Only a couple more weeks, and then the worst of the frenetic craziness will be over. Right now we’ve got clients we haven’t heard from all year, suddenly bringing us all their paperwork from 2012 and expecting us to be ready to do their taxes the next week. (If we only had one client doing that, or even two or three, we could probably even pull that off.)
The Boss sometimes chats with Freda when he’s in a good mood, in a way that he doesn’t chat with anyone else in the office—I think he sees her more as a peer than an employee. And she’s passed the word along to me that he’s very pleased with the work I’m doing for the second company. Always nice to know that the boss is happy with you.
On the one hand, it’s exciting to have such an opportunity. I’m basically the financial department for the new company—accounting, billing, paying bills, you name it. After the first month of frantic juggling, I think I’ve gotten on top of everything and I’ve more or less got it under control.
On the other hand, this much responsibility is a little scary. Example: the drivers get paid weekly; their reports have to be submitted to the payroll company by noon on Monday or they don’t get paid. More than once, I’ve had nightmares of coming in on Tuesday and realizing I forgot to submit the driver reports the day before—so OMG THE DRIVERS WON’T GET PAID THIS WEEK.
Our office is closed tomorrow; when I notified Second Co. that I wouldn’t be in Friday, the girl manning the desk asked me “Will you be in on Monday?”
In light of the previous paragraph, I had no trouble deciphering her concern. “Yep, I’ll be here Monday ready to do payroll!” (She replied with a smiley, I think I interpreted correctly.)
I think in this respect the Boss and I may have differing motivations. He wants his company to succeed and be profitable. I understand that; I’ve seen first-hand how much money he has sunk into it, and I also want it to succeed. But even more than that, I want to make sure the people working there continue to get paid. I want to be sure that the customers pay us, so I can pay our people. I fret when one of the 1099 guys doesn’t get his check in the mail. (Damn thing got returned, even though the address worked fine the week before.) I obsess over getting the payroll withholding exactly right, so it doesn’t cause problems for someone when they go to file their taxes. I exasperate the boss by rephrasing every money-related order he gives, to be sure I understood him correctly (and sometimes it turns out I didn’t, and clarification was necessary).
Ultimately we have the same goal; we want the new company to do well, even if it’s for different reasons. So I’m mostly feeling very pleased with how well things are going, with maybe ten per cent terror that I’m fucking something up in some way I haven’t yet discovered.