A real sporting achievement - lol

I have just finished reading Dougal's blog and have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Is it something to do with sport?

Here's a real sporting achievement - Merseyside thrashed Manchester last night in the Under 14s rugby squad - 45 - 25. Well in lads (of which my son is one) woo hoo.

Family comes first and there was no way I was going to miss my lad's debut playing for his County. So apologies if you were sitting up and waiting to hear my dulcet tones on Radio Merseyside - I couldn't get back from Manchester in time. But it was worth it.

Business owner required

I'm recruiting. I need to expand my team. Steve Wooding of http://www.iceandlemon.com/ has suggested looking for a certain mindset first and not skills or experience. I need to look at my best people which means I'm looking for Sharons and Andreas. Sharon and Andrea have worked for Document Direct for more than a year and our clients love them. They are definately the stars of the show.

So, first and foremost, I am not looking for an audio typist. I'm looking for somebody who wants to be their own boss. Somebody who has a mindset to work hard and deliver great results for clients.

How do I find such people? Or, how can such people find me?

How can an IT business operate without internet?

Here's a true story which I find absolutely astounding.

In some huge businesses and government departments there are modern servers which, for the sake of saving space, do not have a monitor attached to them. If a problem occurs, this particular IT company is called to attend and must fix the problem, within a stated period or the IT company may face financial penalties. The IT company does not provide its engineers with a laptop computer so here's the question: "How does the engineer look at the server to see what the problem is if he doesn't have a screen to plug in?" Answer: He can't. So the engineer can't do his job, the IT company can't fix the problem within the contractual time period, and the IT company now faces financial penalties and loses profit.

Here's another true story about the same company.

I think everybody would agree that email and internet is an essential part of today's business and, to remain competitive, nobody can afford not to have this service - given the recent postal disputes we've suffered this is still very fresh in my mind. I'm sure in your office if you're expected to communicate with email that you would be given an internet service provider (ISP) and a computer, laptop, pda or smart phone with which to connect and read your mail and deal with any attachments. But this particular IT company disagrees with that philosophy for some reason. They send vital information such as security passwords, manuals, software build information via email, but they seem to have forgotten that their field engineers (the people who are the company's revenue earners) are not given any device to receive the mail, nor are they provided with any sort of internet connection.

An engineer asked his line manager "how do you expect me to read this message, download the file and obtain this software?" and the response was ... wait for it ... "Ask the customer for a computer". I mean, would you?

So we've established that the engineers do not have a laptop computer, they do not have any internet connection available to them. So how do they communicate and get their information from the company? They use the telephone of course. So rather than expend money on a neat little device such as a cost effective pda or smartphone with GPRS, this particular IT company prefers to waste money on lots and lots man hours of people talking on the telphone all day. Talk about re-inventing the wheel.

This particlar IT company shall not be named in this blog. It's ludicrous that it is listed on the stock market. As soon as the shares are available to be sold they will be - before the company sinks.

Oh my God

I've just clicked on the "Next Blog" link at the top of my page. Remember now, I'm still in the Philharmonic Hall at my son's prize giving speech night. Okay so I'm not working working.

I had no idea that people could post porn on these things.

Okay, so I'm naive. Bloody hell. What a fright.

What do you mean "work from home means work"?

Am I being stupid, or is it just me that thinks working from home means you should be able to get more work done in the comfort and convenience of your own home?



My husband phones me and asks if I have the house cleaned, and "what's for dinner?" My son needs collecting at 12.45pm because of the prize giving speech night for his school. My daughter needs collecting from school at 3.30pm and then want me to take take her to her friends house and, oh by the way, because it's speech night tonight, make sure you're ready by 7.00pm.



And I thought that by working from home I'd save time on getting dressed and travelling to work - no such luck. It's the new phrase for multi-tasking.



I've had similar conversations today with Sharon, (my right hand man (so to speak)) who works as a virtual secretary for me. We both love our jobs. We have the flexibility we need; we don't have to answer to nasty management (only our wonderful clients of course); and we have a great team bond and get on with each other very well. And we are also paid according to our performance. Not that large corporate incentive malarky - Sharon is paid by the amount of work she produces. If she doesn't type she doesn't earn. If I don't bring in new clients none of us get paid.



So to all those work-from-home-wannabes, listen up! It's not all it's cracked up to be. You'll have lots of jobs to get through and only one workplace which you're never far from. Think again about putting that load of washing in the machine if it means you'll miss that deadline for your client and it's a hard choice to make whether to finish the urgent piece of work or leave your kids waiting outside of school.



I now have a super-duper UMPC ( ultra-mobile computer). It has a big orange and gold sticker on it: "Always being connected!!!"It's going to help me work smarter and make the most of whatever time I have to do my job. Even now, while I'm sitting in the audience, back row of the Liverpool Philharmonic at speech night tonight. I just need to work out how to turn now the brightness of the screen and plug in the earphones (I'm looking into bluetooth connectivity if anyone has any advice in that area).



Work from home - never! I may as well sit in the car with my UMPC and always be connected.

An alternative Christmas night out?

If you don't already know, I'm invited onto a chat show on BBC Radio Merseyside every Wednesday night. (I'm not one to blow my own trumpet but we do have such a laugh.)



Last night, before we went live on air, we were talking about a new club that's opened in Liverpool City Centre. I'm not sure of the name, but this is a different type of club that this city has never had before. It's a swingers club. And not the crooning type of swinger either. Yep, the full on, wife swapping, sex with strangers, fully licensed swingers club.



Apparently there's a market for this type of stuff, but being happily married I wouldn't know. Linda McDermott of Radio Merseyside had the owner on her show on Monday night. He says that there are different rooms that people can just go off to, some even have web cameras. So if your fantasy is one of doing it while being watched, you don't get a bigger audience than an internet camera.



I've sent an email to my team asking if they fancy an alternative Christmas night out. No, it's not to the swingers club. I was thinking of Shiverpool - the walking ghost tour of Liverpool. Then perhaps a meal and some drinks afterwards. After that ... who knows!

Today I've been called an early adopter

Well I don't know about that. This is the first attempt at setting up a blog and I am completely bamboozled by all of the terminology, functions and features. What is a feedburner and what, in God's name, is a "chicklet" - Sharon don't answer that one!!

So I am behind the times and have a lot of learning to do. Here goes ...