I was speaking to my mother on the phone one Saturday morning, she rung to inform me of a friend that had died. In our conversation I mentioned that we were organising our website and how I needed to stipulate to people that ring and ask either to find lost property or people that they will be charged accordingly, as I am tired of our business being a free service when people have lost something.

Carrying on form that conversation, I mentioned how I had found some keys to a campervan, that the owner had lost and she paid me with feijoas for my services. Anyway to cut a long story short, Mum and I laughed and carried on talking. Within 5 minutes of hanging up from her, I received a phone call from a lady in Hamilton (it was the daughter of that same lady that I had found the keys to the campervan for). She proceeded to ask if I could help her find an expensive top that she had lost and to end the conversation she said she would send down some avocados as payment!

I didn’t know whether to choke or laugh, who would read about it? Then I shared with my husband, what if he took his Ute to be fixed to her husband (that I believe is an engineer and might I add very wealthy) and paid him for his services with a bag of lemons, do you think he would see the funny side?

So the moral of the story is please don’t ring in the weekend or after hours unless you are dying, and please don’t expect to have a free service – feijoas and avocados don’t pay the accountants bill or GST. We don’t live in a cave and do not barter for our services, you will be charged for our time, whether you get a result or not, the costing will depend on who or what is involved and how long it takes.

Hope you all understand in this day and age, everybody has to pay their way including ourselves!