Ferocious day arguing and setting budgets for year ahead with Second-in-Charge.
Arguing, for once, all productive but obviously absolutely vital we get this right. Usually quite good on setting budgets but this past year has unnerved me – the slump was deeper than I had expected and our incredibly careless spending in the first quarter was nearly our undoing. Hard work by both of us pulled the situation back to acceptable levels. Definitely don’t want to overdo the optimism next year but, on other hand, want to feel it might be worthwhile getting up in the morning and slogging guts out! Finally settled on something fairly conservative but have prepared variations of both ten per cent better and pen cent worse. This is not just for our benefit. Have called meeting without middle management for Friday to tell them their budgets – this is perhaps the only way that I can think of to present just what a difference a percentage makes. I find we get the reverse with some of the office staff who will strive so hard to get a job done well they have absolutely no conception of fact that each job has a value. Found one of them spending over four hours on a £10 difference on a van insurance the other day. Tried to keep temper while explaining that possibly their four hours might have cost the company a tad more.
