400 pages and counting

It's Friday and therefore my non-working day.

Having sat with my head in my hands going around and around in circles looking at private sector accounts most of yesterday and this morning I have found myself wondering why any company thinks that it is helpful to put together annual report and accounts that run in excess of 400 pages let alone employ what must be more than a small army of people to draw them up.  

Granted these businesses are huge and they have subsiduaries all over the globe but seriously, would it not be easy to say, I don't know provide a simple note to the account that summarises total assets and which of those are current assets and then the same for liabilities? It would certainly save me having to jump all over the account looking for the information to make up those figures.

I wondered this as I was also wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew when deciding to train as an accountant (again) and then realised I was being a pessimist and that I should give myself a break - it is, after all, more than 7 years since I have had to look at anything other than government accounts that are for this big a company.  

Some, and in that I mean my husband, would tell me that I am trying to run before I can walk in a new job again but I am having an attack of 'I don't know what the hell I am doing and I should have just requested a move to operations'itis.

Taking into account how long it has taken me to do one job (and spectacuarly fail at it) I am thinking that I should spend the rest of the day getting ahead in the other job that I have to do on Monday in case it happens again, especially as I need to draft myself a strategic key work objective around promoting and teaching VAT to the commercial directorate masses by our team meeting on Wednesday.

If hubby knew I was even contemplating doing that he would want to shoot me with something light and fluffy, so as not to upset my sensibilities any more than they already are, so lets all just keep that a secret....Rachel.

On a completely different note as I have just looked out the window the skys are blue, not a cloud in the sky and yet I am sat here with the fire on and still thinking I am cold.  If I wasn't waiting for a man to come round and determine (for the second time) whether the replacement leather for my suite is a good match I would be tempted to put my dressing gown over my clothes.

I've set my office up in the dining room because I do not have a spare room, not until Beautiful B moves out, and it is untidy and that is making me restless.  Azamingly so.  I have an overflowing basket of ironing which is staring at me and driving me nuts, a spare kettle and toaster provided by mum and dad (not that mine aren't working; I am just unable to say 'no' to them when they ask if I need something), various Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped for Christmas, the requisitite treasury accounts (and I intend on off-loading one of them sooner rather than later now I have started this new job), 3 board games, a ton of accountancy stuff I need to read for my 'continuing professional development' amongst other things that are driving me mental.  

The fluff bags are thankfully quiet but I am not kidding myself, I know that is only because I am sat in one position and being relatively quiet.  As soon as they hear the chair move they think I am up and about and ready to play with them or to let them snog me to death.  

You know what, I am going to go and have some breakfast; it is already lunch time to see if I can shut my head up.  I have no idea who I am kidding, I know I am coming back in this room in 30 minutes time to get ahead of the work I need to do on Monday.  And this, dear folks, is why hubby feared me working from home.  As he told me at 8pm last night; I have no idea when to shut the computer down and start again the next day.

Two ways in and out of Sheffield and one was closed

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, I know.  The hire company were supposed to deliver a car on Sunday evening except it never arrived.  Having no choice but to give my new manager a headache on my first week in the job I had to drive my own car to Sheffield which is pretty much against the rules.  At least I knew how to use the controls in my car and didn't have to worry about whether an automatic locking system was working or not.  

Yes, I would seriously have tried to work out if that was the case and I would hope that I would have remembered not to walk towards the car with the fob in my pocket wondering why the car was not locked when in fact it was until I started walking towards the car.  I don't overthink things at all, honestly!

Sheffield is over the hills and far away....literally; it's over the Pennines.  This means you have to drive over them trying to get the car to hug the side of the hill/mountain.  All very well when it is Summer but in Winter you tend to drive into a lot of fog.  And the world and his wife think it is safe to drive over them at 60 mph because that is the speed limit whether there be fog or not.  Except me.  

I plugged the iPhone into the car radio before I set off so I could listen to an audio book; shut up!  It's the only way I ensure I don't get sleepy on a long journey and I am sure the other motorists on the road were more than grateful for that.  Quite happy, I stopped at McD's for a spot of breakfast and then drove over the pennines.   I arrived at the outskirts of Sheffield to find a diversion.   Okay, no need to panic, I could ignore the sat nav and follow diversion signs and I did quite easily and was at the office safely by 10.30am.  It had taken me 4 hours instead of the expected 2 and half but that's my fault for setting off at 6.30am instead of some godforsaken time of the morning to miss the 7 mile tailback on the motorway that peak traffic creates anytime after 5.30am these days.

All went well in Sheffield, the hotel was gorgeous and the air conditioning blasted out lots of very warm air when I asked it to instead of the usual poor mans substitute. I stayed awake until stupid o'clock the first night almost giddy at the idea of no cooking, cleaning, washing etc. only to be away with the sandman by 8.30pm the following evening.  I was even sensible enough to set off at a reasonable time to travel home knowing that I had a diversion to follow to find my way back out of Sheffield.

Silly me; I forgot that it gets dark at 4pm these days and I stupidly did not take account of the ridiculous amount of traffic on the Sheffield roads at that time.  Not being able to find the diversion signs I drove the way sat nav directed me back to the road closure and doubled back following the diversion signs.  

Obviously, Sheffield council deemed that diversion signs are for people who live in Sheffield and not for people who live in what can be described as a reasonably small town that I lived in for 35 years and therefore know reasonably well.  The diversion signs were placed approximately every 4 miles apart and were of no help if you were in the right hand lane as they were placed on the left side of the road.  So I shook my fist at the world more than once or twice and may have had a slight panic attack at the idea of driving around Sheffield looking for a police station so they could direct me out of Sheffield before I decided to follow the signs for the MI motorway to the south - after all, surely there had to be a turn off for the M1 north? (Update: as my mother reminded me yesterday Sheffield is higher up the country than my home town so I did actually need to M1 South - doh).

Judging by the fact that the world and his wife were trying to follow that same road I deduced I had finally found the way I was looking for - it had only taken me 45 minutes.  I then sat in traffic creeping along for another 45 minutes but by that time I was quite happy listening to my audio book about the aquisition (from very shady and dangerous characters) and sale (to unsuspecting naive housewives) of fake handbags (have these people never heard of the downfall of legitimate businesses) and the murder and mayhem that ensued safe in the knowledge that I was not going to have to find an unsuspecting policeman to help me find my way back to those rolling hills I had driven over merely 2 days before.

Having found my way out of Sheffield I can only say that if what I drove down was a motorway then fine, but it didn't look like any motorway near my hometown.  Then again, I guess they cannot really plough a 6 lane motorway through the gorgeous pennines without some people throwing a fit or two.  

I didn't care that the speed limits were 60-70 miles per hour - it was pitch black and while I may not have been able to see the perilous drop which was now immediately to my left past that flimsy barrier I knew it was there, damn it.  So me and my car started the mechanical equivalent of the conga across the peninnes.

Suddenly, I noticed that my fuel gauge was getting lower and lower.  Okay, technically I already knew this was happening but the first flutterings of panic were starting.  I did have plenty of fuel to get me across the pennines so I could stop for petrol before I got to the motorway originally but remember I had driven aimlessly around Sheffield and then sat in idling traffic for 90 minutes.  Being a relatively new car I did not have the 8 years of experience I had with my previous car to know it would get me another 30 miles once the petrol guage started blinking at me begging for petrol.   

Breathing a sigh of relief I thought I was approaching the small village of Glossop only to rachet that panic up a bit more when we started climbing again. As much as they dared, my eyes flicked from the road to the dashboard like they had a nervous twitch.  Honestly, when I realised I was approaching Glossop and therefore that beaon of light otherwise known as a petrol station I actually sang out "Hallelujah" in the car.

From there the rest of the drive was a breeze and I could once again concentrate on just the road and the audio book; with a brief interlude at the same McD's I stopped at 2 days before to grab some McBites coupled with a side of a bump on the top of my head from the top of the door sill.

I know some of you are asking why I did not go by train and you would be right in wondering but bulky IT equipment does not bode well on a train nor can my cabbage hands cope with the weight of the equipment.  You can be rest assured, however, that next weeks journey (and the weekly/fortnightly ones thereafter) will be made by train.  I may be cold stood on a station platform but at least if I fall off the edge of a platform I only have 4 feet to fall instead of the hundreds me and my car would have over Snake Pass.

So you see, my first trip to visit my new team was not only interesting but eventful.

 

It all started with the best of intentions

Now, that one person who reads this blog regularly probably has an idea what I am going to say and not just because she is one of the cleverest people I know.

 

Yesterday was my first day back on anti-inflammatories...which reminds me I haven't taken them yet today; hold on.

 

Okay, done now followed with a shot of tramadol.  Anyhoo, I was going to take them but then A rang up and I am trying to make the house semi-presentable for her non-planned arrival this afternoon and bearing in mind that most of my time is spent updating this blog because I am going to do that pain or not as I can do little else and I need something to stop me going mental.....

 

Where was I?  Oh yes, semi-presentable because I cannot do a whole lot so having already decided to put some washing on because surely Hubby cannot complain that is too much for my hands (and lets not tell him about me updating this blog as he will despair...) I tidied the dogs toys away and dusted the TV - why oh why do flatscreen TVs collect so much dust and whose idea was it to make the surround and stand a shiny black colour!?  Obviously not a woman obsessed with cleaning.

 

This mornings intention was to get up early (which actually happened, 7am is my usual late but currently my early thanks to a lack of iron) and it was a good job I did get up early or Beautiful B would have been late for work (thank you for the thank you text my darling honey bunch, it was very much appreciated) and do a few hours of accounting.

As it turns out I play computer games, as some of you know, and being a little bit OCDish.  Therefore, I like to finish a game and it annoys me if I am near the end of the game.  So, I thought I would spend an hour clearing one game which I did but it took me 2 hours. 

 

On top of that....if you are slightly OCDish do not download games called Virtual Families or Virtual Families 2, both of which I downloaded at the same time and I now have 2 generations of families, both of which are based around my family and in one Beautiful B and her hubby Ry have sent their son off to college and she is about to pass away as she is 61 years old.

 

They do not like doing what I tell them and as they earn little money to start off with I have to get them to be workaholics but then the wife needs to have babies otherwise how do you continue to generations?  Of course, you cannot buy all the upgrades without lots of money and in Virtual Families 2 it is worse as you can only get house renovations and purchases certain goods for the house as you move along generations.  Unlike the Facebook games you don't have to spend any money other than what you use to buy the game but being a bit OCDish I am a bit addicted to clearing it.

 

So as you can tell, accounts haven't been started yet....Oops

If you are interested, I use a website called Big Fish Games and you join up and instead of a game costing you £19.99 or similar you pay just under £6 a month for PC games (not sure what it is US currency) and you get a game credit each month.  A game can be bought with one game credit and if you want to buy more during the month they all cost that reduced amount of money.  A bargain in my opinion.  What's more, if you buy 6 games in a month you get a game free.

 

Of course, this works out a cheap way of buying games if you play a lot of games, not so much if you wouldn't buy one a month.  However, the website has different genre of games, action, arcade, hidden object, time management, etc.   Definitely worth a look.

 

The website caters for PC, MAC, iPhone/Pad, instant, community and online games so if you play on any of those platforms you may want to take a quick peek.

 

I just want to state here that I have not been asked to plug this company in any way, nor am I receiving anything for mentioning it on my site.  I just think it is an excellent site for people that want to find a way of getting out of doing accounts or housework......

 

 

Tonsillitis with a shot of linear equations

Back in 2005 I got a job; to learn to be the nuttiest accountant in my department. Hubby and I got together just before I started to travel across the country each week to study accounting.  To get the job I jumped through all sorts of hoops including completing an on-line personality questionnaire with feedback (only I could make a trained psychologist laugh his head off), written and oral assignments and an hour long interview.  

During the interview the only 2 questions I can recall were:

"What do you think your biggest challenge will be?"

"Trying to get my daughter to realise that as I need to do 15 hours study a week that she should sit down with me and do her homework."

"You stated on your questionnaire that you had wanted to apply for the scheme before - why didn't you apply last year?"

"Previously A level mathematics was required.  I do not have that, purely because I am rubbish at algebra and trigonometry and lets face it, unless I decide to be an architect or simalar, when am I ever going to need it...."    

They roared laughing - at the time, I wondered why as I was just being truthful.  I got the job, I assume because they thought it would be fun to have a nutter on the scheme.

So skip to our first 2 weeks in accountancy training, bearing in mind they took us through the equivalent of all 4 years of AAT training in 6 months.  Initially 2 weeks in Liverpool with the weekend as a break.  The first week goes well, I am coping very well with the study and quite enjoying being in a hotel room with no cooking, cleaning or washing etc. My friend and study partner C laughed at finding flyers each morning slipped under the door advertising the local escort services.

Second week, Hubby phones me one day and asks me to meet him at the station.  I love that he just hopped on a train because he wanted to see me. Ignore that I have a sore throat and am feeling slightly under the weather - I'm suddenly feeling better!

The following day C and I laugh at my attempt to swallow Rice Crispies at breakfast.  Having found a smoothie station in the nearby shopping centre I am not overly concerned - I can get my nutients from that.  I lived on that for 3 days before I got home and to a GP who confirmed my first and only tonsillitis episode in 33 years.  

Anyhoo, later that day we are sat in a management accounting class, my friend C is a whizz and we are loving the class.  I am feeling worse for wear and although not in a bad mood just want to get back to the hotel for a lie down, when the tutor says:

"Today we are going to do linear equations."

My head shoots up and involuntarily I say (being common and all and from the north) and feeling ill, in my defence "Shit off!" - my mother has a lot to answer for!

"No Ribena, deadly serious."

C rubs her hands with glee and says "I LOVE linear equations!"

"Well, maybe you should be the nuttiest accountant in the Department then."

I obviously spoke too soon at that interview!

8 weeks later I still could not grasp linear equations.  Had that question come up in the exam I could have answered it by following the process by rote - to this day I still do not understand the concept.

Beautiful B has no hope with a mother like me.