Working nine to five; what a way to make a living…

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Only three days into the first working week of the new year, and I’m exhausted. I have a self imposed goal of closing last year and opening this by week’s end. The alternative is to have two years open at once, and in twelve years I cannot bring myself to do it. Government accounting is too complex and my brain too fossilized. I make neat piles and dispose of them systematically and am done. I cannot worry about two years at once.

The program turns red X’s into green check marks as the close progresses. I was down to one red X yesterday, struggling through the warning on the screen that I was in in statutory violation of some important thing and could not continue until I cleared the refund I made to the road super of the health insurance I over deducted. 

I struggled with the fine print for an hour and by luck and tinkering found I could make a negative allocation of the amount back to the payroll account and hey, presto, the green light came on. Good enough for the government, as they say.

The clerk before me retired in his seventies, as I am now. I teased him he didn’t want to deal with CCR registration on-line. That’s Central Contractor Registration, not Credence Clearwater. CCR was the original platform for awarding government grants. It has morphed into the colossus that includes IPP and SAM, which I must use to obtain government funds.

I told a completely disinterested trustee recently that state government is pushing on us to file our accounting records in GASBE or GAAP format. It would mean mapping all our accounting records to look like, at year’s end, some general accounting formats prescribed by the National Accounting Standards Board. Still not the real thing, but on the road to uniform records from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

To that I say baloney; that’s why we pay the auditors, and we must pay them anyway. This year I had to pick whether I was filing one of the G’s, or my old friend, Regulatory. Next to Regulatory was a note, Not Recommended. Sez you; and I filed Regulatory. The year I don’t have a Regulatory choice will be my CCR year. End of my term or no, I’m outta there.

Add physical therapy and fetching children from appointments and I am beat. This afternoon I took a nap, waiting for Laura to come out from jazz band practice. Tomorrow she has art after school.

At lunch time today I rearranged the stock left at the gallery.  We changed the display to feature two right angle sections, and I think it all looks much more accessible.  I put everything on nice coat hangers today, put a scarf through one of the grids, and went back to work.

I need to weave this weekend!