End of week 1

Hi everyone, I ws going to write every day, but things are too hectic, so I am going to write every week instead. So here goes; Week 1;
Monday up at 5:30. Today was a challange feeling ok though - 2 driving staff members on holiday, one from cleaning and one from gardening. Thankfully most of the staff have now had their holidays - not looking forward to my co director having her holiday, but I'll manage. Got to bed about 11pm. Appraisal given to one of the staff, it went very well. Staff member feels valued. Tuesday was a bit mad, wished the cleaner that drives wasn't on holiday begining to feel the pressure, of trying to run a business and drive the girls about, but I have my Homeopath pills to take so I should be fine. Staff member who had the Appraisal is happier today, more positive? Peninsula came for our check up. We passed, doing all we should. See him in another 9 months. Another late night. Got to bed about 12pm Wednesday up at 5:30 to go to BNI. Covered for two jobs, good opportunity to see if the staff are looking after the contracts. Customers seem happy - so all is well. All these early mornings and late nights are getting to me, feeling tired today. Thursday - up at 6am have an End of Tenancy clean to do today. only three of us available. Hate working in the business, need to be working on the business. Not able to phone who I want to cause always bloody driving!!! Important client wants carpets cleaned on Friday and our main cleaner is on holiday. Will have to re-organise the jobs for Friday. Still need to go through the tender docs, Trying not to get stressed about it. It's not easy to get part-time staff, they want regular hours. Clean went ok, need to do carpets tomorrow to complete job. Went to bed at 11:30pm Friday - Hooray, a lay in til 7am - dropped cleaner off. Bloody carpet machine has decided to play up, spent 2 hours trying to get the thing to work! Wouldn't mind, but it is serviced twice a year. Finished late because of the carpet cleaner. Chatted to a guy over the phone this evening about working as and when, seems promising. New guy who started two weeks ago still hasn't sorted out his driving liscense. What do I do, catch 22 situation - good worker, reliable but can't drive the vans. Such a pain. Hopefully new guy starting on Monday who does drive. Need to think about a light-weight staff member, can't afford to carry anyone in this economic climate. Had two chances already - need to have that appraisal, see where we go from here. Late night again. oh well. Saturday up at 6am, need to go cut some willow for our willow project we are doing for a primary school, grand opening on Tuesday, so must be finished today - the lady where we store our equipment has decided that she doesn't want us in her garage after all! Now have to find some more storage that is close by - not easy to do. Good news though, a girl I was talking to about tender docs has sent me an email to say that Croydon Council are offering 4 hours of free consultation on how to put together tender docs, how cool is that! All booked for next Friday. Going to spend the week-end reading the tender docs. No I'm not, I now have 4 cleaing jobs to do, cause the gardening run over time due to the extra carpet cleaning and they have to finish it Saturday. Lightweight not got enought oomph according to my guy. Now I need to cover the cleaning. There goes Sunday!
See you all next week.

Diary of running a small business

Day one; Got up at 5:30am as the cleaners need to collect keys etc on a Monday and one was starting at 6:30am. Two more arrived at 7:30am to collect keys for the gardening job and now it's pouring with rain. Lucky I supply rain suits to keep them dry! 7:45am compose 'to do list' for the day so I don't waste any time faffing around. 8:30am on the road to collect more keys for a job, also meet cleaner from bus to give her cleaning equipment. She doesn't drive so I have to deliver the cleaning things as we can't leave them on the premisis. 9:30am carrying out a small cleaning job because one of the staff is on holiday. Couldn't get a replacement, very furstrating. Meet client for an End of Tenancy job, collect keys as he want to go ahead. Go back to office. 2:30pm - go over tender docs with co director. 5:00pm have a meeting with staff member for an appraisal and to discuss salary. Just been told that the cleaner has forgotton the keys for tomorrows job and she starts at 7am. 6:30pm grab some food that my lovely husband has cooked. 7:00pm take keys to cleaner for tomorrow. 8:00pm type testimonial for business collegue who has made a huge difference to my life. 8:30 go through emails and answer what I can. 9pm log into webinar broadcast for my Utility business. 9:30pm go through the diary for tomorrow's work. 10:oopm, do my blog.

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In the Queue - Why?

On Saturday, outside the Science Museum we joined a queue. We did not know why, but we joined it just in case. My husband went to the front to see what the queue was for so we didn't lose our places.

This is typically English, we see a queue and join it!!! Turned out we didn't need to be in the queue because it was for Darwins exhibition!!!

Do they want us to know where we are going?

Why is it that the road signs in England have dissapeard? Is it because they don't want us to know where we are going, or have they been stolen and not replaced? I drive quite alot and I can never find the road I want without having another car almost in my boot! I just want clear concise signs to find my way around. If other countries can supply them, why can't we? I would hate to be a visitor here, because I would spend the entire time trying to get where I wanted to be!!!!