Surprisingly Helpful

Today I went to one of those Business Link training days where you get free government funded support and advice on setting up a business. It was the second one I'd attended - the first one was a gentle, general introduction to working for yourself, whilst this one was more meaty and focused. It was all about writing a business plan.

I confess I wasn't expecting much, but it was a surprisingly good session. I really learnt a lot, and stayed awake the whole time despite getting lost and being late and missing the coffee part. I came away feeling quite motivated, armed with a long list of of topics that I need to give thought to before taking the leap into self-employment again.

One of my main goals is to not make the same mistakes as I did the first time around! Although I consider my first entrepreneurial venture - a magazine that I started, grew and ran for 6 years - a success, I definitely made some duff decisions along the way. I knew nothing about publishing and made the whole thing up as I went along; I messed up loads of times and in loads of ways. But my readers loved it, I loved it, I eventually sold it for a fair price and I'm very proud of what I achieved. There is little as gratifying as building something noble out of nothing.

I launched my magazine when I was heavily pregnant with my second baby, and got away with only minimal childcare until they started school. I used to wake up at 4am, feed whichever baby/toddler was bleeting for milk, then stay awake as he/she dozed back off so that I could get 2 or 3 hours work done in a quiet house.

Money for a Mortgage

I only work two days a week. I used to work longer hours for my employer, on the heavy end of the part-time spectrum. But then, all of a sudden, in this odd little market where there had been only a few small players, lots of competitors suddenly flooded in, and then the recession bit and sales leads dried up ... and, well, their business was not going well. Eventually after a tough 2009 I suggested that I reduce my hours because I could see these poor battle-weary business owners really needed to cut their fixed costs.

I was secretly quite pleased, in a selfish me-me-me kind of way, because obviously this change would free up some of my time to start my own business again - something that I have this overwhelming desire to do. Really, it is overwhelming, I have it all planned out and everything! Problem is, my Fella and I need to increase our mortgage soon because we own a small house up north in a modestly humble town, which - when we eventually sell it at a modestly low price - won't leave us with enough equity to buy what we want in the hugely expensive southern town in which we now live.

So ... dear reader ... Fella and I had a slight disagreement, which went something like this:

Me: "Hoorah, I've cut my hours, now I can start my own business"!

Fella: "Oh my God we're so poor, you've got to earn more money, I can't earn any more than I do already, we're going to be renting a shitty house for the rest of our lives, I feel so exposed, we're so financially behind, we should be sorted by now, the mortage companies won't lend on the basis of self-employed earnings, you could get a great job, go see a careers counsellor, you totally undersell yourself, I'm really worried, blah de blah de blah de blah de blah".

So, as you can see, I now have a dilemma. A career-confusing, money-draining, home-owning, dream-chasing dilemma. What to do???

A Terrible Employee

New blog, same old feelings. I'm 42 years old already, and ever since I was at school I have felt bored, trapped and suffocated. Bored. Trapped. Suffocated. Not in relationships, far from it, I am loyal and want to hold on tight to my dear friends and precious family for all eternity. No, it's the place I go to day after day, the workplace, or school as it was then, the same old shite that I am obliged to do according to somebody else's schedule every weekday, those dull days from Monday to Friday, that drives me insane.

Even if I had a really great job - and the one I'm in does have a lot of plus points - I'd still feel it: bored, trapped and suffocated. My head aches, I frown, my shoulders are hunched and my heart is filled with the sadness of wasting days of my life doing things I don't want to do. I'm 42 already, for heaven's sake, life is short!

What's wrong with me? All those millions out of work and I'm feeling ungrateful for the job I have. I'm a terrible employee. Unemployable, someone once joked. I've worked for myself before, you see, and I know how much I loved it. But things happened and life moved on and somehow I've ended up back in a job, back to square one, with the same old feelings chewing at my brain and making me into a moody, bad-tempered old bitch.