Man have the past few weeks been a madhouse! It's budget time again, where we put in for what we want next year, and for the third year in a row it has been my baby to head up ... meaning that, even though Bossman told the troops repeatedly to get onboard, I had the major say in how much money and headcount each department has requested. You'd think they'd have learned by now how very important it is to be integrally involved in this, but nope. One guy even went on a trip when he knew it was due and his wasn't complete! Doi.
Today I handed in the preliminary draft, reviewed it with Bossman, made a few minor payroll changes, and sent it on. Yippee! This is the draft all the work goes into ... all revisions from here on out are due to the state-of-the-business, over which we have little control (as opposed to our facility having no idea what our needs will be).
Being done? Most awesome! I actully felt the stress of the past little while melt away. Deep breath ... aaaaaahhhh. If there was mint, I was smellin' it! This, combined with the strongly lingering way-cool-junior effects of my recent vacation, has me in a state of near euphoria. If I didn't know any better I'd challenge the world to bri ... but, nope ... not gonna jinx it.
Now I can get back to writing that Great American Novel (not really ... but I can get back to writing for my own enjoyment). Been so long I'm going to have to go through my notes again to remember what's what (and who's who). At one time these characters where like real people to me, and I would rattle off imaginary comments and conversations in my head, no worries.
Going to bed at night was like setting up a new chapter or event ... it was very entertaining! Isn't it weird how it seems that for many of us, our imaginations sort of fade out as we get more busy with making a living? Not necessarily as we get older; the two just tend to go hand-in-hand. But then, it's not like the filthy rich are all that well known for their great imaginations, either, so maybe the correlation is somewhat flawed.
Sigh. There I go again; instead of 'Conjunction Junction' it's 'Digression Station' with me.
The really weird thing about being in charge of the money is the massive (to me) budget. If I hadn't spent years screwing up my personal finances, suffering the consequences, then (with great luck and tremendous support) setting them straight, I'd definitely have problems separating *my* finances from *not my* (e.g., work) finances. As it is, since I've been through the wringer finance-wise, I drive my plant (and sometimes even Accounts Payable) absolutely bug-eyed ... snicker ... it is kind of fun!.
My personal annual budget is 0.0049% of the plant budget. Yep, I did the math. Can you imagine that?!? Because I can't, and I live it! Less than one half of one percent! Whoa, Nellie!
I, um ... I have little left to say after that nugget: 0.0049%. Ain't money grand? I get to have a giant budget, but not run myself into the poorhouse while I'm at it ... and because it is so huge, we're currently running 26% under budget YTD (while good, not as good as it sounds, seeing as sales is down about 20%, but still ... we freakin' ROCK!). And the supercool thing is that I kept Bossman completely informed of the two of our guys who took a seriously over budger department July of last year and ended the year at budget ... amazing! And Bossman rewarded both of them for their incredibly hard work. It. Was. Awesome.
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