matthew.brough

That's terrible James. I quote "gaining SSAIB approval isn't easy, nor should it be."

Interesting and a story I hear often. There was a day that no badge meant no decent work. Think that ship has sailed. So far this year we have done 2 jobs that needed any approval. At £40k though it was worth SSAIB fees to get it. Bulk of what we do, no one cares. Super successful alarms inspection board wouldn't be so successful without recruitment of companies

Engineer fantasy Glad our engineers aren't doctors as the number of misdiagnosis would lead to large scale deaths

Voip unlimited but expen$ive

3400 is a 9600 keypad. Modern alarms renamed it 3400. I don't remember there being anything different to a standard 9600 apart from branding but it is a long time ago so wouldn't want to make 100% claim it's compatible.

£480 for a panel and 2 keypads. I'd snap his hand off. This panel is so old, realistically how much life do you want out of equipment so old? Ebay is the only real place but it's inevitable that sooner or later this is going to fail.

Comforting

Still do the exercise. Seems the more weight I wanna loose the more pays me a visit Chained to this desk doesn't assist matters.

You guys are worrying me. Stu, I've put on about 1 1/2 stone since your visit . . .

When? Thanks for the optimism If it happened today, it would be a major problem.

Indeed. My main issue is MAS. With immense reluctance I have given them a VPN connection to my database so that they can support alarm processing in an emergency situation. Our network is quite redundant and in theory if say MASA failed you could click on B or C, click make active and everything would carry over. Reality is generally receivers fail and don't switch and certain services need restarting. Plan B is getting a good IT person delegated to do IT bits and get MAS to do what he can't do with the hope should we ever have a server failure that they could between them sort it out. I couldn't sit on holiday, isolated from everyone and just hope all was ok. Maybe the comfort would be having a separate mobile that if the pair of them couldn't sort it out they could call. I'd probably rest then.

I hear the message loud and clear. This is one thought behind the current acquisition strategy as part of it is a management team. I'm at the stage I want to do less. The biggest strength and weakness we have is MAS. It's a wonderful piece of software, but the people who understand it are very rare making it hard to comfortably disappear off radar. I'd feel different if we weren't monitoring systems but really that needs a 24x7 uptime. I'm hoping that with some of the companies we are acquiring exists some talent that can be made into good managers so that my services are no longer required

They go away on their own. Not had a family holiday since my cards in days.

I can't compute that. Within 10 seconds of my eyes opening phone checked for texts and emails then spend 1/2 in bed responding to them all. I don't know how you can abstain. I'd got down to checking emails on a weekend once an hour and thought I was making progress.

How can you not resist the temptation to check in between?

Do you have your works email on your phone?

Evil invention. I have an app the monitors our 70 odd servers and the minute something goes wrong it chirps only then to find out it's just a server restart following windows updates. Problem is unless in the early years you want to sign up to the 80 hours week the chance of you failing is so high. Even if you do, no guarantee of success. That's why we turned to acquisition, much easier but couldn't have done that without having the avenue of hard graft completed first. Sometimes on that note I feel bad. Someone has out years into a business and the wolves are at the door only for us or someone else to offer 50p for a business they've out their heart and soul into. Sad reality is hours worked doesn't translate to value in all cases. We are all mad

I've grown quite resentful of said fruit phone. I can't help myself. Got to look at it and if a little red symbol adjacent the mail icon then no stopping me. Got to read and respond. Ridiculous behaviour. Feel like an addict.

Alarm engineer not being one of them judging by my lot! I think we have the whole work life balance screwed. You go abroad and see how horizontal some people are towards work and look in the mirror and think what am I doing?

Partners. Isn't that chapter 2 in the mother of all **** ups business startup guide?

Share your secret of being able to let go and wind down Every minute I'm awake I've got business on the brain and I'd really love to know the secret of doing nothing but relax and enjoy family time. Do you switch mobile off?

Not dissimilar here. One of the reasons when anyone suggests starting up a business I ask if they have any idea what it's like. Of course they don't. Neither did I. How can you explains the roller coaster it is and all the bad things but then carry on. I think the minute it becomes who you are, rather than what you do then there is no going back. Knowing what I know now, I'd have rather not got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and stayed cards in and had a moderate life. Not that I'm practicing what I preach. A MAS upgrade went wrong earlier so up sorting that out and the family in bed nearly 3 hours ago and not spoken much to either of them much tonight

I must confess, prior to the current venture did much the same at the expense of being with the family. Now my girls nearly 12, I regret that. Cards in and time off would have done nicely in hindsight. Those of you here that are either self employed or directors, could you ever go back to employment? I couldn't even if I was offered the same money I get now with all the greif.

Don't disagree it is nice work, I like the ones we have ourself but we got people to do our manuals etc for us and you pay one way or the other. If you do it yourself it's lost money that you're not earning and if you pay someone else whilst you are you still pay with no guarantee of any work. I know we pay to get updates done but when we originally did it all from scratch it cost a fair few quid.