I was disgusted to hear that several business units at Dundee Technology Park had been ransacked by thieves this week.
Ask any small business owner and you’ll be left in no doubt that running an SME is no bagatelle.
For many it is a sweat from the brow, nose to the grindstone type existence where the smallest of problems can balloon to a livelihood-threatening issue.
When the problems faced are not of their own making, it is all the more bitter a pill to swallow.
Discovery House at the Technology Park is home to a number of small companies doing their level best to create jobs and wealth.
That several of their business units were ransacked in a mindless act of destruction over the night of January 9 is genuinely sickening.
I hope the setback dealt to the companies for the sake of a few pounds from the petty cash tin is just that a setback rather than a fatal blow.
The pressure of crime is a constant concern for all businesses.
Crime in the retail sector alone in the UK is measured in the hundreds of millions of pounds per year, and insurance premiums are just another bill to be paid at the end of each month.
Hopefully the police will swiftly catch up with the criminals who targeted Discovery House and quickly bring them to justice.
For the sake of all Scottish businesses, I sincerely hope the full weight of the law is brought to bear over this destructive episode, and in the case of scores of other similar incidents which occur ever year.
A proper deterrent against such disruptive, economically damaging and upsetting behaviour is required.
Rather than a slap on the wrist order that allows criminal elements to be back on the street by lunchtime to continue their dishonest lives, perhaps the answer lies in tougher custodial sentences being routinely handed down by the courts.
A significant period of time to contemplate the inside of a jail cell may just be enough to ensure that crime of this nature does not pay.
* Fracking, the controversial method of underground shale gas recovery, has Prime Minister David Cameron as smitten as a pair of teenage lovebirds.
The PM has seen what has happened with the opening up of the shale gas market in the US increased energy security and potentially vote-winning lower domestic gas prices and understandably wants a slice of the action here in the UK.
Mr Cameron knows shale is a difficult sell, so has moved to grease the wheels by allowing English local authorities to keep all of the business rates collected from approved schemes.
French energy company Total has also pledged investment in the UK sector.
But the reality is that accessing the UK’s shale gas deposits and we don’t yet know how sizeable those reserves actually are is a technically more difficult proposition on this side of the pond and remains hugely controversial among green campaigners.
With Tayside, Fife and the wider Central Belt believed to harbour significant shale gas deposits, developments south of the border will be watched closely here.
There are interesting times ahead.