I thought I would write about how we, at my consulting practice, work. We have a fairly unique working system – perhaps the only one of its kind in South Africa. Read on.

But, first, what we do. We are consulting engineers – specifically, consulting acoustics and electrical engineers. But this is not that important; what I want to describe is our working systems. We work in offices in a residential suburb (not a house, in offices built on a residential property). We employ five people. The offices have a garden and my dogs (and cats from the suburbs around, birds, squirrels and a few chameleons) roam the garden and in and out of the offices as appropriate.

In the office, there is no dress code at all. Barefoot is fine. If we see clients, it is different – smart casual. Naturally, we all are on first-name terms but each employee gets a nickname on arrival. We have Surfer Girl, Turkish, Handsome Gregg, Captain Midnight and Uncle Sam (me). We use these names when we banter among ourselves.

We have a planning meeting every Monday. It is not vicious, but it is not polite. If the promises of the previous meeting are not kept, the employee is asked: “Why not?” Hitting targets and deadlines is everything.

We have superfast calculation computers and servers, and one of the staff makes sure they run all the time. We do not rely on external computer people and I do not accept that emails crash . . . ever. Nobody is allowed to use a password to log into their computer – it is open to all. Many of our documents do have a password but we all use the same one – no personal passwords allowed.

All our work is in the form of drawings and reports. We use the US Petrochemical Short Report Form for all reports. Simple and easy. All information about a project – letters, drawings, reports, et cetera – is kept in a project folder on the project drive. The project folder has a number and the project description. We try to make the project description as informative as possible; for example, Eskom Installation of New Pump Station near Strand Phase 2. I discourage project titles which are, say, Eskom 1 and Eskom 2.

In communication, we are fanatical about answering the phone and returning calls, 24 hours a day. Even if it is to say, sorry, we have done nothing. We do sometimes get behind. If so, I call and say, hey, I am sorry, and follow up with an email.

Sometimes, somebody messes up. We have had, in no particular order, the following incidents: a staff member left a notebook on top of the parking machine at the airport and never saw it again; on the way to Zambia, a staff member discovered that his passport had expired; two staff members got incredibly drunk at a hotel and notched up an R855 bar bill; a seismograph was forgotten in an airport departure lounge (it was recovered); a perfectly completed report was sent, in time, to the wrong client . . . and so on.

I encourage staff to accept that mistakes happen. I also encourage them to tease one another about mistakes. The ‘two drunk staff’ incident was eight years ago. If one of those staff members goes to site, somebody will warn him not to drink too much – “not like last time”.

We do not have a receptionist – the nearest person answers the call. We do not have petty cash or a stationary cupboard – buy what you need and claim it back, on the same day, if need be.

Oh, working hours: from 09:30 to 15:30 – or longer if you have to finish a project. No formal lunch. No “just going to the bank” or “just slipping out to the shops” or to the hairdresser or the garage to collect the car. Do it before 09:30 or after 15:30. Hours are rigid. If you are late for work, an explanation is required – and it better be good. If consistently late, warnings and dismissal.

This is how we work. Nearly zero staff turnover. Do we make money? Enough to pay salaries. Not getting rich. But content and happy at work.