Attack of the space terrapin
Mar. 15th, 2011 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyYesterday was a public holiday, so we could commemorate the eight-hour work day by not working any hours at all. I ordered some garlic bulbs to plant in the vegetable garden and went for a walk. So thank you, hard-working Olde Tyme folk. Your idea of limited hours of employment was a top one, as was your subsequent idea of having a day off to celebrate it.
Today is the birthday of a girl I knew in primary school. My brain apparently feels this is a necessary thing for me to remember. Think of all the things I could achieve if my brain let go of that in favour of something useful.
At work I am doing things to wind up our old company. Right now, I am doing the payment summaries (annual tax statements) for the employees. They're not due until the end of June, but I have to lodge them now so we can cancel all our registrations. It is normally maybe half a day's work: running reports, checking that they agree with each other, printing the payment summaries and posting them out. Last week when I sat down to do it, I discovered that having a short year (we were employed by the old company for only four months) really confuses the payroll software. I mean, really confuses it. Long story short, I am doing the payment summaries by hand. Kicking it, as they say, old school.
I like a form as much as the next person. Possibly more. My idea of a good time is writing clearly and neatly in little boxes. I have to admit, though, that doing forty-seven forms, drawing information for each from three different reports, is clearly demonstrating the economic law of diminishing marginal utility. I started by filling in the company details on each form, the same details over and over again, and after a while my pen got sick of writing that. All by itself it started changing the year, or making the company pty ltd instead of just ltd, or spelling 'triangle' without the 'l', just to keep me on my toes. I'll be doing some extra-careful proof-reading tomorrow, I think.
When I was a fresh-faced young graduate accountant, the partners in the accounting firm would tell us about the old days, back when doing a spreadsheet involved a pencil, an eraser and a thirty-column pad, none of this Excel business, you youngsters don't know how lucky you are, etc, etc. So true.
The last inspirational note I received from the Universe:
Wisdom arrives in silence, Alicia.
Shhhhhhh,
The Universe
I am starting to resent the Universe.
Today is the birthday of a girl I knew in primary school. My brain apparently feels this is a necessary thing for me to remember. Think of all the things I could achieve if my brain let go of that in favour of something useful.
At work I am doing things to wind up our old company. Right now, I am doing the payment summaries (annual tax statements) for the employees. They're not due until the end of June, but I have to lodge them now so we can cancel all our registrations. It is normally maybe half a day's work: running reports, checking that they agree with each other, printing the payment summaries and posting them out. Last week when I sat down to do it, I discovered that having a short year (we were employed by the old company for only four months) really confuses the payroll software. I mean, really confuses it. Long story short, I am doing the payment summaries by hand. Kicking it, as they say, old school.
I like a form as much as the next person. Possibly more. My idea of a good time is writing clearly and neatly in little boxes. I have to admit, though, that doing forty-seven forms, drawing information for each from three different reports, is clearly demonstrating the economic law of diminishing marginal utility. I started by filling in the company details on each form, the same details over and over again, and after a while my pen got sick of writing that. All by itself it started changing the year, or making the company pty ltd instead of just ltd, or spelling 'triangle' without the 'l', just to keep me on my toes. I'll be doing some extra-careful proof-reading tomorrow, I think.
When I was a fresh-faced young graduate accountant, the partners in the accounting firm would tell us about the old days, back when doing a spreadsheet involved a pencil, an eraser and a thirty-column pad, none of this Excel business, you youngsters don't know how lucky you are, etc, etc. So true.
The last inspirational note I received from the Universe:
Wisdom arrives in silence, Alicia.
Shhhhhhh,
The Universe
I am starting to resent the Universe.