Week 3 – Electricity, where would we be without it!
Hello All
I can’t believe that we are going into the third week of January already and that I will only have 3 more posts to write after this one. Time certainly is moving quickly. I do hope that you have enjoyed reading my first two weeks and that they have been beneficial both to new and well established VAs.
As you can see from the title, this week’s update is focused around electricity. The reason for this is that I encountered 2 electrical power cuts last week. The first was on Monday afternoon when I was just finishing some work for a client. It was due to be sent across at 5pm on Monday night and having just made some last minute revisions, we had a power cut at 4pm – what perfect timing! Fortunately I have invested in an external back-up system, which operates every 30 minutes resulting in the majority of my work being saved. However the power did not come back on until 9.45pm meaning that the work had to be sent to my client on Tuesday. The main difficulty that I had was contacting the client, as they were only available via e-mail. Thank goodness for the invention of smart phones, as even though the power was down, I was still able to send e-mails. Fortunately my client was happy for me to finish the work on Tuesday.
The second power cut came at a networking breakfast on Wednesday. I had arranged to drop my little boy off at the childminders early so that I could attend the event. I turned up at 8am only to find the place in total darkness. I walked in to find 20 people just about to walk out as there was no power and it was not likely to be switched on for the next hour. So many went home and others went to Sainsbury’s for their Breakfast. I decided to make use of the time and ring an old contact to see if they were available for an early coffee. Fortunately they were and I picked up a good referral.
So the lessons learnt from last week are that if we lose electricity we can lose time and money. However thanks to a reliable back-up system, a smart phone and good contacts I still managed to have a productive week.
Enjoy your week
Mark