Why Snow is NOT good for small Businesses

I have always LOVED the snow, it has a magical quality that makes everyone smile when the first flutters fall.  "It's snowing, it's snowing" resounds throughout the Country and we all plan sledging expeditions and snowman building followed by lashings of hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows.

So far, so lovely.

An added bonus of heavy snow in years gone by was the added excitement of a "snow day" either at school or in the office.  This was always an unexpected treat and in later life as I worked for large TV channels, I would always try my best to get in, one day even riding in the cab of the train driver.  I was the only one who made it into work that day.   This ethos of good work/school ethics was passed on to me by my mother who yesterday spent 4 hours going 3 miles to work (she is 64) and I hope that I am instilling the same ethos into my children.

However, this year is different.  This year I have my own business www.halolifestyle.com.  This is the busiest week of my working year, with events to attend and client's orders that need processing in time for Christmas.  I am at the mercy of others - Framers, Labs and courier services.  Not to mention the fact that I need to do client viewings but don't have transport in order to do this.   My deadline for Christmas orders is the 10th December so I need this snow to get a move on, if it doesn't then it will cost my business approx £10k.   That's a LOT of money and a LOT of disappointed clients.  This weather could make or break my business which is at the critical stage of making a profit and paying a salary.

It really is sNOw joke.

What happened to my drinking boots??

Many a moon ago, I used to work in TV advertising.  It was a career I fell into after telling the careers advisor I "wanted to be in TV".  This was at a time when the Dani Behr fronted programme "The Word" was the epitome of cool and I wanted Dani Behr's job.   They somehow wangled me an interview at a Pan-European TV sports station and despite not knowing how to turn a computer on, I managed to blag my way into the job.  It was quite simply, the best move I could have done.

Whilst my friends were getting largered up at Uni's across the Country, I was swanning business class across Europe and dining in London's finest restaurants on never ending expense accounts.  I had a good thing going, I was earning a decent salary doing a job I loved and it seemed to love me as I progressed up the career ladder like a ferret up a pair of trousers - quickly.

We became known as the IPG's and several of us would stay out drinking to 4am - champagne, cocktails, shots, you name it, we would drink it.  We would then crash at someone's pad and get up and go to work the next day on nothing but a bacon sarnie and a builders cup of tea, feeling slightly jaded but ready to go out again in a few hours time.  I quite literally lived on champagne and canapes for a decade.

Since having the kids I have had to become more focussed on nutrition which I have embraced and the girl who lived on canapes is now not bad in the kitchen - I LOVE cooking from scratch and am self taught.  As anyone with children knows, hangovers and kids are not a good combination and so, for the last 7 years, I have gotten to the stage where I rarely drink.  

We probably share a bottle of wine a few times a week and I am usually tucked up in bed by 11pm (oh so rock and roll).  The thing I have noticed though is my tolerance to alcphol is absolutely pants.  I quite literally have 1 glass of wine and it goes to my head.  3 and I am legless....so, what I want to know is, do we all lose our drinking boots as we get older???

Please vote for an ex IPG here!