In part one I discussed the fact that when a job opens up EVERYBODY applies for it. Unfortunately for the few that are just the type of candidate we want to see there are sometimes hundreds of people we don’t want to see. The reality of it is they are wasting every body’s time. What do you care right? Wrong! continue

Can you guess what a Polish flooring contractor and damaged gas pipes in a kitchen wall have in common? It’s easy when you hire workers who are unqualified, uninsured but still  willing to ‘give it a go!’ One of my long time clients hired three workers to put down his new solid wood flooring, cheaply. When they finished their day jobs (as flooring installers) they ‘borrowed’ their bosses van and came by to do this floor. While they were working on the floor in the lounge the homeowner asked if they could also install a new cooker extractor which he had just purchased. They said yes. The result? continue

It is with a sad heart that we say goodbye to Bill Gates. It’s been an affair that stretched twenty seven years. But like all good things it finally had to come to an end. I’m not shedding any tears though as Microsoft has cost me dearly in the past three decades. With license structures the way they are I will continue to have to spend more money to keep up with my competitors, to keep a high web presence and of course stay legal. continue

This is an article I never thought I’d have to write but I thought it wise to alert other small businesses to the concept of the ever lower and creeping broadband usage bar being undertaken by not only my provider THUS/Demon but others as well. In a shocking discovery that we weren’t pre-alerted to our business has been crippled by this buried policy and apparently there is ‘not thing one’ that THUS can do about i. We are being punished for going over our non-contracted data usage amount. I do agree that we went over this one time in last five years I thought it a little over the top when they insisted that nothing can be done to reverse the decision. Apparently we must be punished for thirty days! continue

Do you run a small business? Are you so busy that its hard to follow up on poor payers? Have you had a client play the game of putting off payments for so long you feel like your head is about to explode? Me too. So I did something about it legally thinking I was doing the right thing and the situation spiralled so far out of control I had to get even more legal help.

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Quote by John Ruskin, English Philosopher (1818-1900)

“It’s unwise to pay too much…but it’s unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money…that is all.
When you pay too little…you sometimes lose everything…
because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing
you bought it to do. The common law of business balance
prohibits paying a little and getting a lot…it can’t be done.
If you deal with the lowest bidder…its’s well to add something
for the risk you run. And if you do that…you will have
enough to pay for something better.”

When I was a young man no one could tell me anything. I new it all! At least I thought I knew it all and wouldn’t be told anything by anybody. The recipe was and for many young people today is a recipe for disaster. I was lucky. One man decided to take up his own personal challenge and teach me something. No matter how hard I pushed he pushed back just as hard. He wouldn’t let me give up on myself even when I wanted to.
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