Dealing with Missed Opportunities / Having a Better Attitude When Goals are Not Met

There’s no amount of “told you so” or “Hurry UP” or “we are running out of time” statements that one can make during the quarter end crunch. Everyone is so busy. More things have been piled on people everywhere and most departments are short staffed. I’m the last guy on the totem pole of what gets done to get the data and information so I can finish doing the payroll tax withholding and unemployment returns. Adjustments were just made as late as yesterday and so all the reports I ran early in the month were wrong. I received the new information Monday but by then I’m in to the payroll scene for this week. As is all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday, half of Thurs and half of Friday. I have a bit of time Thursday afternoon to do –I think I counted yesterday–33 returns that are left and/or taxes to pay for various states – either withholding or unemployment returns – that does not include our weekly tax payments I have to do this week. I STILL do not have information to do half of those returns mentioned.

I could see this coming over the last two weeks since I sat idle for two weeks as far as working on quarter end since I had to wait for the information. There was a lot of things that had to be corrected because of some changes that occurred and no one really had time to fix it. That is this quarter’s situation anyway. It happens every quarter for some reason but I think this quarter I’ve received the info later than I have before, and there were extra issues, and the people that work on these things (the accountants) were already extra busy with extra work. All I know is it is a guarantee not to be finished. We have lost our opportunity of time and the boat has left the dock. :-O

In the past I have been able to pull rabbits out of a hat, wave a magic wand, pray, beg, fuss, work around the clock, work on the weekends, come in early, leave late, work from home, and pull it off. But I had more time to do it in. I can’t do that this time as I have other family responsibilities, and quite frankly shouldn’t have to do all that anyway. So we are left with about a 4 hour window Thursday afternoon. Mom’s hair cut is tonight at 6 so I have to leave at 4 go to Lebanon which I’ll arrive just before 5 and then back to Mount Juliet to get hair cut, eat and get her back home and hit the bed.

I might be able to work some over Thurs evening but it won’t be long. It’s my night to cook and do dog duty and George’s turn to work a bit over. We take turns so someone can get to this high energy dog who already stays cooped up far too long.

Friday is Mom’s eye injection so I have to leave at half day. I’m not cancelling it as she has to have this injection to save her only good eye. Her health is not going to suffer or decay because of our ineffieciencies at work. (Tribe has spoken, lol).

I already struggle with sleep and finding time for self, and I already go in early on Tuesday’s to cover the Friday days of half day. Matter of fact usually on Tuesday’s it’s more than an hour I’m making up but more like two. I already work a full schedule and we know this so it should come to no surprise that I’ve not been set up for success here with this scenario.

I just don’t have any magic hats, magic wands, rabbits to pull out, and I am not Moses. I can’t part waters and I don’t have a speed boat to catch up to the cruise boat. And I’m not missing sleep and going to go in at the crack of dawn every day. I already do that one day out of the week and it wears me out. I’m not a young chicken anymore. I’m not shortening my sleep or cutting out my normal morning routine to create more stress in mine and my families life because we (undefined and so as to not seem mean, I will erroneously include myself, lol) can’t get the act together on a decent timeline basis.

So bottom line, it is what it is. And the good thing is that I have not let myself stress over it like I have in the past. But it doesn’t mean I can’t do a blog post over it. Because it does still bother me. What kind of person would I be if it didn’t bother me to not meet a deadline. I’m quite the opposite of that. I do things extra early.

I mean why stress? It’s going to be what it is going to be. You can’t concoct extra hours out of a test tube, so all one can do is go with the flow. That means everyone. Not only me but those around me have to accept the line up on the table whether we like it or not. Having like 4 hours to do 33 returns is unrealistic and there is no other way to look at it. So….there ya have it. There’s not even any time to adjust the sails or react. It just simply is what it is. I hate that statement (it is what it is) as I have said it so much. I know, I know. A lot of people say if you don’t like a situation –change it. But I really like my job most of the time. Sure it would be nice to work from home. My company has not embraced that concept very well until it had to be done. And it didn’t work very well. The main thing for me is printing. I can’t print from our network at home. But I’m never one to quit or change a job unless it becomes so overwhelmingly stressful that my health makes me do it.

I changed from HR to payroll in 2019 for several reasons but one of them was because of the never ending continual stresses that put me in flight or fight mode every long hour of every day. So I will hope that things will improve one day as far as the quarter end processes. And retirement hopefully won’t be too far away. I think we will have to figure out the health insurance part of the equation. So we will see.

I mean I feel bad for the company but I realize and have also been told it was not my fault. What good does it do to find fault anyway. It’s not like anyone purposely set out to make things hard for me (at least I don’t think so – I hope not – if so may the Lord deal with them as He will) but I think it was quite the opposite. Someone was trying to make things better system wise, among a few other things that did not go right when that happened. I’m just the last man on the line so it makes it look like I’m at fault. And surely it would help if I’d had more familiarity with our accounting system and how it works. I’m learning but I’ve not had the experience yet that my bosses have.

So…. Returns will be late, penalties will be applied, including interest charges, but I’m going to put a sticker on every return that says “I received the data to file this return on ______ and promptly filed this and 32 other returns as soon as possible after running our weekly payroll, therefore the timing of this return is late”. And date and sign my initials. I’ll just create a whole tab of those sticker labels to apply. So six weeks down the road or whenever the file is pulled b/c a penalty notice was received, and people come running down the office with the penalty notice in hand to find out why, everyone is aware- it is NOT because Sonya chose to do the return late while twiddling her fingers and doing circles in her desk chair! Everyone else has to accept the truth that is too. Cause that is how I roll. 😉 No one will be in the dark. After all, the sun shines where the truth is. 😉 So bring on the suntan lotion and let’s enjoy the day because really what other choices do we have. We can scream, shout, be mad, cry, be upset – but why go through all that? Just go on about the day as if everything were normal. And I think I’ve about convinced myself that this IS normal. I’ve not seen much different anyway, lol.

So we might have missed the boat this time, and not really had an opportunity to adjust our sails. But at least we can sit on the dock and watch the horizon for the next boat and perhaps it will be better. I doubt it but if you can’t have hope, then what have you? Maybe next time we can plan better, have more help or whatever the needs are to get her done. We can navigate the waters, do the charting, looking out for the winds, adjust the sails, and reach the other shore on time. Maybe one day. But not this time.