For those who don't know...

In my real job, I have very strict standards for myself. I am organized. I keep deadlines. I leave my work so that any person could pick it up at a moment's notice and follow where I am at and what needs to be done next...say, like if I got hit by a bus or got *the* call that an agent wants everything I have ever written and I'm an overnight author success story. Well, the likelihood of me not showing up for work because of either of those is slim to none, but still I do my part to always be prepared.

The chick that came before me, well let's just say that all of her work has been sanitized. There is no evidence that this information lived a normal accounting life. It just appeared out of nowhere. It was not born of supporting documentation. It was not loved and nutured by a family of cross references. It has no friendships of tickmarks, ten-key tapes, or smudged pencil marks. No, this ugly step-child still bears the cleaniness it could have only known by being jerked fresh from the printer and shoved directly into a file folder. What absurd treatment of perfectly innocent financial information.

I have spent almost half of the last 48 hours sitting at my desk attempting to read, interpret, and make sense of the lack of information left for me. I have been doing this because it is my turn to produce the end result. I can't do that when I have no idea what the starting point is. I will brag enough to say that, with time, I could do it. I'm just that good. But I don't have time. My deadline is tomorrow. I would still be sitting there now if I didn't need a few things like food or sleep. And it's pissing me off right now that I can't make myself to do without those.

So we'll see what I can accomplish by the end of tomorrow. Maybe I can pull it off. Who knows. Both of my bosses realize the the trail I was left couldn't have been followed by a hardened sherpa. It's at least adding to my credit (and hopefully future paychecks) that I have gotten this far.

(In case you were wondering why this is posted on a writing blog, I thought I could use the practice at short story telling. I sometimes ramble and lose my point. For the record, I thought this one was good. Grade for me: A)