Available Time

It may sound nice to some. Available time. Like vacation or relaxation or down time. To an auditor in a public accounting firm, it's a very scary impending doom. Available time is dangerous. It could become down time in the office in which you have a chance to catch up on new accounting literature or some boring/sometimes helpful self studies or assist a manager in doing a few closing items for a client. However, most of the time, available time is snatched up by audit engagement teams that are drowning in paperwork with an impending deadline or by inter-office jobs. My personal favorite is the inter-office job. I was fortunate enough to get "allocated" to an inter-office job this past July. I was working for a client of the Albuquerque, NM office. You may remember me mentioning the hell that was the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. I think I spared my readers of this blog the really gory details, but lets just say that it made the Dallas Housing Authority look decent. Well, up until this evening, my work schedule had the next 3 full weeks of time labeled as "available". Back in July, I had 4 weeks as "available" in October. Back in July, I was so burnt out on all the traveling with vacation, weddings, and my "allocated" job in Fort Defiance, Arizona (NTUA) that I very quickly snatched up the first week of that "available" time for my own personal time (vacation). I have spent the past 4 days of this "vacation" catching up on KPMG work, cleaning and organizing the mess that was my home desk, cleaning out/ weeding out my closet and dresser drawers, and today, I actually went shopping and bought a small new wardrobe (thanks to Nordstrom's Junior's department, Ann Taylor Loft, and the original Ann Taylor). I had originally scheduled this time off in coordination with Patrick's birthday (today the 12th) and a trip we had planed for Fredericksburg, TX to visit his sister. Well, I'm kind-of glad those things had to fall out of my schedule, because I will be plenty busy the next few days. Today, when I got home from shopping, I had a few emails in my inbox entitled "City of New Orleans Audit". This scared me out of my skin. I have worked on enough city audits to know they are very difficult and time consuming. Fund accounting isn't easy. Totally more work than a regular audit. Add to that the reputation of New Orleans, one of the most corrupt and messed up city's in America, and I was about to quit. I couldn't believe my partner, who has always acted as if he's quite fond of me, volunteered my time to the New Orleans office to work on the City audit! I called my mother in a panic and in tears. How horrible! The city of New Orleans audit, as the senior-in-charge?! After I got off the phone and got ready to meet my parents for dinner at Pei Wei, I scrolled through one of the emails from scheduling. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. I have not been scheduled on the City of New Orleans audit. I have been scheduled on the City of New Orleans AIRPORT audit. I don't know if anyone out there can really appreciate the difference, but I'm sure you can imagine. Now the airport audit will be no "walk in the park". Believe me, I only have 3 days of experience (last year) on the DFW airport audit (not much experiance to be in-charge), and from the email, it appears it is a "one-man" job for 3 weeks. But noting could be as scary as the City of New Orleans audit. I have thanked the Lord above and my lucky stars that it's "only" the airport. It will be a very difficult 3 weeks, but it is managable. I don't think I could be so happy and calm about working on this audit if I had not suffered the scare that I would be working on the City audit (and as an IN- CHARGE, no less)! Things could always be worse. I'm so thankful that I am so lucky and have so many blessings to be thankful. I truly am blessed, I have all of you as friends. I love you all.
I also have a baby shower to attend on Sunday. There is no baby yet, and we don't know who the biological mother will be, but we know that someday soon (or at least in the next 18 months) my sister and her husband will be very very proud adopted parents of a Texas born baby. My first present to little Betsy-Jack (AKA, Elisabeth Victory or John Alan) was a white-knit blanket with a big red "D" for Davidson and a very soft monkey with long limbs and a red "Davidson" T-Shirt. My baby shower gift is a "comfort bouncer". I'm going to be an aunt someday soon!
All my love to all.....
All my love to you all