Ten Years

Aren't I all Mz Thang, with my pen set on my desk, commemorating 10 years of service? The CEO gave a bunch of these out at this week's Monday Morning Meeting (something the ESOP Communications Group started, by the way - the meeting, I mean). I think it's kind of weird he had the trophy company put our old company name on them instead of our new company name, which is over a year old now. :::he can't quite let go:::

It's a nice gesture. I didn't even know he was still giving these things out, to tell you the truth. And not to be too practical about it, but I'm really a gel pen kind of gal. I tried jamming my favorite gel pen du jour in one of those holders. Not gonna work. :-)

I've kind of had the work week from hell this week. The twice/year auditor has been here this week so that's about 2-3 days of extra work for me, proving all her tests. I have sales tax returns for 5 states due tomorrow; I've done one. I usually do these a week in advance. I'm not even remotely caught up from being sick for 3 weeks in December.

And just to keep things interesting, my Accounts Receivable counterpart took today and tomorrow off. She does all of our daily processing (invoicing and cash receipts entry are the highest priority) so I'll try to get all that done, but there are only so many hours in the day. What gets done, gets done. And she learned this week she's going to be having a third surgery on her eyes sometime in February. Since she's already had two surgeries (2004?), I didn't feel the least bit guilty about her covering for me when I had my gall bladder removed. Not that I should feel guilty anyway, I'm just saying. We cover for each other.

And I decided today that when she learns the date of her surgery, I'm going to take the previous Friday off to make a long weekend - and paint the family room. I'm thinking something in the burgundy family. I hope to get to Home Depot this weekend to scope out the paint colors.

The good news is - in an unprecedented move, the auditor is leaving a day early! That's mostly because she's having trouble receiving some files from her company via email. I offered her the services of our technicians but she said it's on her company's end so she'll email me the last testing exercise from her office. The other good news is my boss asked me today if there's anything he can do to help me. Guess my frazzledness was showing! That's another unprecedented move - though it should be unprecedented. I'm there to help him, not vice versa! I spent the last hour of the day organizing my paperwork which made me feel tons better. I made big piles into more specific piles.

So tomorrow I'll get to work at the crack o' dawn again, get the sales tax returns filed, do as much as I can, delegate where possible and feel good about things again. That will make going to work Monday a whole lot better. Next week I'll have to work on preparing our 1099s for some of our vendors. Last year was my first time doing that and I found it highly frustrating until I went to Staples and bought $25 software that included forms. So this year should be a breeze because I've been through it once and a lot of the names are already in this software. The hardest part is we don't have a clear way of keeping track who should get a 1099. I'm working on fixing that next. In my spare time.

Today I received my first paycheck in a month - damn, that feels good! I know my disability paperwork has been submitted so hopefully I'll get a check to cover the missing 2 weeks. I received my W2 today too but I'm still waiting on other paperwork. My goal is always to file my tax return in February - think I've been successful once. I'm never one to wait until the last minute though so it usually ends up being March. I don't even like to file in April. I'm like that.

Simon received his A&F W2 today too. He's getting antsy, wondering when he'll get one from the pizza place. I explained they have another 10 days and if it doesn't come, I'll go deal with them. "Cool! Mom's gonna have a throw-down with ____!"