Why I'll be glad to see the back of 2009

I will be so glad to see the back of 2009. Apart from a few terrific bike adventures, the 675 Fest and the Triumph factory tour being up there with the best, it's been awful, and I feel mentally and emotionally exhausted after a bruising year. Why? Work. Being self employed in 2009 is no joke. I can try - and do try - as hard as I like but without proper economic conditions, it's a waste of time. I hate this Government, I didn't vote them in and I can't wait to vote the buggers out, problem is that there is no radical alternative. The Tories look like the current lot only an ickle bit different. Cameron? Sadly I don't rate him, but he's the best of a bad bunch.

We need someone with balls to take on big business, someone who will tell the EU to get back in the box, someone who will cut through all the Labour PC crap and stop all this bureaucracy that we have all sadly grown so used to that we are all worn down by it all, someone who will ensure social justice where Labour have completely failed, above all someone with the honesty and integrity that whilst you might not like what you're hearing, you nonetheless know that it's true.

Big business has become what the unions were in the late 1970s, too powerful, untouchable, these huge corporations that behave with such arrogance and disdain need to be broken up so that smaller people like me have a chance to compete on a level playing field. I run a small solicitor practice - 2 partners, 10 in the team - the Government has decided to allow corporations like Tesco and the AA to offer legal services. I have no problem taking them on head to head on client service and quality of work because I know that we can give them a hiding, a bloody nose.

But I can't match their capital resources.

The Government hasn't a clue what it's like for small businesses, everyone wants something for nothing , how many calls do I get asking for 'No Win No Fee', it's one helluva job trying to make the books balance, they give mega billions to banks which are apparently too big and too important to fail, well isn't my team of 10 employees just as important? They are so goddamn arrogant, proposing to pay huge bonuses when some months I take home nothing - and I mean, NOTHING. Isn't my Jayne's mortgage every bit as important as a RBS employee's mortgage? Or does the fact that we're based in a relatively small town in sleepy Shropshire instead of some glass and steel edifice down in London (that we can afford only through smoke and mirrors accounting) mean that we don't matter?

I haven't had a penny piece of help from the Government, no not a bean, just threatening and intimidatory letters from the Inland Revenue cos I was late paying my self assessment last January (so the *******s whopped on a £500 fine), and they care even less. Friends, they couldn't give a ****.

They can f*ck off, the lot of em.

Thank god for my bike

A friend said that what I have to do is, on the stroke of midnight on 31 December, open the front door to let the new year in, and then with the clock still chiming, rush through the house and open the back door to shove the old year out. I am so going to do just that.

Good riddance 2009, good riddance Gordon Brown in 2010, and don't bloody well come back.

Ed

oooh Good Riddance to 2009 from me too...

Grandfather died in January
Partner left me in June
Moved house in August
dad lost his job in August (two weeks after taking out a mortgage!)
beloved dog died in September
Best friends dad died in October
Car needed £500 spent on it in November

Roll on 2010 and what ever govt should come along... lol

Happy Crimble Folks!

[Wideboy]

oh im going to be sending this ****ty year out with a big bang........... soooo long 2009

[Biker Biggles]

Funny old thing Ed,but I agree with almost everything you said,but I hate Thatcher and the Tories and everything they stand for.I was a Labour voter until they took us into unwinable illegal wars,but I accept they are now too authoritarian and need to be toppled.As I have got older I have become more and more anti government generally.Power corrupts,and the more of it we let them have the more corrupt they become.Both parties.

I thought 2009 was going to be a better year for me but instead things just carried on as they were in 2008. So I am not holding out much hope for 2010...that way I won't be disappointed if it is guff but very happy if it's a good one.

That said, this year I have made some VERY good friends, including Shell, Chezzah, Jen and Stretchie....I loves them all I do. S'pose you gotta take the good with the bad!

I hope all on here have a great Christmas and best wishes for the forthcoming year.

Work wise, its not been great for me either, Only had 5 days work in whole of january, latter part of the year has been better, Jan 2010 looking good at present.

But...Put things into perspective, you aint dead or contracted any life threatening desease so be thankfull for that at least.
Ok things havent been great for some of us but your health and the health of your family and friends is what really matters when it comes down to it, money, material things mean nothing when you die so i try not to worry to much about them.

Hope 2010 goes better for you all, stay alive and healthy, thats the most important thing.

Phil

[Bri w]

I too am looking forward to a New Year. '09 has been difficult both personally, losing mum & looking after a very poorly mum in law, leaving our two boys (22 & 24) in Manchester and moving back to the Northeast to care for the mums. Professionally, with so much going on at home, it has been a major juggling act, especially with Senior Mgt want a quart out of the pint pot.

But whenever I have a really sh!tty time I grab a sheet of A4, put a line down the middle, and write the cr@p on one side of the line and all the good things on the other. Start with the cr@p first, and finish with the good. Its amazing how much good there is even in the dark times.

There are a number of cliche's that I tell myself; "every day is a nice day but some are nicer than others." "If I wake up in the morning, stretch out and I don't hit wood I'm on a winner."

But I don't wait for a New Year for things to get better. I always believe tomorrow will be better - why wait weeks/months for that holy grail of a New Year when all you've got to do is wait for tomorrow?

Naive, maybe... but a new dawn brings fresh energy to keep fighting for that better day.

A bit premature with Christmas still to come but I wish you all a brilliant 2010, with a slight wrinkle. I hope the good times start tomorrow.

Bri

[embee]

Hey Ed, I'm sure it's been said before, "Ed for PM!"

I'm self employed too, in a small way, and that's the way it'll stay. The "system" is just stacked against small enterprise. HMRC are just like the other state organisations, they'll go for the easy target every time, folks they can bully.

The trouble with elections is that whoever you vote for, the Government always gets in. We all know power corrupts, and almost every Government in history has perpetuated the custom. When things appear to be going well, it's down to the Government, when things are going badly it's everyone else's fault. Frankly I'm whizzed off with being told I'm guilty of greed and living beyond my means and running up all this credit so I'm responsible for the economic cesspit we are all in. Well Gordon F. Brown, NO I'M DAMN WELL NOT, it was YOU, oh and by the way, for f***'s sake stop giving my money away.

Sadly I fear 2010 will bite us all in the butt, the aforementioned cesspit is cold and deep, and getting a lot deeper as we speak. I'm fairly confident I'll weather it OK, but I feel for those who won't.

Here's hoping I'm wrong and everyone has a better year, I'll be genuinely pleased to be wrong on this one.

...and now the bad news......

Originally Posted by embee

The "system" is just stacked against small enterprise. HMRC are just like the other state organisations, they'll go for the easy target every time, folks they can bully.

Absolutely, if you work hard and try and do the right thing you get shafted by the government - whether self-employed or employed!

Just look at how little is done for the professionals out of work at the moment, unemployed for the first time. Benefits don't even vaguely cover your outgoings, and there's not much useful help to find another job. At the end of the day, you're easy to shaft!

However if you're a lazy bum who's never worked and knows how to play the system, you come out OK...

I think it might just be time for a revolution!

[Gazza77]

See I've actually had quite a good 2009. I've got engaged, completed my accountancy qualifications without failing one exam in 2009, got a new job (though I won't start till Feb next year), bought a new car and just about finished all the renovations on the house.

Roll on 2010, when I will be starting the new job and getting married. Can't wait!