Travel – A right royal pain in the whotsit

Now I don’t mind a car journey as long as it meets three criteria:



1. It’s short

2. There’s some fun at the end of it

3. The window’s left n a bit so I can stick me nose out



My human does a fair bit of travelling up and down the country and sometimes I have to go with her.



It’s an experience I can tell you... but it’s much like she’s in the office, savvy?



Here’s why: Going down the A1, it’s a hundred miles an hour (not literally, of course. That would be speeding) until, whoa! Roadworks. Then it’s fifty for thirty miles and me human is getting all frustrated at not going fast enough and even more frustrated at the cars streaming by, apparently disregarding the ‘Average Speed Check’ cameras.



‘Why should they get away with it?’ She said about 20 times.



I dunno, thought I. I’m a dog.



In the office it’s much the same... a hundred miles an hour (figuratively) and it’s work, work, work, production, printing, work, scanning, meetings, admin and then some more work.



Personally I prefer to stretch out in the sunshine and look cute... it’s what I’m best at, after all!



Every so often, though, me human has the brakes put on. Not by her, by other people. It’s as though she’s hit roadworks; and boy does it frustrate the living daylights out of her.



If it were me, I’d look at things a bit differently.



You see, my human thinks she’s in competition with all those cars streaming by... but she’s not. She doesn’t know where they’re going, she only knows where she’s going.



In business it’s important to slow down every so often and take stock. It’s both impossible and dangerous to run at a hundred miles an hour all the time. Just think of it like a car journey. You might be forced to stop anyway to fill up with fuel, or worse still, run out altogether. You might get caught by the rozzers and, once again, you’ll have to stop.



All these things can happen to a business where the owner isn’t taking time to make sure they are still going in the right direction and are being as efficient in the business as they can be.



There’s another danger, too.



If you take a wrong turn and you’re going at a hundred miles an hour and you don’t slow down to check the directions, you’re just driving away from where you to be very fast...



So, my doggy advice is, when you hit roadworks or have to stop for fuel, take some time to reflect, to make sure you’re still heading in the right direction and to have a look at the scenery you’re passing through... particularly if there are rabbits to chase!

I confess... I wasn't really sick

I have a confession to make... I pulled a sickie on Monday.

Let me explain.

Last week I had a couple of playmates so I had a week's holiday.  They went home on Sunday and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.  I was at a loose end, I was beat, incomplete, I felt sad and blue...

Like a Virgin.

No, not Like a Virgin, that's a Madonna song.

When I woke up on Monday, I didn't really feel like doing much.  I was lethargic and, when my human decided that she was going to work and she was taking me with her... I acted up a bit.  I slouched about, I pretended to be sick and pretended I could hardly lift my head from the carpet.

Even though she was clearly worried I kept the act up int he hope she'd send me home.

But she went one step further and booked me into the vet's.

Nightmare!

Last time I went to the vet he prodded me, poked me and squeezed my gentleman's area.  I wasn't having that again...

As my human pulled up outside the torture place I livened myself up.  I leapt from the car and dragged my human into the vet, put my front paws on the counter and generally was made a fuss of by the nurse.

However, to no avail, I was still prodded and injected, but then I got an attack of guilt... I saw the bill.

I've heard that sickies cost British business millions of days every year and billions of pounds.

Some businesses, though, allow their staff to have duvet days.

We all get low from time to time and duvet days allow us to take a day's holiday without having to book it in advance.  It comes off holiday entitlement and so won't count as a sick day... even though, in effect, that's what it is.

Ingenious.

I wish I was allowed duvet days and I could have avoided the guilt I feel for chucking a sickie.

It's not easy looking cute every day, you know.

Hello All

Welcome to the second of my Dog Blogs.

First things first, my human, Renee, has had a couple of calls asking her what my voice is like... well, it's kind of a cross between Keith Richards and Cap'n Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean!  Savvy?

Last week I talked about balance in business - it's like carrying a BIG stick.  This week I thought I'd give you the benefit of my considerable wisdom about a different sort of balance - work life balance.

First of all, there's no such thing as 'work life balance'; there's just life and then you choose what you fill it with.  Mostly I choose to fill mine with chasing sticks, sleeping and licking my... well, let's just say 'keeping clean'.

Oh, and I have to work by looking cute, but overall I think my life is pretty good.

Now, take my humans as an example of balance that's wrong... even if it is only for a few months.

I would say that they have got the business balance bit just about right.  They concentrate on marketing and then they get the work done.  The life thing, though, is all over the place.  They work all kinds of hours to make sure everyone is kept happy... including me.

I don't mind that but a few more sticks wouldn't go amiss every so often.

The only thing that I can say in my human's favour is that the have a plan to start working less.  They know that a few months of really hard slog will mean that they can back off soon.

I don't believe it meself.  I think they'll go on to something else, but it's their dinner, if you see what I mean.

The point I'm getting to is this... imagine your business a chew toy with four arms on it.  Sometimes you'll get one arm being pulled harder than the others and this is okay for a little while, but gets boring if it happens all the time.  To make the game really interesting you have to have all four bits being pulled equally hard... then you have a really good game.

Managing the business, winning customers, working and having time off all have to be balanced, savvy...

But here's a little lesson about 'balance, averages and the short term...'

A German was shooting at rabbits (prefer to chase them, meself) and missed to the left hand side.  He aimed again and missed by the same amount to the right hand side.  He put his gun away and his companion asked 'Vot are you doing?'  'Vell, on average I know ze rabbit iz dead!'

Sometimes you have to get out of balance.  But have a plan to get back into it, savvy?