Firstly a massive thank you to the attendees of The Boardroom Network Solent meeting last Friday for the reception given to my reading from last week’s post in my “Two minute warming”. Much appreciated and an encouragement to make sure the humour gets no better going forward…
Funny old week really unless you’re me sitting here with lungs that feel like someone’s attacked them with a cheese grater. 45 minutes awake Sunday night/Monday morning coughing non-stop and 20 minutes attempting to turn my lungs inside out this morning from 01.00. Not the most fun I’ve ever experienced. I’ve (luckily?) never suffered from asthma but sitting there trying to snatch a breath was an experience I’d prefer never to have again.
Major accident with (the contents of) my wine glass on Sunday. Can’t imagine my Extremadura was designed to be drunk out of my WiFi keyboard but having thrown the rest of it over my diary and the floor it was the only amount recoverable short of sneaking back to the bottle…
I don’t know about you but incidents like that or clipping my breakfast bowl on the kitchen sink tap and smashing it when it fell a few weeks ago seriously starts me thinking that old age is leading to increasing clumsiness which means the dementia is already on its way. Not the slightest chance in all probability but it doesn’t help having a hyperactive imagination and an excessively critical view of my own abilities.
The prodigal daughter returned over the weekend. All of a sudden a jet-lagged student lands at Southampton Airport from Hawaii (don’t ask, it’s not like it’s term time or anything – oh, it is, is it???) and proceeds to make the lounge/sofa/her bedroom untidy and turn any routines her parents may have on their heads. She will deny it but she does treat her mother like she’s staff… Bless!
I only started this tonight due to a pitching meeting and it’s now getting very close to bedtime, so I’ll sign off for now and continue Friday morning after the 4Networking Fareham meeting. Nighty night for now…
Right. 12 hours later, a reasonably good night’s sleep for the first time this week, networking breakfast and 50 emails exhorting me to part with money I haven’t got on Black Friday deals I really couldn’t care about and I’m ready to carry on (and on, I know).
The good night’s sleep has really only served to emphasise how tired I am and so I sit here trying to dislocate my jaw while typing. Hyperactive tear ducts giving rise to interesting issues seeing the screen and the yawning threatening to cramp my face up – doesn’t sound like the prettiest sight in the world and, believe me, I’m seriously glad I don’t have a mirror in the office!
The earlier part of the week has been low on appointments allowing me to actually do some of the grunt work that all accountants have to do. I’ve been giving some serious thought as to whether I can seek an outsourcing solution – I’m sure there must be some “real” accountants/bookkeepers out there who would be more than happy dealing with the stuff I’m getting increasingly tired at having to do. Practice what you preach? Watch this space…
There is a scaleability (or scalability – both are in Chambers if not in this useless spellchecker) issue here. There’s not enough here to keep one mouth fed and the same person for both the accounting/bookkeeping side and the taxation side is probably an ask too far so we’re looking at part time and not all that regular which points me towards zero hours or freelance. Plenty to think about here and I can’t easily outsource the software issue “stuff” that’s been causing much of the extra stress – finding someone sufficiently senior to understand the issues who only wants irregular work where it’s me causing the irregular might be a BiiiiiiiiiiG ask…
That said, yesterday was wall to wall appointments (including the hygienist who has a serious issue keeping appointments to time (love to have a major discussion there with her and the owner of the dental practice to sort out why) and a lovely chat with another coach to see where there might be mutual opportunities to a fascinating conversation with a prospective client.
I don’t, on the whole, do too much with absolute start-ups but this one sounds really interesting. Hi-tech, imagery, potential synergies with other clients, the list is endless. More to say if it takes off (big pun there if you only knew).
Thanks to TBN Member, Colin Bielckus for allowing us to repost his blog, originally published here.