Posted: Tue 23 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Own Business, Work-related, Writing |
With the redesigned business site, one of the things I seriously need to update is the entire “About Me/About The Business” page. It’s never been great, but now needs to contain a lot more information than previously.
The thing is, believe it or not, I’m utterly crap at writing that kind of thing. I don’t like writing self-promoting and self-publicising stuff, although I know it’s a necessary evil in the context of having a business. Freelance Switch had a piece about this kind of problem with a couple of ideas I might try out as well.
Then again, maybe I should just write it as though it were a blog post, and that might come up with something workable.
Posted: Tue 23 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Travel, Work-related |
Today, I’m back at work. I ended up leaving Middlesbrough at 6am, and driving down to Cambridge to start work. I did OK, got in at 9.30 – and that included a small stop for breakfast at some dire little services. (I really should make a point of remembering, as it’s one I wouldn’t bother returning to – but I do recall the location, if not the name)
I may collapse and die once I get home tonight, but in the meantime, I’m back at work as usual.
Posted: Mon 22 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Work-related |
I haven’t written a great deal about this yet (and there’s still a big ranty post in the offing about it) but it’s finally beginning to look like I might get paid for some of the work I did back near when we moved into the new house.
It’s been an absolute nightmare, but basically the client got the work I’d done, declared it OK, then when the invoice was sent out by the umbrella company that I use, refused to pay it. All of a sudden, despite a number of emails saying “that’s fine, send the invoice, we’ll pay it” (which, thankfully, I’d kept) the work became unacceptable, and they were disputing paying anything at all.
The umbrella company haven’t been great in this either – despite me being the person paying for their so-called “service”, I’ve been the one having to chase this every inch of the way. Yes, there’ll be a solid letter going to them once we’re all done, believe me. It’s taken a lot of calls to get things done, but I’ve now been told that they’re actually (finally) taking the guy to court to get him to pay up. Hey, it’s only taken five months so far.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens now. I still have a vague suspicion that this isn’t all done yet, and that things are still going to be a pain, but at least I’ve now got the support of the umbrella company, and they’re doing something about it.
I’m not going to go into details at the moment for obvious reasons, but at least things finally seem to be progressing. When I got the contract, this client wasn’t overly happy at going through the umbrella company for the work, but I’m glad in this instance that I stuck to my guns – otherwise it would’ve been even more of a nightmare, I suspect.
Posted: Sun 21 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Travel |
Today is another big drive – seeing friends up in Middlesbrough. The AA routefinder reckons it’ll be about 4-4½ hours all told.
Ah well, I’m sure it’ll be fun. Honest.
Posted: Sat 20 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work |
Yes, today has been spent back out in the garden, straightening up an existing pergola, and then putting decking at the bottom of it, along with an extra dollop of decking to one side.
Obviously, we have help this weekend. Herself wouldn’t trust me to do this by myself – and with good reason, I’d have screwed it up royally. Hell, there’s still time.
Already we’ve found one problem, which is that with the decking in place, the floor level in the pergola is raised to the point where I run the risk of whacking my head into the pergola roof/rafters/beams/whatever the hell they’re called. Oops. I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?
Still, it’s all gone OK, so that’s something.
Posted: Fri 19 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Work-related |
As of today, the rebranding and redesign of my company is just about complete. The site has now been done to match the new colour scheme and logo, which was really the last remaining major job. A couple of bits of content on there need some updating now, but for the moment it’s OK with what it’s got. The new letterheads have been ordered and – apparently – despatched. I’m yet to get the redone business cards sorted out, but I’ve got all the necessary files, and it’s now more just deciding on when I get them done.
I still need to redevelop and rewrite the company site a bit, change things around. There are some bits that I’m not happy with, but (as I said earlier for now they’re OK. I think that the rewrite will probably happen between Christmas and the New Year. I’m not going to be working on much else (well, at the moment) so it seems like a good time to do it – and then we come to New Year, New Site. Works for me.
As it is, I’m getting more serious about the work, and the business. A lot of things have dropped into place with it this year (which was part of that five-year plan anyway) and with the rebrand as well, it’s beginning to be something that’s working well. The next big step is going to be sorting out a proper bank account for it all – as the work starts coming in more seriously, it’s something that I think needs to be done.
I’ve got some other thoughts about the rebrand and so on, but they’re for another post, once I’ve been able to lay it all down in words. In the meantime, well, everything now looks far more joined-up and professional than it did three months ago, and that’s a development that I’m really pleased with.
Posted: Fri 19 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season, Getting Organised |
Regular readers will find this virtually impossible to imagine, but this year we’ve actually already organised what we’re doing over the Festering Season. Hell, regular readers will find it mind-boggling, I’m fucking stunned.
But anyway, yep, we’re all organised. We (along with the rest of Herself’s family) are booked into a place for Christmas Lunch, and we’re generally just organising the entire Festering Season. We do have reasons for it – not least just so that everyone knows what the plan is, which should make life easier.
I went over to the place this week in order to collect menus and the like so that we can get all the meals pre-ordered as well. It’s all seriously organised – and more than a little depressing, to be organising this sort of thing while we’re still only in October.