Trying Not To Kill People

Once upon a time our business consisted of two Camera Boys, Miss Whiplash and a big pile of kit, our main concern was to insure against bad men running off with a camera or the film stock getting eaten by tigers.

Now that we have a proper grown-up out-of-the-house building and lots of people, the responsibility for not killing people is mine all mine.

Paperwork about Regulations and Compliance rain down on me. I’ll have just filled in a stack of forms for security arrangements or arranged fire warden training, when another hazard looms. I dream that a giant rabbit is living on my lap, every few minutes it burps and gives birth to several kittens and I have to keep them all within my capacious skirts - they keep dropping on the floor and some of them break and I have to scoop them up and hide the bits in my pockets and try and glue them back together when no-one is looking.


I’ve just subjected myself to some intensive coaching about how to be a good employer, my coach is patient. To deal with different situations, he suggests scenarios where I imagine putting on a succession of different coloured hats or confronting a series of doors, there are diagrams too - one looks like a hairdryer.


Yesterday afternoon I had set up a broad range of policies and contracts and insurances, I thought I had it all covered...

I had forgotten the rogue fourteen year old who I rashly said could come and do a week’s work experience with us in the summer. Today I got a phone call from the child labour inspectoriate demanding an interview, they want to come and grill me and my premises and look at my policies ...