On B2B and expectations
This situation surprised me not because it was extreme, but because it felt quietly wrong.
There is a clear moment when B2B work officially starts. Before that, some internal steps need to be completed. Until they are done, billing is simply not active. At the same time, involvement already begins, and it is hard to say when exactly it turns into something that feels like work.
There are trainings, welcome meetings, company calls, daily standups with the team, small alignment tasks. None of this is heavy or critical, but all of it takes time and focus. And none of it is paid.
What feels wrong is not that this phase exists, but how easily it becomes part of normal routine without being clearly named.
A phase without a clear name
From the outside, this looks very close to onboarding. You are already inside the company context, joining meetings, following the team rhythm, and being expected to show up. But from a contract point of view, the commercial work has not started yet.
This creates a strange middle state. It is not employment, but it is also not active B2B work. Because this state has no clear name, it is easy to accept it as normal and move on.
Silence plays a big role here.
Two different models at the same time
I do not see this as bad intent. It looks more like two different models being mixed.
Employment works in one way. Uncertainty is part of the system, and onboarding is paid by default. B2B works differently. Time exists only when it is clearly agreed and defined.
In this situation, expectations follow the employment model, while payment follows the B2B model. Each of them makes sense on its own, but together they do not fully match.
This mismatch is easy to ignore at first, especially when tasks are small and informal. But the structure behind it stays the same.
Time is still time
This phase is often described as not real work yet.
But time spent in meetings, trainings, internal calls, and team syncs is still time spent inside the company system. The value may be indirect and may only appear later, but the cost exists right away.
Calling this phase something else does not change that. It only makes it easier not to talk about it directly.
What silence really does
What stands out most is the lack of a clear agreement.
No one clearly says that this time is unpaid by design. No one clearly says that it will be paid later. There is only an unspoken assumption that this phase does not count.
In a B2B setup, assumptions are weak. They do not remove uncertainty. They only move it to one side.
Where I draw the boundary
I am not saying this is illegal. I am not saying it is rare.
I am saying it feels inconsistent.
If participation is expected, time has a cost. If payment is not defined, participation cannot be treated as mandatory. This is not a complaint and not a demand. It is a boundary that keeps the B2B model clear.
That is the position I am fixing here.