Sorry…. I hate myself for writing this but Christmas is a bit of a pain in the ass.

As a medium sized business owner, it causes me nothing but grief – people don’t pay their bills and then shut down for four weeks…I can’t get any machinery on site… and even if you could …the main contractors aren’t working and the site is closed.

What we have here is an eleven-month year – due to Christmas closing offices down mid-December and not opening until mid-January. Add into this the general apathy of people leading up to the break …and the serious hangovers they have when they come back – you might as well just write the whole month off as a waste of effort.

Can’t we re-think this please?

Maybe we have an ‘optional Christmas’ where people get paid a bonus for working through the break…. but then are allowed to have their own little Christmas at some other time of the year? This could be offered as an option but state that at least 50% of the workforce must sign up – those with kids get first choice to have a break …and with financial incentives for those that volunteer to work?

Then….the world doesn’t grind to a halt, money keeps flowing and the economic boost would be staggering.

Also …. Santa must be getting bloody knackered by now and this would allow him to have a more flexible approach to delivery of presents?

Mike C

How about the police give you credit …for not speeding??

One of my team has just picked up three points for speeding whilst driving into the Dartford Tunnel. The lights flash and the camera records a fairly innocuous 50mph in a 40mph zone having come straight from a motorway and doing 70+mph. The driver in question is a good driver – he covers tens of thousands of miles every year for Japanese Knotweed Solutions and has never had an accident – he is (I repeat) a good driver.

The three points he has received will be added to the two other lots of three points that he has accrued for similar minor transgressions. This means he will have 9 points – one more offence and he will be banned.

Now it occurs to me  that a driver that does 40,000 miles a year is a damn site more likely to get points on his licence than someone who does 400 miles per year – yet they both are allowed twelve points? Yet it also occurs to me that the driver who is knocking up 40,000 miles per annum is probably the better driver than the 400 mile motorist ….simply through experience and dealing with traffic…?

How about some sort of mileage related scheme whereby if you do more miles you are allowed more points??

Or how about – you do 10,000 trouble free miles and you get three points knocked of your tally??

My car is capable of 200+mph – I feel I should get an award every time I drive within the speed limit??

Seriously though – roads have changed – the way we drive has changed – maybe we need to re-think how we manage the way people are penalised???

Mike C