It's nearly Christmas.

So in the style of a Christmas Carol, or if you're an eighties movie nerd like me

back to the future, I thought it would be fun to take you on a nostalgic trip down

memory lane and share a few tales from my Christmas past, present and future.

In this week's episode of architecture business club, the weekly podcast

for solo and small firm architecture practice owners, just like you.

He wants to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm the host, John Clayton.

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We're about to travel back in time to the crazy Christmas parties.

Of the late 1990s.

And then take a quick stop in 2023.

To reflect on Christmas as a sole practitioner.

Before finally traveling into the future.

One year into the future to be precise.

So pack the plutonium and booklet tight, because we're about to hit 88 miles per

hour and go back to the architecture practices of the past, present and future.

Welcome to this special festive episode of architecture business club.

What was the Christmas period like, um, when you worked.

In other practices.

For me, it's quite a while.

Since I worked in another practice, I've been a sole

practitioner now for over 10 years.

Um, so.

I've been thinking about this, about what it was like before

and about the differences from.

The Christmas period, what that's like when you're working

in an architectural practice.

As part of a team, when you have colleagues around you

versus what things are like now.

And I thought it'd be interesting to just take a, a bit of a nostalgic

look back at, um, the differences and how things have changed for me.

And, um, maybe some of this will, will resonate with you

or, or maybe make you smile.

So, uh, yeah, let's go back to the late 1990s and the early noughties.

I go back to that period in time I was working in, um, or a couple

of different practices, I guess, depending on which year we go back to.

But some of the memories that I have of that.

Festive period.

Uh, in those offices.

One of the things was the.

The rather.

Pathetic Christmas decks around the office often.

It would it wasn't how can we say it was a bit lackluster?

I think the Christmas decks, the tensile have been recycled many years over.

There was always at least one member of the team or member of staff

there that was a bit more overly enthusiastic about Christmas and maybe

had gone the extra mile and had 10.

So hanging off their a.

The large monitor.

And maybe had one of those little light up USB Christmas trees, but

generally there was a little bit of an effort with the decorations,

but it was a little bit enough.

Want to do the things, which was nice was when we'd get gifts from

suppliers, contractors, you know, the companies that we worked with,

I recall sometimes we'd get, um, Contractor would turn up and they'd

have some bottles of wine for the team.

Maybe if you're lucky you might get a bottle of whiskey, something like that.

Talking a gifts.

Often we do a secret center in the office.

And, um, usually the budget in those days would have been a Fiverr.

Not sure you can really get much for a fiver these days.

I'm sure the secret center budget's gone up a bit since

the days when we used to do it.

And often those guests would be generally be a bit naff.

Um, I think I recall one year I got one of my colleagues, a cliff Richard calendar.

Which may be if she was, you know, in her seventies at the time she

might've appreciated, but, um, you know, So it's kind of just a bit of,

bit of office fundraising, I guess.

There was also a lot of gossip.

That time of year.

There was a lot of gossip about the Christmas party in the office.

When was the Christmas party going to be.

Where was it going to be held this year?

Would it be the, you know, the same venue that they had the previous year?

Would it be somewhere better?

Would the boss be trying to do it on a shoestring this time.

So there was a lot of speculation about that.

And also wondering about.

Well specifically when it would be held, would it be held on what

we used to call black Friday?

I don't know if anyone else has heard that name, but that was the last.

Kind of usually rowdy the last Friday before Christmas, that kind of rowdy day.

When everyone would be out in the pubs.

And having too much to drink cause they'd been out on the Christmas,

do all afternoon and often, it would result in trouble later on

in the evenings for some people.

Um, I'm sure.

Think times have moved on a little bit now with a Christmas do.

Um, but that's certainly how it was back in the late nineties.

We'd also wonder, you know, what's the, what's the boss going to put

some money behind the bar this year?

Was it going to be a free bar?

We were going to get some free drinks.

Again, this is very typical night in nineties office environment.

At least my experience of it, that it was kind of work hard, party hard.

So we'd be wondering about, are we going to get some free booze this year?

There would always be at least one member of the team, one member of staff that

would choose the day of the Christmas due to have a rant at the boss after

half, perhaps having one too many drinks.

And then often regret that afterwards and be thinking of.

Crikey.

What's the boss going to say to me in the new year, when I get back to work.

And then often the end of the night.

One or two of us would end up in, um, one of the usual fast food establishments.

Having only had like the one meal during that day, maybe the Christmas lunch

mid-afternoon and then not getting under the meal and then finding ourselves

in the golden arches at midnight.

Um, after that Christmas lunch, many hours earlier.

And you're the big part of it then was, was the post-Christmas do

hang over the next day because in those days, It was essentially a

big, it was a big social gathering, but it was a big drinking event.

As I say, this is going back to the late nineties and early

noughties when, um, I think that's what a lot of people used to do.

I'm sure some people still do, but, um, uh, certainly from my point of

view, it's not like that these days.

There's a few specific memories I have as well.

There was the year when the practice that I worked at.

They went.

Off paced, shall we say with the choice of restaurant for the Christmas meal now?

We usually went somewhere where there was always a traditional

Christmas roast on the menu.

You can get your roast Turkey dinner if that's what you wanted.

And then there'd be a field of things to choose from.

But this particular year, the practice had recently done some

work for a local pizzeria, and we ended up going there from Miele.

And to everybody's shock when we got there, the closest thing that

they had on the menu, the closest thing to a traditional Christmas

meal was a Christmas themed pizza.

And yes, you've guessed it.

It was basically a margarita with some thin slice Turkey stuck on the top.

So, you know, maybe that would have been okay.

You know, at the end of the night, The takeaway joy, but for our main

Christmas meal, Yeah, it was very content controversial that year.

There was another year that I recall, again, this was in my early career.

When I wasn't particularly earning a lot of money.

I was like a trainee architectural technician at the time.

And this was the year that I got a cash Christmas bonus.

And this was like, Totally amazing for me.

I was probably only earning around 50 or 60 pounds a week at the time.

And when it came to Christmas, just before we went out for our

Christmas meal, the boss came round with a little brown envelope.

And he gave me a little cash bonus and I think it was probably about 50 quid.

So it wasn't a lot of money, but for me at the time, it was like a week's wages.

It meant so much to me.

And it meant that, I felt like I was valued.

And I can still remember it now.

And this is going back I over 20 years and I can still remember

that particular Christmas.

And I just think, you know, I think that was probably the only

year that that ever happened.

And I think how, how much Goodwill that would create with the team and the staff.

If that happened a little bit more often, even if it was just a small amount of

money, even just 50 quid now, and a few.

You know, your staff member to go out and, you know, take the partner out

for a nice meal, something like that.

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Now, back to the show.

One of my earliest office, Christmas memories now.

Um, and I'm actually a little bit embarrassed to share this, but you know,

we're, we're friends here on the podcast, so I'm going to share it with you.

It was, I think it was probably the very first Christmas due that I had with work.

And I started at this practice when I was 16, straight out of school.

So I was really young.

I was under the drinking age.

So, um, we went out on this Christmas meal.

And I think I drank wine for the first time in the daytime,

the daytime Christmas meal.

And then we went on to drink several pints of beer afterwards, and I

was trying to keep up with the.

The older people in the team.

And I, and shamefully, I can say that on the way home, I was sat on

the top deck of a double Decker bus.

I was sick on the bus.

It's not my finest moment.

I can still remember the look of horror on the face of, um, a nearby passenger.

There was a girl who has sat a few seats along from me.

She saw what happened.

She ran away from me down the aisle of that bus.

Like her life depended on it.

I've never seen somebody run so fast.

And when I got home, I remember.

Quickly saying hello to my mum and my dad.

And then I was like, oh, I'm just so tired.

It's been a busy day.

I'm going to go straight to bed.

But really it was because I was pretty plastered and I didn't want them to know

that I'd been out drinking because they really, I would have been in the doghouse.

So that's some of the fond memories, I guess, looking back at it, that,

that particular one wasn't so full at the time, but, but that's

kind of my memories of those.

Um, Wilder days of the Christmas parties from the sort of late

nineties and early two thousands.

Actually, there is one of the memory that I should share.

I did used to work in an office that a big office building that was shared

with a local planning authority.

The planners.

You know, The quiet ones.

You got to watch out for them.

They used to have some absolutely wild Christmas parties.

I went to one or two of their Christmas parties around the turn of the millennium.

Those guys are absolutely nuts.

So what's happening now.

Let's let's bring ourselves back to 2020 free.

I would ask how, how are you celebrating Christmas this year?

Because the lead up to Christmas.

It can feel lonely, particularly if you're a sole practitioner.

And it's something that it's one of those things until you make that leap and you

actually become a sole practitioner, you start working on your own.

You don't realize.

Um, how much are those social gatherings mean to you over the course of the year?

And in particular for me, the, the Christmas party was something

that I really used to enjoy.

And I didn't realize how much I'd miss it until I didn't have it.

So.

What can you do?

If you want to kind of celebrate the festive season as a sole practitioner.

Coupla things I usually try and do, I usually try and arrange to go out for a

nice Christmas lunch with my, my wife.

We usually go somewhere nice that we wouldn't normally go with on kids.

And I try and arrange this and book this in, and it's just a little

bit of an extra treat for us.

Um, we, you know, we don't go out and eat out that often these days.

So it's really nice.

Put it through the business.

We go out for a nice meal.

That's that's one thing that you can do.

The other thing that I try and do and, and encourage you to do

also is I always try and book a Christmas catch-up with at least one.

Architecture business buddy.

So I have some friends in the industry that are also in the same

position as me running their own.

Uh, small architecture practice or working as sole practitioners.

We'll try and meet out.

pre-Christmas.

We'll try and go out for maybe a meal or a drink or two and just.

I have a catch up and talk shop for a few hours and have a few drinks.

Occasionally I've been invited to join or the practices for that office Christmas

meal, which is always greatly appreciated.

Hint hint for next year, everybody.

Likewise, if you have a, a close working relationship, maybe you're doing some

contract work or, or you, you know, work closely with another practice, then

maybe you can tag along or maybe even ask them, say, look, I have happy to

pay for my own meal, but it would be great to just join you guys rather than

sitting on my own in my home office.

Do the thing I'm doing is I'm taking two weeks off.

I didn't always do this, but.

The last year or two, it has to be really important to take

some time off with family.

I usually spend the Christmas periods, at home generally now with, with my family.

And this year out of my parents coming to visit from lung Kisha.

So that's going to be nice to catch up with them.

And it it's a good time to reflect on what's gone well this year.

And what could go better this, uh, well, what could go better in the coming year?

So, what are you hoping for, for the future?

So let's fast forward to.

2024.

Let's go one year ahead.

In the future, how would you like life to be.

Next year.

Well, for me, One of the things that I'd love to be able to do is to take my

family away on a winter break next year.

In order to do that, I need to have a prosperous 20, 24 so

that I can make that happen.

I want to have 50 plus episodes of the podcast.

Um, recorded and released by this time next year, we're aiming for at

least one episode a week consistently.

I'm determined that I'm not going to fall off the wagon.

I'm enjoying doing this.

I hope you guys are enjoying listening to it too.

So I want to make sure that there's plenty of content for you.

Over the coming year.

And I want more people to discover the show so that I can help more.

So practitioners and small practice owners enjoy what they do more and feel like

they're supported and that you're not alone on this journey, whatever stage that

you're at in the growth of your practice.

I think as well on that.

That.

I'd like next year to find a walk, to get more feedback from you as

the listeners to find out if there's other ways that I can help you.

Ideally, it would be great to be able to build.

Build a community rarely, um, of like-minded architecture professionals.

That uh, looking for maybe a little bit more support and

cheerleading in what they do.

That will be a really great thing to come off the back of the show.

So I hope that's something that we can try and craft it together next year.

So with that in mind next week, I'm going to be focusing on 2024.

And I'm just going to share a few thoughts on how you can set up your year for

success and also tease what's coming up on upcoming episodes of the show in 2024.

So until then have an amazing Christmas.

And I'll catch it with you saying bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.

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Remember running your architecture business doesn't have to be hard.

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This is Architecture Business Club.