Tag: Business

Digging Deeper #3

Andy YoungLeave a comment

What are the biggest things you’ve learned in life to date?
*sigh* this is going to be a long list.

Don’t do drugs. Including the valium from your parents.

Don’t accept sweets when they are in fact drugs.

Don’t smoke, it’s at least a 20-year habit that will give you a good shot at COPD once you’ve stopped.

Never out of interest and bored and because you could, buy a gun and shoot random things to see if they break.

Always plug the CPU fan power into the CPU power socket on the motherboard otherwise bye bye 18th birthday present

Sex is not the be-all and end-all of life. Closeness is far more rewarding.

Birth control should come with pictures of babies on them and a warning to your health.

Black coffee is the way to go, never ruin that shit with sugar and milk

Bean to cup machine vs rent. Always go bean to cup.

Programming. Learn a programming language. Personally PHP but whatever floats your boat. It’ll help your logic skills throughout life.

A university degree is a piece of paper to wedge open a door for an interview. Nothing more. It does not make you an expert. Life makes you that.

If you taste the alcohol in the drink you asked for, you should probably not down it and ask for more

16 is too young to start your own business involving large amounts of money and investing them in drinks, drugs, and weapons. I shit you not.

However, tempting it is to ram a needle into a muscle and filled it with ephedrine really isn’t cleaver.

Why are these mostly around drugs? Let’s try some normal ones.

Don’t bring vodka to high school disguised as either water or mixed with coke. The drink coke.

All you need in life is one good friend. The one you haven’t seen in a year but it was just like you met five minutes ago.

Hedge your bets. There is a god, well, something started the big bang BUT fret not, with intelligence comes humor so you should be fine.

Sell cigarettes for 50p a pop in high school. It paid for edibles which kept you sane.

Oh DONT listen to dads views on Catholics when doing a history essay calling for the irradiation of all Catholics in Ireland by keeping them in camps. I really really wish that wasn’t true.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Please see the above. Also Microsoft, Apple, and gold. Invest in all of them with everything you have.

Exit Wounds

Andy Young3 Comments

I think I am doing better. I had a really rough night, nightmares spinning around my head, couldn’t wake up from them. Woke up covered in sweat again. It seems that the medication I take to stop sweating doesn’t work on nightmares. If there are no nightmares then I wake up without a drop on me. It could just be pure coincidence though. Besides the rough night, I haven’t had many intrusive thoughts which is great. It’s almost peaceful up there, the only problem now is that I don’t want to go to sleep again (yes I’m like a petulant child) because I might have the dreams again.

Okay so honestly? they are more terrors than nightmares as I’m reliving things that happened to me when I was younger. I’m trapped in the cycle and can’t break free. Remember the nightmare on elm street, when the kids were in the hospital and they were given pills to stop them dreaming. Those. I need those pills. I have cash waiting!

Let’s put the dreary to one side for a moment. I have this opportunity to run a small business that could be successful via Shopify. I can sort the SEO, ads, and a plethora of other things needed to get it started like the other businesses but it needs an outlay which would require drawing on savings. Something I know I can’t do because the money saved is for the kids during school holidays for going on day trips or a couple of nights somewhere different. It’s a good business idea, but there is a risk associated with it, ie. it would fail. I’m trying to think of other ways to sort it. It’s stupid, the crux of the problem is an online store. Shopify is an easy route but with pushing $50 a month, on top of all the other bits I’ll need to do, it’s not feasible. Does anyone on here have any ideas on a decent online store to use? I use sum up for all my invoicing and online payments for the main business but I want this completely separate.

Could I be any vaguer?

TLDR: Do I know any online store wizards who can recommend a good one to get started with, that’s fast, easy to use, and doesn’t eat all my time. I could make one in php I suppose but it’s the time element as it’ll impact other things. Preferably hosted somewhere, although I have the in-house server, it’s hosting a few other things and is blocked from the outside world at present.

Even my TLDR was long.

hmm. Typing it out helps. Lets me think. But then thinking is bad. Unless I obsess about it. I could generate some quick cash and put it to one side and use that, then if it fails it has minimum impact. Yard sale? probably not the best idea where I live.

Other things.

I’m still abstinent on alcohol which is great. I still get a little sad when I think that I ruined such a long streak but as people have said, dust yourself off and get back to it. So I plod along. I still desperately want a drink but I can see where it would be heading again if I did. I know I would lose D and the kids so best to keep that in mind and use it as motivation. I’m quite proud that I’ve managed to restart at the same time. I’ll make a game of it and see how long I can beat.

I also need to cut back on vaping as my chest is killing me again whenever I do it. I’ve changed the filters but I still end up really breathless and with my chest aching. I would love to stop it cold turkey but I rely on it too much. I came off the cigarettes about a decade ago, then switched to patches, then onto vaping. The messed-up logic here is amazing. I stopped smoking because it was too expensive, then I stopped the patches as that was expensive then I went to vaping because it’s really cheap and costs me £5 a week on vapes. To then go back to patches to give my lungs a break. Madness.

I’ll probably come back here later and have another mindless vomit of information into a blank page on the screen.

Its almost July and it’s already to hot!

Andy Young1 Comment

iTunes. Please, from the bottom of my heart, disable your annoying ‘genius’ feature on your software. 29 songs in 5 minutes. Far, far, to easy for me to buy stuff. Maybe you are working in cahoots with Amazon and the strategic email I recieve, every pay-day without fail. “We thought you might like…”. It’s evil. It truly is, they know what I want and when, they know when we’ve finished watched Supernatural and now need season four. The buggers.

But not this time. I’ve turned my personal email off all day in a bid to avoid the email.

That being said, I’ll probably cave in later on and go on a mad ‘clicking’ spree and give the postman a hernia carrying the mail to the door.

Things are going well.  It is also pay-day, which means for a whole 24 hours I don’t need to worry about money! So tonight we’ll live the highlight and raid the Asda at Eastlands again. Or Makro. Which is another annoying place. Its a big shop that sells to all the other shops and you need to have a membership card. Took six months but got one through the company I work for. Its a great place for getting huge bags of dog food and the like. However, I need dragging away from the kitchen section as you have woks the size of a small kitchen, coffee machines that laugh at starbucks and mixers which cost the same as a small house.

I’ve got a work experience person at the moment working for my department. Its been quite nice since I remember when I had to do work experience and how strange it was. So I’ve given him fun jobs like stripping computers for parts, installing new machines, wiring things and smashing up old harddrives with a claw hammer. He liked the latter one a little too much. He’s also helped install a new CCTV system for me which was a help. I met his teacher today. P.E teachers always scare me. I think they were impressed I gave him actual serious work to do with me rather than making him sit at a computer and type all day. That being said I’ve given him the past 30mins to play around on facebook and download crap on the spare IT machine.

Hope everyone is equally as hot and sweaty as I am. I’ll say no more about the weather 🙂

Tuesday. A step closer to the weekend.

Andy Young3 Comments

I never quite understood work politics. It has always been something that I’ve steered clear of, however, I seem to get drawn into it more and more to protect my staff. Its the blame culture that I disagree with so much. I never quite understood why someone couldn’t stand up and proclaim “It was me, I made the mistake”, learn from it (depending on severity) and move on. Instead, people have to be devious and calculating which causes so much more hassle and messes with the office ‘karma’. Leaving certain people in a corner where they have to correct the mess.

I’ve learned quite well to try and split personal and work into two different boxes. I’m a firm believer in ‘clocking’ off whenever you possibly can. A lot of my role, means working 12 hour days, so I try and take the breaks whenever I can, seriously. Its spilled into my personal life a few times now, with disasterous consequences. It is always quite terrifying, my work persona is 100% different to how I act in ‘real life’. When there was a snow day at the start of the year, I had to work from home. Co-ordinating staff whilst I was repairing the telecoms system remotely caused me to go into work mode. I could only appologise to J’s dropped face as she heard me shouting down the phone, rallying troops and arguing with various site engineers. My work persona is a twat. Arrogant, determined, very outspoken and outgoing. It has to be that way for me to survive and ‘get up the ladder’. It work’s quite well, and I know for a fact I wouldn’t be where I am now without it.

Fortunately, the people that matter to me at work know who I am. Probably through one of the ‘IT thank you days’ where I take the select few out for lunch on me. I like those afternoons out. The one time where I pull rank and give everyone an hour and a free lunch. Also part of why I love doing the catering at work for the meetings, its fun & relaxing. I can also try out different foods for people, except vegitarians, and its a way of getting along with everyone.

It made me feel better typing that out. Work is a huge part of my life at the moment, something which I know I need to seperate a bit better to free up my life a bit more. Its a vicious cycle because it will involve hiring more people to delegate to, then spend my days buried in paper work which is something I loathe. Helping with new marketing ideas, programming and creating core systems is something I enjoy more.

And cooking. I should open a bakery. Or a resturant, although bakery would be fantastic because I could bake things all day. I’m aware there is probably more to it than that. Ok. So a bakery in Whitby or Scarborough, with a house and a seaview and I’ll be quite content.

Complete subject change now. Yesterday after I posted I started looking at photos on the laptop. I noticed a few of JD when he was a puppy. It still amazes me how massive he is now. Own orbiting planets and everything!

Doggy 2 001
Doggy 2 001
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I now miss JD. I think Mollymisses JD, she is currently gazing out of the sliding door things, waiting for a cat to appear. Bark and then give me a heart attack. On purpose because that is what she loves to do.Tea I think. Tea for all. And come dine with me. Both good things!

QotD: It’s the Little Things…

Andy Young4 Comments

Do you keep track of how much money you spend on non-essential luxuries, like gourmet coffee and snacks? Are there certain little indulgences you cannot live without no matter how tight your budget?
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Yes & No. Keeping an eye on everything would be a bad thing. I figure if you can afford one or two, small, luxury items then life is good. For me it would be my can of diet Coke. As silly as that sounds, I must have my can every day. Preferably before work as that way I can focus on my work. However sometimes I let it slide till lunch time and purposely walk for 30 mins to a certain shop to get it.

So that is all of 60p!

*thinks* blowing circa £50 on iTunes, consistantly, every month I could border line life without. However, music plays a very important role in my life. I could get away with filing that under essential heh.

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I forgot to post these two pictures yesterday.

JD is all his awesomness at the farm a couple of weeks ago. He has gotten so fat, but his is still so huggable it brings a tear to your eye to see him leave. Chocolate on the other hand is still as vicious as ever. I keep forgetting how sharp his little claws are and how easily they scratch, even when he is just stretching!

Work was hectic today.

Hectic days are never good because there are enough hours in the day to finish my to-do list and project management. They also decided to change Asda at Eastlands again. Foolish people, it was fine. I’m sure the Mancunians will unite and demand the store to be changed back.

Oh. WHEN did they start charging per sodding item from the Doctors‘? Complete and utter madness. In Wales perscriptions are free. You don’t pay a single penny. I went to the doctors and got perscribed two items. I thought, “Fair enough, £7.50.”. But no. Per item. I even made a fool of myself complaining that the silly doctor should have put both on the same perscription, but was correct. That would be the naive Welsh person inside me.

Grr. Money is tight as it is without the NHS screwing me over! What’s worse is I have to go back in two weeks for more!

I’ll stop ranting non-sensically now.