Should Five Percent Appear To Small, Be Thankful They Don't Take It All
Oy.
It's been a crazy couple of weeks up here. One of my co-workers has been on vacation since the 19th and, in addition to picking up her work-load, late last week I got hit with THREE major projects to clear all at the same time, one of which involved 60 actors and another 30. And of course, all the clearances (basically checking to see whether they're eligible to work on a union-contracted production) HAD to be turned in by Friday, because they were all shooting over the weekend. It was literally one of those situations where: I'd get a fax with a list of names, enter them all in my database, check their status, generate a report to fax back to the production company, and by the time I got back to the fax machine, they'd be sending through a new list of names. And on top of this, I have to deal with actors who are delinquent in their payments (they have to be "in good standing", meaning all paid-up, to be cleared), as well as those who are "must-pays" (meaning they have to tender dues and fees before they can be cleared). Finally got out of the office around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, only to look forward to a weekend that involved:
Saturday: Drove up to Edmonds to do a seminar on Tax Preparation for Artists at an arts business conference run by an old colleague, then had to hit the office supply store, then Costco to pick up things for the office.
Sunday: Week Three of income tax prep, starting with the first appointment at 10:00 a.m. and running straight through until about 5:30 p.m.
Monday: The normal busy work-load (co-worker is still on vacation), then more taxes in the evening, while there's another meeting going on next door in our resource room.
Tuesday: Work (still getting names from the producer of the big weekend shoot, which they neglected to send to me the week before), plus setting up for a social event for later in the evening at which I needed to run the A/V equipment. But, at least I could drink beer whilst doing it.
Which basically means that, between work and tax prep related activities, I put in a solid 34 hour work-week in four days, which included pretty much my entire weekend.
And although I only have about an hour of extra-curricular activity at the theatre after work tonight, and absolutely no after work things scheduled again until Friday night, it's going to be another weekend of the same this week, because I have a board meeting Saturday morning that will run until 1:00 p.m. or so, another full day of tax prep Sunday, more after work tax prep on Monday, meetings & tax prep on Tuesday, and then I think I get a teensy break on Wednesday through Friday evening before - oh, right more tax prep on the following Saturday and Sunday, and then more of same Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, which is April 14th, which is the END of tax season.
Hi there, miss me? Yeah, I know. But really, I've been pretty darned busy the past several weeks, what with lots of extra work at The Day Job, gearing up for tax season, coming down with a flu/generic upper respiratory bug that kind of took me out of action for the better part of two weeks (although it was never bad enough to prevent me from going to work - I just slept a lot when I got home), plus a bit of a short-term family crisis, along with the usual mix of theatre things, miscellaneous after work meetings, and the occasional social outing.
But, now I'm feeling better, tax season is officially under way, I've gotten out from underneath some of the more pressing work-load, my 95 year-old grandmother is doing better, we've Sprung Forward - and what the heck, it's sunny outside, so what's not to blog about, amIright?
