Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-07-31 17:49:17 - Graham Ellis
Working as the proprietor of a company such as Well House Consultants is more like being in the army that being in a company in civvie street. That's the startling conclusion we came to at lunch time today, on a course where we have delegates who have been in both.
"When you're in the army, you're really always on duty, even when you're not" they tell me. "You may be on a weekend break, but something happens and your colleague who was supposed to be on duty isn't available, and you get called back in." The parallel - for the "civvie street" job - is that you finish at 5, and then can leave the office and forget about it until 9 O'clock on the next morning.
I confess to being surprised by the comparison; I've really not thought of it like that before, but there is a seed of truth. From a personal viewpoint, we are on call at virtually any time ... but then so is any small business. And from a team viewpoint, staff at any company really do - at least - represent their employer when they're off duty as well as on.