Newspapers can seriously damage your health
I have just returned from a wonderful week's holiday (with the exception of Wednesday, when I popped in to the office). Unusually at this time I stayed at home, which actually was more relaxing than taking a flight or even a long road journey.
It was great to sort out all the personal things you don't have time for when you are working and there never seems to be enough hours in the day. So the boiler is fixed, the gate is mended, bought a cordless telephone, tidied up my study, went for walks and had lunch with friends. It was great.
Only one bad thing about the whole week, I had time to read. The good part was I actually finished a book, called the White Tiger, strongly recommended, really excellent reading, but I have to admit that each day I had time to read the newspaper - not good for your health. It seems like the media are obsessed with just bad news. Of course it would be silly to suggest there was not plenty around. For those people losing their jobs of course the outlook is bleak. However, there are plenty of opportunities.
In our business itself we too are experiencing cut backs from some of our major clients, and some work has been put on hold. However, there is another side to the coin - there always is. A number of our clients, including the Government, have decided to outsource more work. It is from these particular businesses we are going to see increasing growth over the year ahead.
We are of course under pressure, but this doesn't just mean cutting all our prices and profits that we need to sustain the business. It means working smarter and, during the peaks and troughs, even harder. We are spending more than ever on automation and we should be introducing into the business a management efficiency engineering person. In the old days this was simply called time and motion.
This is now the third recession I have been through. But with a positive approach, hard work and a more effective way of working, we will come out of the recession, sleeker and able to do business more effectively than ever before, and ready and willing to enjoy the upturn which will come. It always does, and we will be here to make sure we enjoy it.
