weekly rotas, leaflet drops. I realised that I would have to expand to be profitable but couldn't find reliable staff to maintain quality. I'd been doing quite a lot of work cleaning rented staff accommodation, between lets for a company that was relocating to the Stirling area. They were having a new office custom built for them. The office manager verbally assured me that I would have the contract to clean the new office. I thought that this would be the salvation of the business, as I could easily supervise employees while on one site. The logistics of the domestic cleaning were very complicated. However the contract never came to fruition. The office manager told me that my business was too small to take on the contract and her deputy told me that they were legally bound to take on the cleaning contractor that the whole business park used. Who knows what the truth was but basically I was left in the lurch. I decided to give up the business.
I drifted back into market research telling myself that I would just do the more interesting social survey work. I started with a company who only did social surveys and was told there was plenty of work available. I think I had about 3 jobs from them over 6 months. When I was doing a sex survey for them in Perth I bumped into another interviewer. She told me that the company she worked for were about to start a big social survey where the same families would be interviewed every year for the next 3 years. I phoned the area manager the next day, we hit it off and things seemed to be going well. After a few months the area manager asked me to apply for the position of deputy. Believe it or not, as deputy manager I was still paid by the hour. I actually had more hassle, made less money and had less flexibility than working as an interviewer. I still had to go out interviewing and would get home in the evening to a pile of faxes and phone messages, when I just wanted to relax.
I lasted around 6 months as deputy. I rationalised that I had tried studying, tried a promoted post, I wasn't that ambitious and no employer seemed prepared to offer me a decent job, so I would have to be realistic and just plod on as an interviewer. Well that lasted for around a year then the area manger was forced to retire at 65 and the new manager wanted to greatly reduce my work on the annual social survey and force me to do all other sorts of surveys I wasn't interested in.
I was wracking my brain about what on earth I was going to do to earn a crust. I had started thinking that I would like to start a travel business. It was a growth market, I wouldn't need any employees, and I could work from home. The Internet was really catching on (this was 2002) and I thought that it would allow me, to gain some market exposure, even as a small fish. I also thought it would be wonderful to work in a field in which I had a great personal interest. I signed up with a flight supplier as a travel broker in August 2002.
That was almost two years ago. I am still working as a market research interviewer and the business is slowly growing. It's been an ongoing dilemma to me, whether to give up the interviewing and just concentrate on the business. At some points I have been doing market research six days a week, so really have not had much time or energy to devote to the business. However I have been loathed to give up the steady income. By the same token if I don't focus on the business then it will never really take off.