Like a Stuck Record... in Diary

Yes, I’m going to talk some more about how my new business set up is going.

I got loads of stuff sorted on my days off. As well as delivering over 400 leaflets through doors (it’s hard work and takes ages!), I bought my insurance, paid for a CRB/ DBS check which should be with me in a few days (criminal record background check, to show customers that I’m trustworthy.), added some stuff to my Facebook page, got Google Analytics on my website (12 visitors in 20 hours, not bad so far), added a business page to Google+ (which looks crap, but people can click on it if they find me on Google Maps so I thought I’d best add something) and lots of little bits and pieces.

I also managed to break into a filing cabinet at home that’s been locked for the last three years (Moving house, a friend said “You’d better take this key out of the lock and put it somewhere safe so you don’t lose it when you’re moving.” and it’s never been seen since…) so I’ve cleared that out and filed away a load of bits of paper that were spread all over the house.

Now I just need to get the customers! I’ve applied for 12 jobs that potential customers were advertising on Care2 (a babysitting/ petsitting/ home care directory) but none of them have replied. I’ll just have to keep going; maybe they’ll be more receptive when I can upload my DBS certificate.

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Jay’s dad sent me a Facebook message saying it’s Jean’s birthday today (Jean is Jay’s dad’s wife’s cousin who lives a couple of miles away from us) and please can I go round with some flowers and chocolates. They can’t get anything delivered because she’s bed bound so here’s the access code to get into her house…

I’ve never even met the woman, I don’t even get birthday presents for my own cousins, never mind my boyfriend’s dad’s wife’s cousin. I said I can’t because I don’t get home from work until 7pm, then I need to have something to eat and go to roller derby, come home and have a shower, by which time it’ll be 11pm. He said “Sorry, I thought you’d already finished your job.” OK…even if I had, that doesn’t mean I’m sitting at home waiting to run errands for people. I’m hoping to be busy! Even if I’m not instantly busy with customers, I’ll be doing other things; trying to get customers, mystery shopping, trying to sell knitted items on Folksy; anything else I can do to make money.

So now I have to go tomorrow instead, after work, after walking Roxy, after going grocery shopping and before going home to pack for my weekend away visiting family.

Jay keeps getting mad with me because I’ve apparently “Got a bee in my bonnet” about people wanting me to do things when I’m self-employed. He came home from work on Monday and asked if I’d done this or that, and I just said “No, I’ve been busy. You have to pretend I’m not at home and won’t be able to do these things until the evening.” and he accused me of biting his head off.

It says something that I’ve been dreading saying this to him for weeks, rehearsing the best way to say it without him getting mad. And he still got mad, accusing me of being defensive and being nasty. He gets mad whenever I ask him a question or say something to him that he might not want to hear, always accusing me of “Huffing and puffing, tutting and sighing, going on the defensive and biting my head off.” When I’m actually being intensely conscious of how I’m portraying myself and trying to put on my nicest voice. I don’t understand how he’s hearing me when I talk.

I’m not even self-employed yet and I’ve already had three people wanting me to do things, seemingly under the impression that I’m going to be sitting around doing nothing. If that’s what being self-employed was all about, I’m sure everyone would be doing it!

I really hope this doesn’t turn into a problem or I’m going to get really mad really quickly. So of course I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about it. Especially if I get accused of biting heads off when I try to explain.

Anyway, before all that I’ve got a nice long weekend with my family up north. I haven’t seen my sister and her kidlets or my grandparents since Easter so it’ll be nice to spend some time with them.

After that, public holidays won’t mean anything to me anymore so I don’t know if I’ll still be able to make these regular trips up there! I’ll have to figure out when my quiet periods will be and work around those.

8 working days remaining; single figures!

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Last updated August 29, 2014