ONE of my sisters used to be a teacher; an honourable profession for which she underwent a thorough training, was tested in exams and given on-the-job experience before being let loose within the well-ordered structure that is a school.

It’s not an easy job and one that I would avoid like all the plagues the world has ever known.

However, what she was trained for is what she did and, apart from the odd missile aimed at her or the introduction of a new swear word, there were few surprises and things she couldn’t cope with.

There are many structured walks of life down which one might stroll. You want to be an accountant? Sure, get a training and go and do what you’ve been taught. Personnel manager? Much the same process. Even if you wish to be a restaurant manager or chef there are courses that will teach you all you need to know to get by.

But giving up the structured life of an engineer and going self employed the way I did and then, for some reason, becoming a restaurateur, was a step into the unknown. Before I opened my first place back in ‘97, I got myself a bit of an apprenticeship by offering my services for free to a number of restaurateurs around the UK who all thought I was mad. But it taught me a lot in a short time about running a restaurant.

What it didn’t teach me was all that’s necessary before the restaurant actually opens to the public; the finding of the premises, designing and building and decorating and so on.

But I’ve done it five times so far and so should be getting to be a bit of an expert at knowing what to do with all the consultants, contractors and public bodies and guessing what happens next.

Therefore if, as has been reported in the press, the new owners of the building from which we operate our restaurant in Durham really do wish to knock it down and build bedrooms for students, we might have to go through the whole process again – that’s as long as our new landlords pay for it. Oh, and we can find some new premises.

Then we’ll be doing our sixth restaurant. And we’ll be dealing with builders again. Now, nowhere in the “Learn Yourself Restauranting” book is there a chapter on how to manage the chaps that rip the place apart before, hopefully, putting it back together again. For instance, how can there be a 100% difference between two different quotes based on one set of instructions from us? Let’s think about the possibilities here. Maybe I’m not very good at making myself understood. Or perhaps someone’s trying to take us for a ride. Or, more likely hopefully, there are very different ways of doing things that result in such different costs.

But it doesn’t help with the decision making and it makes you agonise. Does the cheaper guy really know what he’s doing or will it be like a house built on sand? Are we being ripped off by the expensive one or does he know something the rest of us don’t? Do we plumb for one in the middle or is that just a cop out?

And do we really know how to negotiate with a large corporate developer company that’s announced it’s demolishing our building, even though we know we have a legally protected lease for at least eight years?

All the hospitality training in the world doesn’t prepare you for this. When you go self employed you find you have to become jack of all trades and master of none. Well I’ve succeeded in the latter. Now who’s going to train me in the former? I’m going to need it if our new landlords decide to buy us out of our lease.