I Want a Life....

March 10, 2009

I want a life…. Where I can enjoy a quiet morning, a soft spring rainfall, a silent snowfall. I want a life….where I’m not chained to a desk or an office. I want a life….where I can take as long as I need to take a walk, ride my bike, or even drop by the cleaners or run other errands here in YUKON and not have to be half a state away from home. I want a life…that isn’t wasted on rush hour traffic.

I want a life…where I can sleep when I want & need to, and not have to depend on caffeine to get me thru the morning or afternoon. I want a life…where I can take time off to travel, hike, or camp. I want a life….where I can spend more time tutoring or teaching Nathan, or doing art-craft projects, or whatever. I want a life….where I can use my creativity more freely.

This has been my 10th busy season as an accountant. I like my job, I like what I do, I just wish I could have more flexibility. This busy season has been especially rough, since Kassie left for another job. She was one of our key year-end people. She’s been here for 4 years and has a wealth of knowledge and experience! The rest of the staff has stayed mega-busy being sure we gleaned all the information we could from her.

Monday, January 19, was the Martin Luther King Holiday, and I was allowed to work from home. It was fantastic to not have to be up at a certain time, waste time on the freeway, be chained to a desk or office, and be able to throw a load of laundry in the wash or fix the kids something quick for lunch – and still get my work done. I only got 3 hours’ worth of work in, but it was all I needed. It was so much more relaxed and convenient and I was certainly no less productive.

I had thought I’d see if I can work from home more often. But after conferring with Human Resources and the President of the company, our Division Director announced that we could no longer work from home. Huh?! Why?! I could be so much more relaxed and therefore so much more productive, not having to rush around every morning trying to beat the clock. Heck, by the time I get to work at 8:30 I’m ready for a break.

An ice storm blew in the last week January – a massive storm unusual for Oklahoma. Monday we were sent home from the office at 2:00. Well, that’s the time I usually start getting drowsy, so I looked forward to getting home and taking a nap. It took me 20 minutes to get the car warmed up and scrape the ice off. I hadn’t realized how bad the ice was already. Driving was slow; I took Reno rather than I-40 for added caution. I got to the Middle School a little after 3:00, and met Nathan on his way to walk to Granny’s. I flagged him over and he jumped in the car. At home I made us bowls of hot, buttery, brown-sugary oatmeal. Yum, yum.

The office was closed again Tuesday as were the schools. I finally had time to work on year-end financials for the Homeowners’ Association. I worked on it starting about 1:00 for 5 hours – I was so absorbed that Nathan had to ask me “when’s dinner” at 6:30 – and finally got all the income and expenses balanced and reconciled and in a readable format.

It was GREAT to be able to work at my own pace, when I can be most productive – like on the MLK Holiday. So I’m getting tastes, here and there, of what it is like to work at home on my own schedule. It is NICE. Plus it felt good to have some time off, without the guilt. I hardly yawned all afternoon – normally I yawn constantly. I get so tired of yawning all the time; wouldn’t it be simpler if I could just get enough sleep in the first place?

Wednesday, surprisingly, the schools and state agencies were closed again. By then I was getting cabin fever, so I ventured out around town, doing a few errands, picking up a few groceries. The streets weren’t bad at all; the main roads had been cleared out. Joe came over, we had spaghetti for dinner, we watched The Great Gatsby on DVD (which I STILL don’t understand much more than I ever did), and called it a night.

It was wonderful to finally get enough sleep. I wonder how much more I could accomplish, if I could sleep or nap when I NEEDED to.

February is always our knock-down drag-out month, and I would get so sick with stress that I hardly knew what day it was sometimes. And this busy season was compounded by having one less person. Besides that, I’ve taken on many of Kassie’s job responsibilities, and doing so at a critical time. It’s wearing me out, but it won’t be for much longer.

For most of the month, I did little else than audit work. That is, preparing schedules and analyses for our independent CPA auditors. I had to come in 7 hours the first weekend just to get the normal month-end work done. And it was 5 hours at the office each of the other three weekends to work on our annual reports and filings.

It’s funny – when I tell people (especially my family) that this is “our busy season,” they respond with something like, “Oh yeah, tax season.” I don’t do taxes! I haven’t done taxes in 8 years! I don’t think they know what I do. I’m a statutory accountant, I do insurance accounting, and our big annual deadline is March 1.

And March 1 did finally come around. The worst of the deadlines were finally over; we finished the annual state filings and reports about noon the day they were due. By then my brain was little more than mush. It’s amazing I’ve made through this whole stressful season, without getting sick or having to take some time off. Often I would get ill in my stomach from all the nerves, like I was going to throw up. One pressure-filled weekend I thought I was going to have a stroke or something from the stress.

The Dow dropped below 7000 yesterday, and is 6822 right now. It’s down to 1996 levels. It’s unbelievable; I really didn’t think it would get below 8000.

Finally, it’s mid-March, I’m feeling much more relaxed. Most of the pressure is off now. Still a little, but nothing like it was.