Just like Arnie

It's been a while. A long while. Much has changed. For starters I'm not quite as angry as I was. A year is a long time in business. Credit crunches came and credit crunches went. I "let staff go". My, oh my, that is a bland and inaccurate euphemism. Let them go? Let them go? What, like I was holding them prisoner, or like a schoolboy bully I was pinning them down, knees on arms, sat on their chests and then I decided I'd had enough fun, and let them go. No, speak it like it is: I made them redundant, so that the business could survive. And without a doubt it was the hardest work thing I have ever done. I hated every moment of it; looking each one in the eye and saying, the game's up. The blow was softened by generous redudancy payments and the fact that everyone got a new (and often better paid) job. But it was hard and my stress levels were a tad elevated.

It's not that we weren't successful. We made money, quite a bit in fact, but not the same amount as we spent. As Mr Micawber famously said:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery"

So to turn misery into happiness (well, into less misery at least), expenditure was reduced since income could not be increased.

So, I'm back and this time it's personal!