This week, some entrepreneurs I know had their office broken into. Their business is on the fourth floor of a serviced office, but the thieves somehow managed to get in and waltz off with very single bit of portable electronic kit they could lay their hands on, including about 10 laptops. Apparently the police said there had been a rash of similar burglaries in that part of town: the burglars would get in past reception when people are still coming and going, then hang around until the coast is clear before bashing the door open and taking their pick. Fortunately everything was insured, but it’s going to cause huge amounts of disruption.

I find this kind of thing very disconcerting. For weeks afterwards, I’m always completely hypersensitive about the prospect of the same thing happening to us, and contemplate installing all kinds of whizzy security systems (alarms, keycode pads, iris scanners) to protect against it – before remembering how much this stuff costs and deciding against it. Rationally, I know that’s not the way to look at it – even if you end up losing a day because of something like this, the opportunity cost to your business is huge. But hey, there’s a credit crunch on.

It also brings back horrible memories of our first office, in a converted warehouse on an industrial site (it was a lot cheaper, but we ended up spending a small fortune on travel). We moved our stuff in on a Sunday, and due to some mix-up with the insurance people our cover didn’t actually start until the Monday. I was so terrified that some ruffians were going to break in and steal everything we owned (basically about five ancient desktops and a kettle that didn’t work properly) that I ended up sleeping on a roll mat in the middle of the office floor with all the lights on, to deter any passing thieves. Every time I heard a footstep I thought I was going to die.

I was telling another of my friends about this break-in that night, and he decided (not very diplomatically) to put forward the argument that entrepreneurs and burglars are actually two sides of the same coin. ‘Think about it,’ he said (which is never a good start). ‘Being a thief is a mixture of opportunism and preparation. You put yourself in the right place at the right time, and then you decide whether or not it’s worth the risk. Just the same as you, basically.’ I wasn’t really in the mood to argue the toss, but thinking about it afterwards I actually got quite irate about this idea. Entrepreneurs and burglars are actually the opposite of each other – I slog my guts out creating something from nothing, and they just come along and take the fruits of other people’s hard work. It makes me sick. I tell you what: if I ever catch a thief in my office, he’d better watch out.

Speaking of being robbed, I’m afraid to report that I narrowly lost my sales challenge against Mammon, my top salesman. I was a bit annoyed about it actually – we were neck and neck at six meetings apiece going into the last day, and then one of mine decided to cancel. Under the rules we’d agreed at the start, that meant I couldn’t count it towards my total, so I lost six-five. But to be honest, it’s probably no bad thing: I don’t want to disrupt his world-view to such an extent that he throws in the towel and joins a charity or something. Plus it’s still eleven potential clients that we didn’t have before. And equally, I spent less time on it than he did – so pound-for-pound, I reckon that still makes me the best salesperson in the company...