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.
Get Me Back On The Earth, Put My Feet On The Ground
Normally, I get a bit of a post-tax season lull, but not this year; work has been super-busy what with April being the end of our fiscal year, and me having to prepare budgets for the next FY that started May 1st. Plus, we've have a TV series shooting in Portland (TNT's Leverage). PLUS, May 1st is also the beginning of our new billing period, and I had to generate a bunch of paperwork for our broadcast station Bargaining Units to calculate new dues amounts for station staff. PLUS, our national office needed information from us to complete THEIR audit and tax return (thank goodness THAT little task has been taken off my plate!). PLUS, we've been in negotiations with our landlord for a new lease.
So I don't think it would be an understatement to say things at work have been a bit busy as of late. Fortunately, most of the above has been dealt with, which means things SHOULD start quieting down - a bit - from here on out, at least for a while.
Fortunately, most of this coincided with a general slow-down in extra-curricular activities: things at the theatre are running pretty smoothly, and don't generally require huge amounts of my time or attention right now. And of course, with the intermittent improvements in the weather situation, I'm getting out more, getting a bit more exercise (I've managed one day - well, several hours in the course of one day to be exact - of hiking each of the past three weekends, and of course lots and lots of yard work. In fact, I've got several hours scheduled for this morning, but hopefully, that should put things in pretty good shape, and there shouldn't be much more to do aside from routine maintenance for the remainder of the summer.
So yeah, not much of this falls into the "that is SO exciting I just have to blog about it!" category; just normal, routine, day-to-day stuff.
...with taxes that is, for another year, as of 7:58 p.m. last night, two hours ahead of schedule.
In 16 sessions totaling 60 hours over a five week period I and my one volunteer (thanks Karen!) completed a total of 37 returns for 43 people, and checked the work on about ten more; not a record for me by any stretch, but we would have busted 40 returns, if there hadn't been a number of last-minute cancellations over the course of the season that couldn't be rescheduled because we filled up appointment slots so quickly. Still, I got in all of my "regulars", people who have used the program for the past three or four years, and had a lot of new faces show up as well, which is good. And even this relatively modest amount of activity still puts my site well above average locally in terms of number of clients served.
Even so, I'm still looking forward to having my weekends back again.
Finally got the first good night's sleep I've had in nearly a week, although I probably could have easily slept another three or four hours, considering how much I've been shorted over that same period of time. Still, it's nice to be able to pull in a lungful of air without feeling like I'm going to cough up an actual lung on the exhale; now it's just a regular cough, probably due to all the irritated tissue down in there.
Of course, even being sick hasn't prevented me from continuing to swim in the deep-end of the tax prep-pool; including a full day on Sunday, I had evening appointments scheduled last night, and more of the same tonight, only because I couldn't fit them in anywhere else. After this it's back to the normal Sunday/Monday evening schedule through to the end. So far, things haven't gotten too ugly, that is, no insanely complicated returns, although, as is usually the case, I've dealt with a couple of people already who are going to have to sit down with a nice rep from the IRS and hash out a payment plan; unfortunate for them, but then, I'm just the messenger.
After finishing up last night (mercifully, an hour ahead of schedule), I stopped by the theatre to check on facilities items: inventorying soft-goods, and unlocking the dumpsters for early Tuesday a.m. disposal. I haven't been there for maybe nine or ten days, not that long really, but for me that's an unusually long stretch. And of course, in that time I've missed some things; the hallway has a new paint scheme, some furniture has been rearranged, and a lovely, yet sort of creepy photo display had been hung, presumably for the fundraiser that was held over the weekend that I missed because of being flat-on-my-back-in-bed. It was a little eerie seeing all the changes, made me feel a bit like a ghost wandering through, particularly since the public areas were deserted, although there was a rehearsal going on on-stage and I was trying to be quiet while I moved around the space; I don't think anyone even knew I was there.
Stayed late at work last night to do the 990EZ return for the second job (my first time doing one for a 501(c)3 non-profit organization). On my first pass through, I came up with a difference of only $3.74 between the two numbers that are supposed to match exactly on the form.
This scares me just a bit, if for no other reason than it means over the past eight or nine years of doing taxes and bookkeeping my brain has sufficiently wrapped itself around the intricacies of the basic accounting methods to actually pull off an accuracy level of 99.995%.
I know, I know - it's been extremely light posting the past couple of weeks. Frankly, it's taken me this long to get fully caught up on the post-SNOWPOCALYPSE and holiday backlog at work, and aside from that, well, there just hasn't been all that much going on.
That being said, we did open our newest show at The Theatre last weekend, and we have a late-night show opening tonight. I haven't been as heavily involved in these productions, so don't have much to report on them, other than you should definitely go see them, if you're in the neighborhood.
Went to a hafla last night at the invitation of a friend who was performing for the first time. Several members of my extended theatre circle are involved in the local belly-dancing community (not surprisingly, a lot of the people I know have overlapping artistic interests - creating a sort of a nightmarish Venn diagram of intersecting subcultures within the larger local arts scene), so I frequently get notices about musical concerts, gallery openings, fundraising events, recitals, and various-and-other sundry entertainments and exhibitions. But, this was the first time I'd been to this particular type of performance bill.
Basically, a hafla is a cabaret of belly-dance routines, in this particular case, students of my friend Kendra (mate of The Ghetto Hipster, my uber-brilliant Sound Designer on "Moon"), who teaches and heads her own performance troupe, along with a couple of spin-off groups comprised of current or former students. It was a chance to show off some new routines, or in a couple of instances, an opportunity for some of her students to do their first solo work on-stage.
(I should add that, although much of the work is rooted in what I suppose one would call "traditional belly dance technique", a lot of it definitely has a contemporary slant, especially in terms of musical accompaniment, and dress (again, not surprisingly, many belly dancers seem to have a strong connection to the local goth subculture.)
Throw in a singer/songwriter playing guitar, a new "contemporary fairy tale" concocted by The Theatre's Artistic Director, and a whole lotta red wine, and you have a pretty entertaining evening of music and dance.
Next up: my annual "Tax Tips For Artists" seminar on Sunday, after which I start plunging into VITA in earnest for the remainder of the tax season: recruiting and orienting volunteers, taking my annual refresher qualification course, scheduling appointments, and getting into the thick of things come mid-March - which, when you think about it, isn't that far away.
As of 8:00 p.m. this evening MY tax season is officially over.
Shout out to my volunteers, Phillip and Karen (yes, I actually had help this year), and to the fine folks at Theatre Puget Sound for donating space and supplies.
Happy Tax Day tomorrow - hope you get a big refund.
As of this evening, the long, enervating saga of The Drywall Installation will be over-and-done - for the moment.
Because, you see, there's still LOTS more to do.
It's just that, with rehearsals for our next show scheduled to start up in the space this weekend, we've simply run out of time to complete the project all the way through to the bitter end. But, at least the major installation work has been completed, and with a bit more painting left for this evening, we'll be at a stopping point where we can put the project on-hold for a few months.
But, as is usually the case, there's still a lot more to it than even that. Between now and next Friday, when we have our monthly late-night cabaret scheduled, we have to:
- finish painting the ceiling
- dispose of all the scrap drywall, boxes, refuse, empty applicator tubes, dust, and other accumulated garbage from the past couple of months
- clean the stage, the seats, the hallway, the lobby, the bathrooms - basically everything now requires a deep cleaning to get rid of as much of the gypsum dust as possible
- move all the tools, equipment, set pieces, and other sundry items of value from our lounge back into the stage area
- disassemble the platforms we built to accomodate the drywall hangers
- Install some sort of rudimentary lighting system, including hanging pipe in the ceiling, instruments, cable, circuit boxes, and control panels
- Re-install our sound system
- Fix a major electrical problem that has cropped up in the past week
And there are probably a couple of things I'm missing that should be part of this list.
Oh, right. Plus, we've got our 21st Birthday Party coming up on the 12th, so we want everything to look clean and shiny for that as well.
But, you know, no pressure or anything.
Accomplishing all that will get us through the next few weeks, during which we'll need to install a more robust lighting system for the remaining shows in our season.
Because on top of all this we also have shows to put up.
After the season is over in late August, we'll be able to revisit the sound baffling project in what I've officially designated "Phase II-B" (having now split the project into two sub-phases, with Phase II-A representing work completed to-date).
Still, most of the heavy lifting has been accomplished - and I'm still here to tell the tale.
However, next time we try to pull off some crazy/impossible scheme like this, I'm going to have to insist we not do it whilst I'm in the middle of tax season.
Seriously, between taxes, managing this project, work, and trying to maintain some minimal semblence of a social life, it's all just a little too much to juggle at one time. (And believe me, the "social" component was the first candle-end to get snuffed out.)
Needless to say, I'm looking forward to a bit of a breather, which at this rate should happen sometime around late April - if I'm lucky.
Every Time We Take One Step Forward You Take Two Steps Back
I’m sure you’re all just dying to know how the drywall installation portion of our massive sound baffling project is coming along, aren’t you?
Well, too bad, because you’re going to hear about it anyway; after all, why should I be the only one to suffer?
When last we left off on Tuesday, five guys had just hauled 9,000 pounds (yes, a full half-ton more than my original estimate) of drywall into the theatre in anticipation of the arrival of the installers the next day.
I arrived promptly at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday to let them in, and found one guy with a bag of tools standing out in front of the entrance. Okay, the rest of his crew must be running late, I thought.
Wrong.
Turns out Bruce, the Hardwall Guy had sent ONE PERSON to do the job.
I took him upstairs, he looked around, listened for a couple of minutes to my description of the project and the sequence of how it was supposed to be done, then stated, “I can’t do all that by myself!” (which seemed pretty obvious to me – and should have to Bruce, who had been on-site twice before himself). So, after a brief telephone consultation, Bruce agreed to contact his “hanging crew”, and see if he could get them to come in that afternoon, promising to call me back as soon as he had more details. So, I decided to hang out at the theatre, since I had some tax prep work I could do in the meantime.
By 2:30 p.m. I still hadn’t heard back from Bruce, and when I called to check in, he said, “Oh, yeah. They’re still at another job, so they can’t come in until tomorrow. Sorry, I meant to call you.” Right, thanks. (Are you beginning to get that communication ISN’T one of this guy’s stronger attributes?)
At this point, I’m starting to get a little panicky, and I begin wondering if perhaps I should be formulating some sort of “Plan B”, in case the guy flakes out on me completely. Fortunately, wiser heads prevail and the staff decides to wait 24 hours before considering other options.
Yesterday at around 10:00 a.m. I get a call from “Al”, another of Bruce’s associates, who informs me he has some scaffolding he wants to drop off at the space for the crew, and can someone let him in? Okay, this is better; I’m actually hearing the words “scaffolding” and “crew”, which implies some forward movement is occurring. He agrees to swing by my office, and I hand off a set of keys along with some instructions I’ve written up, and which I verbally go over before sending him on his way. He says somebody will get in touch with me later in the day to confirm the arrival of the crew for either that afternoon or first thing on Friday.
At about 2:00 p.m. Al calls again to say he’s dropped off the scaffolding, but he just heard from the crew, and they won’t be able to make it in today; they’re behind schedule on their current project, because they’ve lost several people due to illness the past few days – reasonable enough, given the flu that’s been going around up here recently. But, he assures me they’ll arrive first thing in the morning.
Which brings us to today.
I get a call from Bruce at 7:30 a.m. this morning, just seconds after my alarm clock goes off, saying the crew had arrived, but was having trouble getting in, and could I come down and help them out? Okay, fine. Actual crew ready to do actual work, sounds good. I threw on just enough clothing to keep from being arrested, jumped on "Little Nellie", and scooted down to the theatre.
No crew to be seen.
I call Bruce back, and he gets on another phone to the crew, "they say they're at the 1100 block of Pike Street -"
"Um, Pike Street or EAST Pike Street?" I ask.
"Oh." Pause. "They say they're down by the freeway."
"That would be Pike St. They need to come up about 10 blocks to East Pike. I'll be waiting for them."
So, about half an hour goes by, and finally a truck pulls up to the construction site across the street. The driver is glancing around like he's looking for something, so I figure this must be them.
Sure enough, it's the crew; they've been driving around for 20 minutes looking for our sign on Pike (*sigh!*), but anyway, here they are. We go upstairs and I start explaining the job - again. Keep in mind, this is the fourth or fifth time I've had to go through a detailed description of this project to either Bruce or one of his people. I can now recite it thoroughly in my sleep, like "The Gettysburg Address": "One score and one year ago, our founders brought forth a new theatre, conceived in poverty, and dedicated to the principle that - yadda, yadda, yadda". (In fact, I think I HAVE recited it in my sleep, since for the past four days it's the last thing I've thought about before falling asleep, and the first thing I've thought about after waking up; presumably some of those hours in-between have been taken up with reciting the details while unconscious.)
Raphael, the lead, looks over the information I hand him, looks over the materials, looks over the room. “We’re going to need more scaffolding than this,” he announces, “and this drywall (the special stuff), you can’t cut this with a knife; you need a saw. So, I gotta cover all these shelves (our equipment bay at the back of the stage), and put some plastic up over these doors, ‘cause it’s gonna get dusty in here. So, we can come in and start tomorrow, but we gotta finish by Wednesday, ‘cause we got another job starting on Thursday, so we might not get all the finishing work done by then.”
Okay, I’m keeping calm, because I’ve learned rather quickly that when dealing with these guys it’s all a matter of “two steps forward, one step back”, and I just want to keep them happy, so that SOMETHING actually gets accomplished.
I let him know, that’s fine, and heck, our deadline isn’t until the 28th anyway, so if they need to take a few days off in the middle to do another job, then come back and finish up, that’s fine with us. It probably ISN”T fine, but at this point, I’m willing to bend over backwards, if it means they’ll just do THIS job.
So, we all go our separate ways; I return home to take a shower, dress properly and head for work.
About 10:30 I get a call from Bruce, who says he’s spoken with Raphael, who is clear on the job, the process, and will bring in everything he needs first thing Saturday morning, when they will get to work (evidently, Bruce has finally gotten the message that timely communication is a good business practice). He figures it’ll take less time to complete than Raphael has estimated, but I’m putting my money on the accuracy of the guy who does the actual work, so I figure we’re still going to have to do some final finishing when they wrap up on Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go, because at this point, it’s pretty much out of our hands.
Cross your fingers, your toes, your eyes, and anything else you can – because it’s going to be an interesting next few days.
Oh, and by the way, did I mention I start doing income tax returns tomorrow?
Yeah, just trying to take one step forward at a time...
