My time at OwnerShips 

Chapter 7

So, to review. I had not long been in the job. I had managed to balance up to the bank accounts each of the hitherto un-reconciled boat sinking funds and discovered that there was a "Hole" in Client 2 account to the tune of around £150,000 which had been funded by the "Free Services Scheme" to the tune of around £250,000 taking income of £31,250 away from the company this year, and every year.

I took the view that actually the company should survive without this income and anyway the number of boats paying management would be increasing by six boats each year, so whilst it might be tight this year, next year there would be another £18,000 coming in, and again the year after that. As for the hole well now there was a tighter grip on the cost of the boats against what was coming in it would be possible to balance out each boat to nil, where any surplus could be used to plug the shortfall AND actually to some extent it did not matter, well it did but the business could just carry this shortfall and slowly slowly plug the gap as long as there was not a "run" on the money in the Free Services Scheme. Who knows maybe in five years (30 boats later) we might be OK. 

However, there was one problem that did matter, and it mattered a lot. While boats were being built the owners made stage payments according to their contract. But in reality, because of unsold shares in existing boats, and "The Hole", whilst a person paying for their share in three months time was paying well in advance, the money sent in by them was actually being used to pay for a boat being built TODAY. This meant that it was very much hand to mouth still and more importantly OwnerShips could NOT stop building new boats, or the chickens would come home to roost. This was worrying.

To make matters worse almost all of this was NOT my "side" of the office. I was existing boats and boat management, so I was always treading on eggshells when I brought it up. After all what boss likes to be told by the office junior that they have done it all wrong, when that junior had no experience in doing it right.

As if divine intervention Allen gave me something else to have nightmares over and shift my focus. Wet exhausts. Never heard of them? No neither had I....until now.


Next...Wet Exhausts:- Just one of several disasters.

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