The tool, in your browser
The written offer sheet
One sheet per new hire, and eight lines on it: the pay and how he’s paid, then the start date, the hours you expect, the days off you promised, the truck and the gas, and anything else the two of you settled — plus whatever you agreed to look at later, with a real date on it. The page counts what’s still open and says so, because a blank line here is the thing you and he will remember differently in month six.
Free, and it asks for nothing. No email, no account, no sign-up. What you type stays in this browser on this device.
Read this first
Say it to his face first. This is the paper after. The play’s whole argument is that you settle everything else out loud — the hours, the Saturdays, the week in deer season — and name the number last. Filling boxes in at him is not an offer; it’s a form. Have the conversation, then write down what the two of you actually agreed.
The grey lines in each box are examples, to show you the shape. They aren’t numbers you owe anybody and nothing is saved until you type over them.
The offer sheet fills in right here in your browser. If this line stays put, JavaScript is off — the spreadsheet below does the same job.
How it gets used
- Settle the seven, then name the number. Start date, hours, the Saturdays in season, the days off, the truck and gas, and the odds and ends. A man who hears the number first stops listening to everything after it.
- Write what you agreed, not what you meant. “Some Saturdays in season” is a fight waiting to happen. “Mon–Fri 6:30, plus Saturdays April through October when it’s raining out the week” is an agreement.
- Anything you promised to look at later gets a date. Name it, then put a real date on it — type it as a date, not “next fall.” Half a promise is the “we’ll get to it” that quietly dies, and the page tells you when you’ve only written half of one.
- Print it and both sign it the same day. He keeps a copy; you keep a copy. That is the whole point of it being paper, and it is the one thing this page can’t do for you.
- Put the revisit date somewhere that chases you. When it comes due this page says REVIEW DUE — but only if you open it. Put the promise on the promise list with your own name on it too — type it across, the way you would between two spreadsheets.
- Then run the first two weeks like you said you would. The fastest way to undo a good offer is a first Monday where none of it happens.
Before you sign anything
This is a handshake written down, not an employment contract
It exists so the two of you remember the same deal. It is not drafted to be an employment agreement, it says nothing about at-will employment, notice, non-competes or overtime, and what a written offer legally commits you to varies by state. If you want a real contract, or you’re offering something with a term or a bonus structure in it, have an employment attorney in your state write that part.
One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it’s not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It’s your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.
Want it in a spreadsheet?
The same offer sheet as a spreadsheet
the-written-offer-sheet.xlsx is this offer as a spreadsheet — same eight terms in the same three groups, same REVIEW DUE flag — for the computer at the shop. Three differences in the page’s favour: it says how many of the eight are actually settled, where the file just shows you cells; it catches half a revisit promise — a thing to look at with no date, or a date with nothing named against it — which the file will print either way; and the revisit date says how many days away it is, where the file only ever says REVIEW DUE or nothing. Two the other way: the file is a real file, so it survives a cleared browser and files with the rest of that man’s paperwork; and it opens on any computer you send it to. Both of them have to be printed and signed, by both of you, the same day. The sheets ask for your email once; this page never does.
The play behind it — M4-03 Settle It All Before You Say the Number — is the conversation itself and the order to have it in, and the sheet notes spell out every line and the one formula.