One day I arrived at the office as usual, parked up, turned off the ignition, and then it struck me… I couldn’t remember a single thing about the last hour. I got into the car, then I got out of the car – and could not recall anything about my journey to work. To all intents and purposes I may as well have been asleep at the wheel (something we can probably all relate to).
At that moment I decided to change my work life balance and find a way to ensure I didn’t waste another hour of the time I have left on this planet, whilst reducing my carbon monoxide contribution at the same time.
Soon after, I founded Telling Stories with my wife, Faye – working initially from the attic in our rickety old cottage before moving to our first ‘proper’ office at the Granary around six months later.
The best thing about this office? Well it wasn’t big, it wasn’t even cheap, but it was quite lovely and also just across the road from our little house in Worsley, which is on the outskirts of Manchester.
Believe it or not we could have found far cheaper digs in central Manchester – but then we’d be back to the daily crawl, and that wasn’t part of our brief. So what we spent in additional rent, we saved in time. And in any case, we had our own posh coffee machine so what else do you need?
Fast forward six years and we’ve made another push towards self-sufficiency, although we’re not getting our hands dirty planting homegrown veg in the garden like Tom and Barbara from the The Good Life, we have converted our humble (but relatively large) detached garage into the new home of Telling Stories.
Our short commute around the corner has become a hop, skip and a jump across the back yard.
We’ve wrestled with the usual Grand Designs scenarios along the way, but the proof is in the pudding and after proudly hosting several client visits already – we don’t know whether it’s the fancy coffee or the fancy office that makes them want to hang around for so long.
We realise our approach isn’t for everyone, but we’re sticking to the original blue-print of running a tight ship with a small crew for a select few – hopefully resulting in a good life… by design.
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Written by David Thompson