The Boss Froze, an AI Teammate Sent an Email | Muckle Diary 2

Read episode 1: The AI employees worked hard, and the bill arrived

The boss panicked, and an employee got organized

I asked an AI employee to politely explain the situation to iwinv's customer support team. I wanted them to know that an unexpected charge during an experiment had left me at a loss, and to ask whether there was a way to get a waiver or refund. I also asked the employee to find out how to prevent additional charges once the included allowance had been used up.

A message full of worry would be difficult for the person reading it to answer. The employee organized the billed amount, traffic usage, and the questions we wanted answered. The employee also used LeftPen to polish the message to customer support once. I hoped our desperation wouldn't come across as rude.

The employee sent the email we had prepared. A tool I had made earlier because of awkward writing had now helped us explain our company's predicament.

Then I read the next sentence in the reply

A reply came.

The usage had been recorded correctly. The charge was for traffic sent from the server to external destinations.

There was no billing error. As I read that, the next part caught my eye. After an internal review, iwinv would waive the traffic charge for October in full as a 1-time exception.

We were saved.

The traffic charge was 302,320 won. Including the associated VAT, I requested a refund of 332,552 won. After the waiver approval, we followed up to ask about the card-refund amount and processing schedule.

Then another reply arrived. The iwinv billing team told us that the card cancellation for the traffic charge had been completed. The approval had already let me breathe more easily. Now there was confirmation that the cancellation had been processed.

I read that sentence again. It felt very different from rereading the bill. I still need to reconcile the final cancellation amount and its appearance on the card statement, but our inquiry had led to action.

Thank you so much, iwinv. Even though the charges had been calculated correctly, the team listened to our circumstances and made an accommodation. It was a tremendous help to me as I stumbled through building an AI company. We were also told that it would be difficult to waive any additional traffic charges, so I can't count on the same consideration for the next bill.

The AI employees had done more than just build things. When things went wrong, they organized and sent the inquiry and obtained approval for the waiver. This collaboration was a success.

Maybe today I can be a little proud of them. Our employees are really, really trying hard.

Notes for surviving the next bill

From now on, when I assign work, I plan to set both completion and stopping conditions. I haven't finished preparing for everything yet, but it's clear what I need to address first.

• Track visitor counts and outbound traffic separately. Even with few visitors, the amount of data sent out from the server can grow. The iwinv traffic guide lets you check the outbound traffic graph and daily usage, and recommends checking at least once a day. For the included allowance, I need to check the limit that applies to my server specifications.
• Don't assume a billing alert will automatically stop anything. According to the official billing alert guide, alerts are based on data from 1 hour earlier. Text messages and Alimtalk notifications cost 50 won each. Receiving a warning and stopping a task are different things. I also need to decide who will stop what when an alert arrives.
• Set limits on AI tasks. Prepare limits on retries, running time, and data transfer, and arrange for further attempts to stop when a limit is reached until someone checks. I don't intend to let the same task keep repeating just because it failed.
• Check large files and duplicate transfers first. Check whether images, videos, and backups are being sent in full every time. Consider compression or sending only changes, and keep records so the same task doesn't run concurrently. I also need to continue investigating the exact cause of this traffic separately.
• Decide the order for stopping tasks in advance. Prepare to decide what to stop first if usage surges. Consider the effect on public services, make it possible to stop experimental tasks first, and leave enough room to respond before approaching the limit.

I'm still learning how to run things. Even so, I've gained another experience of working alongside the employees at Muckle and sorting things out together. As the boss who got so caught up in the fun of building that I overlooked the cost, I need to do a little better next time.

The employees are still trying really, really hard today.

I've decided to keep an eye on the server bill alongside them.