By Lara Solomon

January 2004

I’ve had a long think over Christmas, and I have decided that I need to break out of corporate life, and my current role of Marketing Manager for an electrical appliancescompany. I love the marketing, but I just can’t face working for someone else anymore; it is too restrictive. I have my own ideas of what to do and how to do it.Working for someone just doesn’t give me the autonomy and responsibility to do that.I am job hunting with a passion this month. I’m trying to find a part-time role to go tofrom here. It would be great to leave at the end of March, but that’s only threemonths away. Meanwhile I need to start looking into business ideas and geteverything set up to leave. Mr Johns (my husband) has said he will support me, butI’ve had to agree to go back to a paid job if I haven’t paid myself from my businesswithin a year of leaving my job. I really have to make this work. I really believe thathard work, will power and passion will go a long way for me. Mr Johns says he’spretty sure he married me because of my determination to make things happen …A few different ideas – like socks for mobiles, websites, a new store, a game andspecial shower caps for covering food – are bobbing around in my head at themoment. I want to investigate them all simultaneously. I think the socks for mobileswill be a goer. They personalise mobile phones and protect them from gettingscratched, and will really appeal to teenagers. When I saw a similar product sold inthe markets in Thailand last year I thought people would be interested. I love the oneI bought, as does everyone I’ve shown it to. I’ll need to improve on the designs,packaging and quality of the product, plus think of a brand name, but I love all thatmarketing stuff so it will be fun. I need to think about the size of the socks.Hilariously, some of the mobile socks I saw in Thailand were actually babies’ sockswith the heel sewn in. That didn’t look good! I can improve on that … baby socks aredefinitively the way to go, but without the heel.I still need to persuade the backers, which I think at the moment means Mum andDad. I can’t see the bank lending me anything, and Mr Johns isn’t keen. Businessplan writing, here I come.

Monday 19

January 2004

I had a disappointing day at work today. Not surprisingly, the so-called monthly salesand marketing meeting at work was cancelled, yet again by my boss. I know that weare busy, but I think it is really important that we are all on the same page and knowwhat is going on, which was the point of the meeting. My feeling is that teamworkwithin the business really isn’t working at all when members of the team aren’t willingto attend meetings. When I have my business going I will make sure I stick by what Isay, otherwise I really think there is no point.

Tuesday 27

January 2004

Things are getting very hard at work. I will have to keep a record of the time I am inthe office, in case I need it. I got told off for having a sick day last Friday because itwas before the long weekend. I was told I need a doctor’s note – where is the trust?