We need them...I just wouldn't want to be one.

Accountants.

A crucial element to success in modern day business. They record things, they take a snapshot view of things as they are now and have been in the past. Figures are compiled, overheads are measured and costed, revenue is added up, (although no accountant can ever do mental arithmetic) and profit or loss is declared.

Then these chaps tell us about all the problems we will face if everything that could possibly go wrong actually does go wrong. I wonder about this whole accountant / finance person phenomenon. Us businesspeople need them, we need measurements and benchmarks, we need to know how we're doing on an ongoing basis. Most people involved in business are quite driven, we want to succeed, we want to make money and we want to develop and grow our little seedlings of Companies.

Therefore we must have people to tell us how we're doing. If we don't know where we are then we can't know how to get to our destination, or something deep like that.
But I also get totally fucked off with my finance director sometimes, who's also one of my partners. He'll present the monthly management accounts and accompany it with a list of potential problems. Along the lines of:

"If we don't have any revenue next month we'll make a big loss"

or "We need to reduce our overheads to make more money".

All valid and true statements, yet all totally obvious to the most stupid of people. Even some of the people on "The Apprentice" would grasp these basics. My eleven year old daughter knows this stuff. Mind you she does know most things, such is the power of the internet mixed with attitude.

For me though it comes back to that old statement, that adage that you see on posters in offices like mine:

"Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions".

I want to be one of the creative ones, the type who thinks of things, who deals with stuff and moves on. I really don't want to dwell on what might go wrong, what did go wrong and what will go wrong if everything else goes wrong. There's a balance too though. It's vitally important to look at previous experiences in order to learn from them, to learn good and bad things. How to do things in the future and how not to do things.

But, if you ever catch me criticising things to the nth degree and moaning about stuff, give me a good slap will you.

Ta.