The scanned NDA went back by email before the paper copy could make it to Boulder.
I wanted the accounts set up before the weekend. If the scan was enough, I could start. If they needed the original first, I was willing to drive it up the next day.
This was the point where the extra-work search became a real consulting engagement.
I had spent September answering Linux and Unix posts, following up with recruiters, and explaining that I wanted remote work around my job at Beatport. The Franchise Builders had systems that needed attention and was willing to let me in.
The first logistics were wonderfully 2008. Email address, cell phone, AIM handle, scanned signature, physical copy later. I wrote that the phone was bolted to me at all times.
Once the accounts existed, the work moved quickly into VPN access, DNS, reverse DNS, mail, firewalls, monitoring, colocation, and load balancing. It was exactly the hands-on systems work I had been asking for.
It also created another set of obligations. A consulting client did not care that I had already worked a full day. If their mail stopped or a VPN failed, the problem was still real. I had to fit that responsibility into the edges of the Beatport schedule without letting either side become sloppy.
The NDA did not make the business large. It made the relationship official enough to exchange access and start doing the work.
I sent the scan, asked for the accounts, and looked at the weekend as available time.