Loneliness comes with the territory when you’re a sole trader. Or at least, that’s the perceived small business wisdom. And yes, ploughing your own furrow can mean that working life is sometimes solitary and alienating. In fact, unless you are completely comfortable working on your ownio, you can go a bit bonkers without colleagues to shoot the
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The Last Word blog comes straight from the heart of WORD UP.
In our irregular online offering, we aim to please, entertain, and be brutally honest in our musings on small biz, the ageing process, and life. But we sometimes raise hackles and spark off debate, so feel free to join in, or fire back if you don’t like what you read.
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The Blog
Hold your noses, folks, there’s a foul stench in the air. It reeks to high heaven, is turning my stomach and making me mad. And that’s because my pungency allegory extends way beyond pong. I’ve been clamping my nostrils tightly for a couple of years now, particularly when travelling by bus (public transport and two wheels being the favoured
Happiness, huh? Totally overrated if you ask me. Truth told, I’m a crabbit old cow. My natural state of grump has been embedded even more deeply lately by the omnipresence of the happiness industry. Even a cursory glance through certain social media platforms or a skim of the self-help section in your local bookshop confirms our apparently limitless search
Today was momentous. Because today is the day we didn’t leave Europe. Not only did we fail to depart, but our conscious uncoupling is yet further delayed after the PM’s latest defeat looks set to leave democracy clinging on in utter disharmony for the foreseeable. But for ordinary punters like me (who didn’t want to
Even now in the darkened depths of a Glasgow January, when the annual Scottish SAD syndrome is dragging us all down in its icy, gloomy grip, faint glimmers of a feel-good golden glow have suffused the spirit of this wee sole trader. The annual gloom-fest that is Blue Monday was brightened this week by a stunning blood moon,
Funny how it all comes around. Even if you wanted to dodge it, the past has a habit of creeping up on you and doing its time machine thing, taking you way back when. Some flashbacks have a golden tinge – sibling singalongs to the hit parade on Sunday bath night; the long, hot coming-of-age
Half a century, give or take. Fifty years of zigging and zagging through life trying to find the switch which flicks the bravery button on, permanently. Shame it’s taken me so very long to feel solid and sorted, but from where I’m sitting on a tiny wee lump of rock clinging to the outer fringes
Frazzled, fried and fed up. Truth talking, sometimes this small business malarkey takes a heavy toll. There are episodes in enterprise which are just not a laugh. Times when you’re clinging on by your fingernails and praying your shredded nerves can last just long enough ’til the next chance to draw breath presents itself. Times when
Funny old things, humans. So simple and yet so utterly perplexing. Head-scratching and marvelling at human behaviour is one of my favourite pastimes, but I remain baffled at how some folks simply cannot evolve and adapt. And just when you think there are signs of real social progress, people go and do something a bit daft. It’s
