Banking
Posted: Wed 14 March, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »Once we come back from holiday, I’ve decided it’s going to be time to look at opening a new bank account (again) for my own business. Up ’til now it’s been (in general) small enough that I can get away with being paid through my own current account, but with the general progress in how things are coming along, I think it’s coming towards that time when actually yes, I need to have a business bank account.
However, I’m absolutely not going to start off with a ‘proper’ business account – by which I mean one for a limited company, with all the bullshit and hassle that involves- directors, double signatures, company secretary, blah blah blah.
Instead, I’m going to aim to set up purely as a sole trader for the moment, and only grow/move on as and when I need to. That seems to be the best plan, anyway.
Going the ‘sole trader’ route does carry slightly more risk, in that in theory I could run up debts and my own posessions could be taken to repay those debts. But I don’t plan to be borrowing any money or anything – and so the possibility of debts being run up is hugely reduced.
But anyway, that’s the way my head is currently working, and the direction I currently plan to go in. We’ll see how I feel after the holiday, but I suspect that it will only strengthen my plans and resolve.
Bizarre Amnesia
Posted: Tue 13 March, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »At work, one of the passwords is a combination of eight random letters, both upper and lower case ( for example AbCDefGH ) – although it’s not that, obviously.
Within a week of coming here, I found I could remember the combination easily, without need to refer to anything, and that’s how things have progressed for the last five months.
Yesterday, I had to write an ‘idiots guide’ to the procedure that involves that password, and for some bizarre reason, I wrote down the wrong one. I’d mis-remembered it in a non-normal context.
But then could I recall the right one, even when it was back in the context of the procedure? Could I buggery.
For the first time in five months, I had to refer back to the original documentation (and find it, first) – all because I’d had to write it somewhere else. It utterly fuddled my brain. Most bizarre.
Oh, and today it’s back in my head just fine. Go figure.
Avoidance Tactics
Posted: Thu 8 March, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »I have to say, I’m occasionally rather glad that I usually come in to work by train, rather than driving in.
Sick Building
Posted: Tue 6 March, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Work-related | 1 Comment »I can’t say I’m overly surprised to see that Barclaycard are closing their call centre in Manchester’s city centre.
When I (very briefly) worked there back in 2003 or so, it was a horrible place – built in the 50s/60s, with no air-conditioning or ventilation to speak of, with sides made of huge blocks of glass. In short, it was a sweatbox, and a demoralising one at that.
Updating the building would’ve cost millions, and probably still not been overly successful. So no, it’s not really a surprise.
Backlog – Again
Posted: Thu 1 March, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | 2 Comments »OK, so let me explain. Yesterday’s “backlog” post was (for once) not an “I’m great” post. Well, not much of one anyway.
What I was actually getting at is the slow speed that other people in the organisation, both currently and historically, seem to work at. I suppose it’s also related to the other observation I made about corporate indecisiveness, in that organisationally it just seems to take forever to get things done. In my own business, and when I’m dealing with clients, I tend to be at the other end of the scale, and work on getting things done. I find it generally leaves the people I work with happy, and feeling that their requirements and so on have been listened to, understood, and then attended to.
I bring the same attitude into the office, and get things done. Nothing waits overnight, it all gets done on the day I receive it. All the people I deal with regularly within the company know that if they have something important or urgent, it’ll be done as soon as possible.
But that attitude is apparently rare. Those same people I deal with regularly comment on it – and see it as a positive thing. But it’s still a rarity.
It’s not a complaint, not an ego-boost – just an observation.
Backlog
Posted: Wed 28 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Work-related | 2 Comments »Of course, the issue with being out of the office all day yesterday is that there’s a bundle of stuff to get done.
So it’s taken me two hours to catch up on everything from yesterday.
Mind you to most of the people here, the bundle of work that was waiting for me would’ve taken three days to eliminate…
Weirdness
Posted: Tue 27 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »Last week, I got a call (yes, another one) from my ex-employer, the one I left back in September.
It’s quite amusing really, as they’ve obviously now realised who was doing the work on creating and maintaining the various websites and web applications they were talking about, planning, and in fact basing a large chunk of their business on. Why is it obvious?
Because they keep calling me for technical advice, and have now asked me to do another site for them.
So I’m in London this morning, meeting them, finding out what they want, what timescale they’re talking about, and just how much they’re prepared to pay…