删掉，就很难不被发现了。她保存了更正后的发票，附上更新后的付款条款，然后接着做屏幕上已经打开的下一个项目。
