Thanks for all the comments and concerns obv's on the punting front, I think a few may have taken it literally especially the amounts gamlbed and if the Tues/Weds night gambles hadn't landed then there certainly wouldn't have been a top up on Mecca's or what seems like a chunk on Barry Neville's say so (I cannot say too much but the match in question was 100% supposed to have both teams to score!)
Well this week has been interesting and the windfall's may come at a good time as in the past I have posted about my tepid relationship with my MD Anthony and a couple of years ago we had a clash where I offered to resign and despite me being in the wrong at the time he refused and said he needed me as part of his team going forward and even saw me as the future leader of the business and 6 months after our clash I was given the promotion to oversea all 3 offices which took me out of a day to day office roll and with property prices doing well in Essex coupled with a lack of supply we are £150k ahead year to date vs 2014 performance so in good shape.
However he hasn't had a great year personally where a property deal from 3 years ago came back to bite him on the backside with a settlement required and overall this has left him distant to the business with other things on his mind as well this caused some further friction as our managers started to ask for help on the marketing front (his bit) nothing was forthcoming and at a managers meeting in May things came to a head with since then him being very distant towards me personally.
Around this time he also took on a expensive life/business coach that works with a few people we are associated with and he started to make sounds of not being happy with what he personally gets out of the business and this coach started to swing him round to stripping some of the senior management costs with him taking more of a day to day role in the business which time will tell if it's the right thing to do but on his return from his 3.5 week family holiday last week and with whilst he was away me being instructed to lay off one of our negs (at the end of her probation period) I feared it wasnt good news to be summonsed to a meeting which was confirmed when I was put at "Risk of redundancy" with my role no longer required which is kinda interesting as it was created for me despite me being happy in my other role doing a bit of both until a year ago.
I always see things as an opportunity though and back myself to walk into any other role if required so having read through the paperwork involved he asked my thoughts and I told him exactly what I though and was in full control of the meeting with him being quite nervous about it and we cleared a lot of stuff up and at the end despite us due to have a formal meeting at the solicitors on Friday afternoon he asked whether I would meet him at the local David Lloyd club on friday morning for a chat which I agreed to.
This was an interesting meeting as were both sat in the jacuzzi and talking openly which is something we hadnt done for 6 months and he accepted our current relationship problems are due to how he handled the situation 2 years ago and that he should have handled that and this year better but he wanted to make changes and then he offered me the chance to buy into our 3rd office for a small price.
The office in question for whatever reason neither he nor I have ever liked (him despite having it for 15 years and me as I have never worked the town although its only 4 miles away) and it is the ugly duckling of the company with no refurb done to the front in the 4 years I have been here so it's branded differently to the rest, anyway he then suggested we cancel the solicitors meeting and postpone it until Weds to give me a chance to think through this opportunity and I rang the manager of the office (whom I rate highly) to see if he would be happy with putting up some cash with us both working that office and retaining 30% each of the profits with a view to us being the first people he could go to if we decided to franchise any other offices locally and we are meeting up tomorrow to discuss the opportunity prior to my meeting with Anthony on Tuesday and then the final solicitors meeting on Weds.
To be honest I'm pretty cool either way and have decided that whatever happens I am going to take this redundancy and for the next couple of weeks spend some good time with Petra and the kids before Maxwell goes to school for the first time on September 14th with us even trying to squeeze 5 days either in Slovakia or Spain after the Pokerfest main event next week and then as Max and Ivy go back to school/pre school I am going to take some time and develop my leaflet business inc finishing the website I am 70% done on and try and drive that a bit plus help Petra on her photography business as she time permitting could actually do an awful lot more shoots so we can see how the balance of me being home gives her some flexibility as opposed to only taking shoots on Weds/Sat's when my mum is over with the kids.
I see everything as an opportunity and fortunately we are ok financially that I don't need to jump into anything for a few months whilst we look for the balance in our lives so its going to be nice to spend some time with Petra, Max and Ivy with a couple of breaks and after Pokerfest next week I am playing Luton 2 weeks after along with a trip to Malta in October where Max is pageboy at my cousins wedding over there so we are flying a week early and I will play some sides and maybe a satty to the Main event of the EPT to tick one off the bucket list as that finishes the day before the wedding which is incred planning on their part.
I actually felt strangely empowered this week as it was happening and this may be the spur I have needed to drive me forward over the next decade as I really wanted to try and be in a position to retire at 50 so have 9 years to make that goal or get close to it.......
So having a bit of time to spare over the last couple of days I have been out with the kids and followers will have seen Max on his balance bike over the past couple of years and his first bike with stabilizers he never got on with so we waited until he felt ready to go without them and having bought him a new bike last week here he is with one hours practice, a few frustration tears, a few tumbles but now starting off in the park pretty much on his own.
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