The basics

I wanted to try to capture what it is like to run a small business in England at the present time. It's a manufacturing business, established more than 20 years ago.  It has something like 25 employees.  I've no idea how typical it is ... nor indeed what a 'typical' business is.  I do know that when I see businesses or business people on the television I recognise neither the people involved nor the way in which they behave.  I  watch neither 'Dragon's Den' nor 'The Apprentice'.  I wouldn't want to have dinner with many of the stars of these shows and indeed would cross the road if I saw most of them approaching.  So it's a bit discouraging to be asked frequently and eagerly what I think of them.

The key difference for me is that I don't like the way in which the people appearing on these shows treat their clients or would-be clients.  For me, business is about people - whether they are employees or suppliers or customers.  I like my business to be successful financially - as indeed it is, but I get most pleasure and I am more exercised by the social relationships involved.  These are by turn, fun, idiotic, ludicrous and maddening.

Given that fewer people work in manufacturing now than have worked there for 150 years or more and some friends have shown surprising interest in what goes on in my factory, I thought this blog might be an amusing and possibly more 'real' alternative to the rudeness and arrogance sometimes displayed in the TV representation of business.