Week in the Life: Wednesday December 13

 

Hey friends, we're doing a one week experiment where we hang out each day and I'll tell you everything that's going on in my life (inspired by Stephany's Week in the Life series).  Happy Wednesday!

Hey Hump Day🐫🐫🐫  It's the last "get up super early" day of the week.  My sleep was a bit choppy last night, but I feel refreshed enough and wake up before my alarm.  I tiptoe downstairs and fire up the coffee maker.  I get into workout clothes and pour a nice steaming hot cup of coffee with a splash of half and half in the Mug Du Jour of famous opening lines from books.

The next order of business is the workout that I would have done on Monday if not for having a sore arm from my COVID shot.

This is a good one and I'm glad that I waited until today to do it when my arm is back to normal.

Afterwards I hop on the treadmill for 20, do the shower thing, do the Reheating of the Coffee thing, and hit Wordle and the Spelling Bee.  I'm firing all on cylinders today.

Sigh the clock is creeping closer to 8, why does it do that.  I fire up the work computer and what in God's name has happened today that my inbox has that many emails in it.  Uh, I want breakfast.  But not too much breakfast...ooh I have one tofu breakfast burrito in the freezer and today is the day for it.  OK, let's tackle the inbox.  Um let's not.  Ok phew most of the emails are answers to the tons of questions that we had about all of the stuff that we've given to employees that needs to get taxed and oh goodie my boss has already extracted most of the information.  My boss's boss has taken issue with an email that I sent them that says that mileage reimbursements for business purposes are not taxable to employees in the US.  She tells me that she heard that these should be taxed.  I roll my eyes, google that, and send her a screenshot.  This is an example of why my company felt that they needed a payroll person in the US and I get paid the big bucks and also an example of why I do not find the job challenging.  The mileage reimbursement that is set up in our expense system is 58.5 cents a mile and the current IRS allowed rate is 65.5 cents a mile and I'm continuously amazed that none of our employees have ever said anything.  If just one person besides me would speak up the company would change it and as it is I have no reason to speak up since I don't travel for work and it doesn't affect me personally.  Seriously folks if you see something weird money wise at work say something!

My boss in the process of reviewing the rest of world payroll - what that means is in accounting anytime that you're handling something that's a big deal like people's pay you never have just one person looking at the numbers.  She and I both have access to the info, and I've complied it into the massive Excel file that we like to pretend is a payroll system.  The review means that she's taking her info and seeing if it matches mine.  My goal is to get it right so that there's nothing for her to find.  Because this payroll has so many moving parts that does not happen.  There's a nice laundry list of stuff that doesn't stand up to her review so we chat about it.  We both come out of the experience looking good.  She had some information that wasn't passed on to me, and in a few cases where the info was sent to us multiple times I was able to keep track of the emails and had the correct version of the email.  Go us!

We're doing a lot of back and forth.  At those times when the ball is in her court it's semi-slack time for me.  I have enough freedom to be on my personal laptop but not enough to leave my desk.  Some blog reading gets done during this time.  During longer breaks there are walks downstairs for Reheatings of the Coffee.  Finally she and I are in agreement that we have the right numbers.

Chore #1: I calculate how much the payroll is going to cost, which also involves a preliminary run of the US payroll for the end of the month.  We have a worksheet for that and I poke the numbers to make sure that everything seems solid.

Chore #2: I need to send the payroll out to all of the payroll providers.  We have one for each of the 18 countries.  We have decent sized employee bases in places like France and Germany, and a bunch of teeny tiny payrolls with just one or two employees elsewhere.  What that means is that a lot of cutting and pasting is about to go down as I turn our big file into an Excel sheet for each country.  It's not wildly exciting work.  When that's done the files go onto a secure data transfer site and off to the payroll providers.

I finish chore #1 before lunch.  I get dressed in my standard jeans and a long sleeved top.  It's one of my everyday tops but you might notice that it's just a bit nicer than the top that I wore yesterday.  This is your first foreshadowing that today is not quite like every other work day.

Lunch!  The hubs is hard at it in a meeting so it's a solo lunch.  More gochujang noodles go down.

Walkies!  It feels colder than yesterday but most of the snow has melted and the big yellow ball in the sky is really bright today.

Back home and I snag a treat on the way back to my office.

Here's where I would like to take a break but I keep on task and tackle chore #2 for another hour.  I'm almost done when I take a break to curl my hair.  Okay, whatever you say, you did that yesterday and so far there's nothing to see here.  But wait, now I'm putting make up on.  Nothing elaborate, just foundation and blush, which used to be an everyday thing before the pandemic.  Now it's a pretty rare thing so what am I up to that I'm suddenly busting out makeup in the middle of the afternoon?

After putting on my face I go back to my office and close the door.  It's about 10 minutes before a meeting on my calendar.  On my work calendar the subject line is "hold" and there's no other information.  On my personal calendar the subject is "Company X Hiring Manager Screening".  The shirt that I'm wearing is my designated "first interview shirt".  I have a designated "second interview shirt" as well, and if there are more interviews than that with one company I wear something else and start making a list of my outfits so that I don't repeat.

That's right, I've got myself a job interview!  The tech world has really taken a beating this year and jobs are scarce but not non-existent.  I don't remember the last time that I had an interview but it just so happens that I've got one now.  I had a good conversation with the recruiter last week and today I have my first interview with the hiring manager.

I google the company to refresh my memory and look at the job description and the notes that I took when I talked to the recruiter.  I look at the hiring manager's profile on LinkedIn.  Part of the reason for this is just to find out more about her, and the other reason is a tip that I got from a recruiter a long time ago to always look at people's LinkedIn profiles before interviews so that they can see that you saw them.  Everyone likes a profile view.

I perch my phone on a nearby bookshelf and check that the angle is right and that nothing obnoxious is showing in the background.  I put in my airpods and use the voice recorder to make sure that they're connected and that my voice is coming through clear.  Good, good.  Two minutes before the interview starts I log into the Zoom invite that they sent me so that I'll be on the call when the manager starts it.  I also mute my work computer but forget to silence my phone and sure enough I do get a text during the interview but oh well.

The interview is fine.  There are no red flags and nothing that makes me not want the job.  But also nothing that leaps out and says "oh God yes this is the job for me".  The supervisor is fine - I like her but I don't love her.  I can't tell what kind of an impression I'm making on her or if I'm saying what she wants to hear.  She says she'll let the recruiter know by the end of this week or early next week who she wants to move forward with.  I say that it's been great talking to her.  And that's all there is to say about that for right now.  By rights I should email the recruiter and tell her that it was such a great conversation yada yada but I just don't get around to it.

Okey dokey back to work.  I finish our one million Excel files and send them out.  I really want to take an internets break but also it would be advantageous to get some extra work done.  No one's looking for it but it's nice to have it up my sleeve.  Uh can I do some of both?  I give myself a short break to read blogs and then I hunker down.  I switch over to accountant mode and do the journal entry for the US and Canada payrolls.  This is nerdy accountant Excel work at its finest.  Take a bunch of numbers and make them equal to another set of numbers.  

So actually this is what I like about accounting.  I'm really bad at math, and when I say that I mean that when I was 22 I took the GRE with no preparation and my math score was in the 20th percentile.  When I was 36 and headed to grad school I took the GMAT and put some serious study effort into it...and my math score was in the 20th percentile.  My scores on the other sections of the test pulled my score well above what was required for the Accounting Master's Program, but on their acceptance letter they said "dude what's up with that math score?"  OK they didn't say it like that but they said something.  Anyhoo what I like about accounting is that you can be TERRIBLE at math and it  makes no difference.  You just have to be able to see that two numbers aren't the same and then work at them to figure out why.  It's kind of fun in a "I get paid for this" kind of way.

Ooh actually there are a couple of things that are out of the ordinary that I need to ask my boss about so it's good that I started this today.  I finish the Excel files based on what I have so that I'll only need to tweak a few things when I have her answers.   I send out that email and a few other things that make it look like I've had my nose hard on the grindstone all day.  I mean I've put in a decent enough day's work.

Work computer off oh that's right I have a family.  The boys are downstairs playing with the nerf gun and Hubs has been mostly tied up at work all day.  Stepson #1 came in to see me when he got his final score for his math class.  He missed one point just to see what it was like.  At this point he just has one exam to go and he will be done with semester #1 of college.

On Wednesdays the boys have dinner with their mom and Hubs and I have a mini date.  He is obsessed with chicken parm, so I suggest that for dinner.  I toss a breaded chicken patty from Costco into the air fryer - let me tell you that I have not hand breaded a chicken breast since we joined Costco because I can't make anything that's better than what they've got.  I boil up some pasta and for myself I nuke up some Costco meatballs.  I've got that salad mix from Trader Joe's that was bigger than I thought so I know I won't finish it for my lunches this week, so I serve it with dinner.

Afterwards we take our nightly dog-walk-without-the-dog.  If I remember correctly, one of the stages of grief is anger, and I think that's where I am.  For me "anger" is more of a snarky Airing of the Grievances about life without a dog.  The latest things that have come up on my list are:

• I can get up in the middle of the night and put my feet on the floor and walk to the bathroom without having to worry about stepping on the dog (yes this is a grievance because it's boring)
  
• I have no incentive to not wear the same outfit everyday since we're not taking dog selfies anymore.
• When I got the Parmesan out of the fridge for dinner no one was staring at me.  My husband and I are madly in love but let me tell you that he has never looked at me like Stepdog looked at me when I had a bag of cheese in my hand.

After we get back from our walk the boys have returned.  Hubs hangs out with them in the front room but I Have Plans for tonight.  I'm out on the town...to the grocery store.  We're out of bananas and the house does not function when we are out of bananas (snack for the boys, required for my husband at breakfast).  I live dangerously and take a basket instead of a cart.  Woo hoo it's a $10 shopping trip!

I go back home and catch up with the fam.  Hubs starts his workout.  I want a lil' sumpin' sumpin'...hmm I think I have a lil' sumpin' sumpin' tucked away...confirmed!  I'm not a huge dark chocolate fan but every once in a while I like the dark orange or the dark chili bars.

I've had enough of wearing "going outside" clothes so I change back into my "not bed" pajamas of leggings and a long sleeve.  I nibble four squares of the chocolate bar in front of the TV and write the bloggo.  Oh wait I'm doing this thing where I do pushups three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and today is one of those days and yes last thing at night would be the time to get 'er done.  The first two sets feel like I'm phoning it in but on the last set I finally nail my form.  I do a couple more "baby sets" to try and lock it in.

After his workout hubs showers and comes down to play video games.  Around 9 he takes a break for our daily puzzle dose.

I head upstairs for my shower and by the time I'm done hubs is upstairs as well.  I read and do the NYT crossword and then we turn out the lights.  I snuggle under the covers and think thoughts and the next thing I know it's Thursday.  But that's a story for tomorrow.