It has been a rough few weeks. I went from having nothing to do most of the time and going out of my head.... to being totally and completely overwhelmed.
With the departure of Tess (see previous post of details) a lot of her responsibilites have fallen on my shoulders while my duties have been centralized at HQ. The only problem with that is, I am not an accountant!!! Most of the things that she did for close were things that I wouldn't even know how to start or even pretend to do. Closing November was a nightmare. I was working ridiculous hours and was on the verge of tears most days. I like to be really busy at work, but I HATE being busy with stuff that I don't know how to do. Could you figure out how to amortize intangibiles for a publicly traded company on your own when you've never even seen it before??? NO.... I didn't think so. I felt like a fool because I was constantly saying "I don't know" or "I need help" or "I'm totally lost". I was stressed to the max. This better improve because I can't handle that every month for a week. Every couple of minutes another email came in with another task for me... it was so frustrating.
We're also moving offices and that lovely project was assigned to me (and I was give basically 3.5 weeks to get it all done). I had no idea it would become such a logistical nightmare. I thought it would be time consuming, but fairly simple. um....WRONG! What a complicated mess it became and still is. I can't wait until this is all done.
I was/am responsible for everything from booking movers to working with Network specialists and electricians to wire the new location. What's with me getting assigned to tasks that I don't have a clue about? It makes it really stressful to know that it's ALL riding on you and you don't have a clue what your talking about. Where was our internal IT department through all of this you might ask? Oh... our office location doesn't have any official IT team. The closest team is in EMERYVILLE CALIFORNIA! Not only is that about an 6.5 hour plane ride away, but they are 3 hours behind us!!!! This makes life really interesting. When I asked if they would be coming up to assist with the move they said "we don't have the budget". So, they left me... who's on the Finance and HR team, to take care of it all. I keep getting calls like "When we move the BCM and the Megalink, what's the projected down time and who will be responsible to syncing the cisco with the network".... WHAT???? I HAVE NO FRIGGIN' CLUE! YOUR THE IT TEAM... FIGURE IT OUT!
Then I was basically volunteered by our Director of Engineering to work over the weekend to babysit the movers/ installers etc. So, Merry Christmas Ashley... your working the whole weekend before Christmas while the management and IT team sit on their asses at Christmas parties getting drunk. SWEET! Well- I actually don't have a clue what their doing, but I didn't see them volunteering to come in. It will be interesting because I will need to be in two places at once (new location and current location) so we'll see how that goes!
I was back and forth between the sites meeting security guys, landlords, electricians, phone installers, network installers blah blah blah. I've been over once today and have to go back TWICE more before I go home. I have to go at least twice tomorrow and who knows how many times on Friday. At least they're paying my mileage.
On top of all of this, we had a financial audit last week. For my office (and therefore the whole of one of the child companies) I am now the only one in Finance/HR. Therefore, while the whole Finance team in our US offices got to split up the duties for the audit for their companies, I had to do it all for mine. It's really crazy when 10 people are contacting you and everything they need you to do is priority# 1. Um... not possible people. I felt like screaming... "I AM ONLY ONE PERSON AND FINANCE IS NOT MY ONLY JOB. You all have clear cut jobs like-come to work, sit at desk, do AP all day long- and the next person is -come to work, sit at desk, do bank recs all day long. My list of tasks, roles, responsibilites is sooooo long and soooooo diverse I have-come to work, do AP, AR, deferred revenue, bank recs, professional services, collections, account management, project management, office management, supply ordering, HR dutes (RSP's, vacations, time off, new hires etc. etc.), special projects, baby-sit staff, plan staff functions, etc. etc. etc. "
Between coordinating the move on my own, closing the month, one other special project that's on a tight time frame, the audit and then doing THE REST OF MY REGULAR JOB, I am totally maxed out.
To top it all off, I was so looking forward to next week. I took Christmas Eve as a personal day so I was going to be off from the 24th through the 28th, work 3 days and then be off from the 1st through the 4th. Well... I get an email from our assistant controller that because it's quarter end, the finance team has MANDATORY WORKING DAYS on January 2nd and January 3rd while the rest of the company gets to enjoy a paid holiday. OH! and, the hours? 9-5 PST... I'm EST which means it's 12-8 my time. I'll be in the office, all alone (the rest of the finance team is in California) until 8 o'clock. My Dad (who I see 2ish times a year) generally visits during this time, so I'll be missing spending time with him to sit at work alone. I don't even know why they need me because they realized last month that I can't do any of the stuff that they need me to. So it will be just like closing November... I'll be sitting here alone, totally overwhelmed, getting 100's of emails asking me to do things that I don't know how to do and I'm sure I'll be crying. At least no one will be around to see it this time around (although no one saw it last time).
I'm sinking... soon I will just drown. I can't WAIT to start looking for a new job! I guess I should just be happy that I have a job at all right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment