Did George Osborne check the weather forecast before Budget day? If not, he should have done.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a proper study of the relationship between the weather and GDP? (Google failed to enlighten me either way.) I ask because I was working from home on Tuesday, so I watched the Budget in my front room, with glorious sunshine pouring in through the windows. As a result, even as George stood there telling us how badly we were screwed, and just how much it would hurt to sort things out, I found it quite hard to be gloomy. Is it just me, or is nothing quite so bad when the sun's out?

Now admittedly I had more to celebrate than most after the Budget (lower corporation tax, wahey! higher entrepreneurs relief, wahey!). Generally speaking, there wasn't much good news in there for the general populace, what with all those nasty tax hikes and benefit cuts. But I reckon they were right to do it now, because bad news is a lot more digestible in the middle of summer, particularly when there’s football on.

Certainly none of my lot seemed particularly bothered about it the next day – they were far more worried about the England match (must remember for the future that this is a great time to bury bad news, if that’s not too Jo Moore). And I can’t imagine any of the boys in the pub on Wednesday afternoon would have even noticed the difference if their cost of their pint had gone up by 2.5%. Admittedly the outlook’s not so good if you work in the public sector (though I didn’t have much sympathy for those people moaning at Cameron and Clegg on the BBC about their two-year pay freeze – welcome to the real world, folks). But generally, I bet most people in the private sector didn’t lose much sleep over it. And the weather’s got to help.

As I said the other week, I like it when England do well in the World Cup (boring though the whole thing is), because the national mood improves a bit, and that usually means people spend more money. Well, I think that’s even truer of blistering hot summers. I suppose you could argue that when the weather's nice, people are more inclined to stock up at the supermarket and go for picnics, rather than standing around buying food and drink in over-priced bars. But they're also less likely to stay in their house counting pennies, even in the new age of austerity.

In other words, my theory (although obviously I have no actual evidence for this) is that good weather provides a healthy boost for GDP. Which quite possibly means that the success or failure of the Government's entire economic policy - and thus of the coalition as a whole, i.e. the entire political landscape - depends to some extent on how much sunshine we get this year. Don’t know about you, but I find that a bit disconcerting.

Of course the trouble is, the really bad news won't come until September, when they announce the results of the spending review and come clean on which public services they're going to chop. And by that time, the summer will be almost over, the nights will be lengthening, and people will generally be a lot grumpier. If George thinks he’s getting some stick now, it’ll be a lot worse then.

I hate it when one of my team reacts in a completely unexpected way...

If asked to nominate my favourite clichés, there's no question that 'leopards don't change their spots' would be right up there near the top of the list. Generally speaking, my theory is that most people have some character traits that are far too ingrained to respond to any amount of training, coaching, mentoring or coaxing. And since management is a lot to do with character, I tend to think that if someone is naturally a rubbish manager, they're probably never going to be a great one. You can get them to passable, or maybe even good, but that's as far as it goes.

I mention this because I've just had my chat with Ace (my sales guy) about that direct report of his - the one who told me the other day (quite presumptuously, I thought) that their relationship had deteriorated to such an extent that she could no longer work with him.

Now here's I expected this conversation to go. I say: 'So Ace, how about this situation with Miss X?' And he says: 'I know, isn't it ridiculous... I have to say, SD, I've warned you several times about X – she’s taking up a disproportionate amount of my management (for which read: sales) time, and she's not even that good anyway – I think it's time we got rid.' And I say: 'Look, Ace, you have to learn to adapt your management style and do a better job of resolving this kind of conflict etc etc etc.' And we go on like this for a while without really getting anywhere.

But here’s what actually happened. When I asked the question, he said: ‘I know, SD, and to be honest I'm very embarrassed about it. She's my report; I should be able to manage the situation without her running to you. If it's ok with you, I'm going to have a chat with her, apologise for having a go the other day, and suggest that we forget what's happened lately and start over, on a clean page.’

I've got to tell you, I was literally dumbstruck (I suspect my jaw was probably hanging open like one of those hillbillies in Deliverance). You know when you gear yourself up for one kind of conversation, and end up having a totally different one? That was me. The thing is, I can’t tell you how out of character this is for Ace. He has many strengths, bless him, but humility and compromise have never, in my experience, been among them. Could it be that my years of cajoling have finally turned him into a different kind of manager?

Obviously I’d like to think so, in some ways – although it would also freak me out, because it suggests that I didn’t understand him quite as well as I thought I did. But I did come up with an alternative theory: that his failure to deal with this girl (and her decision to run to me) have been a bit of a blow to his precious ego, so he needs to sort it out to restore his sense of self. Equally, there’s always the theory suggested by Andrea on my blog last week: that he’s just managing upwards, and telling me what he thinks I want to hear in order to make himself look better.

Still, to use one of my other favourite clichés, I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating: time (and this girl) will tell whether he’s really changed his spots.

 A junior employee tells me she can't work with her manager. What does she expect me to do?

I had an remarkable meeting with one of my junior staff this week. Catching me at an unguarded moment, she dragged me into a meeting room, and proceeded to announce that she could no longer work with her manager - who happens to be Ace, my senior sales guy.

I have to say I was a bit taken aback. Not to discover that there was a problem - he spends enough time moaning about her attitude to make that abundantly clear. More that she would have the cheek to drag the boss to one side and start issuing ultimatums. I mean, what does she expect me to do? Take her side over his, and start drafting his P45?

I do have some sympathy for her. It's that age-old problem with him: all the things that make him a great salesman (drive, single-mindedness, thickness of skin etc) are not terribly conducive to being a good, emotionally intelligent manager. I know perfectly well that he can rub people up the wrong way sometimes, because he's done it to me. So I can well believe that this is partly his fault (and it'll certainly be added to the 'constructive feedback' column for his next review - always a good way of keeping his ego in check).

On the other hand, he's also about three million times more important to the business than some wet-behind-the-ears junior marketer. So in the grand scheme of things, you can probably guess whose side I'm going to take.

What's more, it annoys me when people are so aggressive about stuff like this; it's like they think the principal purpose of this place is to make them feel good about themselves. And I'm convinced it's a sign of the times. I wouldn't have dreamed of complaining about my boss when I was doing my first job. I suppose it might have been different if he'd come on to me or something. But if I just didn't like him much, or if I thought he didn't like me, I'd have just bitten my lip and got on with it - perhaps tried to reach some kind of accommodation. I wouldn't have demanded an entire organisational restructure.

I blame this whole Gen Y thing. Businesses are always being told these days that they have to adapt to the increasingly stringent demands of Gen Y types. But why shouldn't it be the other way round? After all, there are more of us. Some of these people need to realise that you can't always have things exactly the way you want them in life; the world doesn't exist to serve your whims, whatever the internet has led you to believe. Sometimes you just have to suck it up, and adapt to your new surroundings. I've hired some graduates in the last couple of years who've had this real sense of entitlement about working life, and it drives me up the wall.

So what I really wanted to say to her was what my grandad would have said: belt up, you silly mare. Obviously I didn't quite do that - but I did point out to her gently that it didn't say much for her influencing and conflict management skills if she had to come running to me to sort the problem out. After all, I don't need them to be friends; I don't need them to be going out for drinks together and exchanging sparkling banter (he did that with this girl's predecessor, and that all turned out to be pretty awkward). I just need them to work together, and be civil to each other. How hard can that be?

Football's rubbish. But I figure that England doing well could be good for my bank balance.

I can't tell you how much I hate football. It's not just that it's boring in itself - watching 22 pampered millionaires kick a stupid ball around a field for a whole hour and half. It's the effect it has on other people - particularly men - who can apparently talk for hours about its most tedious intricacies without getting bored, while getting incredibly over-excited over results that, in the grand scheme of things, really don't matter at all. So ordinarily, the prospect of a World Cup - which gives men an excuse to spend three solid weeks watching and talking about football - would fill me with horror and dread.

Not this time though. The way I see it, football has two big advantages. One, it gives men something to talk about on otherwise-awkward social situations (albeit it stops them recognising the inadequacies of their small talk). But more significant, at least as far as the World Cup is concerned, is that during those brief periods when England are doing well in a big football tournament, the country as a whole definitely becomes a happier place. People spend more money on food and drink and barbecues and replica sportswear and car flags, and - particularly if the sun's shining - go to work feeling more optimistic about life, business and the universe generally.

So while the World Cup has some obvious disadvantages for business owners like me - people tend to be more distracted, and even sometimes try to talk to me about football, which is a major no-no in my book - it can also have a big upside. Happier people tend to spend more money and commission more work. And as far as I can tell – sad though this may be - there's nothing like a big football tournament for raising the country's overall happiness levels. Which, let's face it, is something we really need at the moment.

Incidentally, a few entrepreneurs I know have been wringing their hands about what to do when that England game is on in the afternoon. Personally, I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. I don't see the point in forcing people to work through it, since they won't get much done and they'll only hold it against you. And it's only a couple of hours out of the day. So I'm just going to let anyone who wants to watch it head down to the nearest watering hole - on the proviso that they make up the extra hours at some other point in the week. In fact, I might even go myself - buy them all a drink and cheer on 'our boys'. After all, the better England do, the better I'll do. Come on Rooney, break a leg! (or whatever you’re supposed to say.)