Work & Business

Paint coverage on the can only tells you gallons per coat — multiply by coats, divide by coverage, round up to a whole can, then add labor for the real total.

Commission = sale amount × rate ÷ 100 — one multiplication, but worth checking by hand before you trust a statement, a quote, or your own mental math on a big sale.

Price = cost × (1 + markup ÷ 100) — one multiplication, but a 100% markup only ever gives a 50% margin, not 100%. Three worked examples, including pricing a full batch.

Profit ÷ price is margin; profit ÷ cost is markup — the same $40 profit reads as 40% one way and 66.67% the other. Three worked comparisons show where the mix-up actually costs money.

Units = fixed costs ÷ (price − cost per unit) — one division, but the margin in that denominator can move the answer by thousands of units. Three worked pricing scenarios with the arithmetic shown.

A salary quotes one number a year, but the hourly rate behind it depends entirely on how many hours you actually work — and for exempt employees, extra hours are a hidden pay cut, not overtime pay. Here's the math, and how to compare two offers fairly.

Comparing a $32/hour contract to a $72,000 salaried offer isn't obvious until both are in the same units. Here's the formula both directions, and the “weeks per year” trap that quietly favors one offer over the other.

“Password-protected” and “properly encrypted” aren't the same thing. Here's what really makes a PDF secure — and how to verify it privately.

SOC 2 is really one question repeated: for each control, can you prove it's happening? Here's how to score yourself before an auditor does.

Most late payments are a documentation problem, not a difficult client. Here is the short list of documents that prevent them.

What makes a mileage claim stand up is not the total. It is that the log was kept at the time and says why.

Boiler, backflow, elevator, scale, grease trap — the inspector asks for the record, not your memory.