What about the customer?

We've recently added the bedrooms on to our house - we built it in two halves so we could end up with a bigger house than we could afford to build in one go.

The invoices from the contractors came in thick and fast and required almost immediate payment which sometimes, due to the lack of notice, was a bit of a struggle. We tend not to have large sums of cash sitting around waiting for the next invoice.

At one point the builder suggested that it was wise to 'keep the builders happy'. At first I let it go as a bit of a joke but the more I think about it the more it rubs me the wrong way. What ever happened about keeping the (paying) customer happy? I basically fed his family for 5 months (paying him 50% more per hour than I earned) and he suggests I should keep him happy. Meanwhile I get more and more stressed because the estimates we are given keep getting stretched. I can feel the temperature rising as I type this - can't be good for my health.

This customer is not a happy one and it makes me wonder why we even considered building in the first place. Renting has a lot going for it but of course when we were renting we wanted to be able to buy our own place. Where's the happy medium?

Ah well, back to work to pay the builder, the government, the plumber, electrician, anyone else want a go - oh yeah ... my own family.

Merry Christmas everyone :-)

Change is happening all around us

I've just added Google Adsense and updated to the new version of blogger.

Everywhere else on the web there are changes going on that I can't keep up with. Which ones do I choose to try and keep track of and which ones do I say 'another day ...'?

The speed of change is increasing which makes it more difficult to slow down and take some time to regroup before again jumping on the speedway of everyday life.

Where is the finish line? But first, what is around the next bend?

Although I manage to keep muddling along it seems that when I'm ready to hit the accelerator no-one around me has quite the same momentum. On the other hand, when I want to hit the brakes a little those around me are blazing away at a pace I can't match. As I mention on my homepage levels of inertia are overcome slowly.

I'm in the process of simplifying my life though which has an incredible cleansing effect. I'm getting rid of stuff that I would normally hoard but never use. 'You never know when it might come in handy' is being removed (slowly - remember the inertia) from my vocabulary.

I have more space in my life for those things that matter, and less clutter both physically and emotionally. To get anywhere I've decided it is better to try and be good at one or two things than try and be adequate at a lot. I'll let you know how it goes.