The Last Day of June

Somehow, everytime a landmark moment or time comes up, we find ourselves saying, "Whoa - how'd it get to be July already? Where'd the time go?"

Do you know where your time went?

I used to wonder where time went, as well. Now I value my time much more highly. I use a planner for work but still - without writing it down - have plenty of "me" time and "us" time for Luis and myself. I definitely parcel out my time well. I've gotten better at monitoring my time at work. When I was first at this job, I would struggle all day with the payroll. That was my Monday and sometimes, some of my Tuesday.

Now, I get in around 0600 - today I got in late (I set my alarm for 1630 instead of 0430 - oops) - and immediately go through a series of "start the day" items. Breakfast first; I have never been able to forego breakfast and today is no different. I made myself a slab of ham steak and ate. Then I set up the TO DO items for today and moved any items from last week that did not get done. After that, I arranged my paperwork to reflect the organiser's set up. This is my morning ritual.

Next I go collect my weekend mail (incuding any forms dropped off for me), get any voicemail off of the VM system, and then go through my e-mail to see what timekeeping changes I need to make. I then weed through the 175 or so hourly employees' electronic time cards to see what punches I'm missing. Some managers are excellent about the monitoring of this; others, not as much. They all do something, and make the effort at least. I can't always ask for more than that.

That takes about an hour, maybe a little less. I then begin getting the information I need (if I can) from the schedules (another fun area...), then from the managers themselves. I'm lucky in that when it comes to the biggest department, 1. the main crews are all on the same schedule and 2. the administrator in this department is really great at dealing with this. So I have excellent help there. But they are not the most difficult department to monitor for missed punches. It's the Dining Room department - and that is just the way life is. There are set schedules but they change frequently due to member needs/event needs and while their start times are consistent 90% of the time, their end times really cannot be so rigid.

That is no one's fault and I will publicly say that the poor guy stuck with the joys of scheduling this sticky wicket does an EXCELLENT job. This is the hardest schedule to do and anyone will tell you that NONE of them are easy to do! So don't think for a moment I am complaining about the way that department is for timekeeping. This is in better shape than when I started and it is running much more smoothly than it used to. But there are too many unknown quanitities to events and happy partying people.

Back to my Monday: By the time I've done my morning ablutions and have weeded through the GenPro program to see what is good (most of it) and what has question marks, I then log into Ceridian and enter any information that needs to go in there - such as direct deposit information, a new hire, setting up all the new enrollees into the 401(k) --

YAYYYYYAAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I'm sorry, but that had to be done. It really did! I've had a dozen or so die-hard, I-won't-do-this employees who mistrust the 401(k) plan. I've spent one-on-one time with all of them and have slowly won them all over! Not all - but many more. The last list was 11 people who have been listed in the plan, plus the eight that are eligible to join now (for 1 July). Of the eight, only two forms are missing. One person I know really wants to be contributing; the other I just don't know. But of the 11 hold-outs, I have four of them coming to me to get into the plan! WAHOO!!

Oh, yes... I don't focus so well at this time of night. Back to my Monday...

By 0845 I'm ready to run the payroll and log in to the correct place. I upload the mecessary file and *poof*, just like that, all the employees hours and such showed up. Gotta love that. I had to enter this in once by manual methods - Shiver -never good.

By 0950, I have payroll completed and in the Controller's hands, along with the Driving Range reports. I also do the 401(k) upload, fill in 75% of the Scheduled vs Worked Hours report, finish updating the managemant time and the Benefits paid reports, as well as upload Pangburn's report.

I also distribute the hourly reports to each manager and file away my copies.

Tuesday is for normal work and then when the payroll arrives (usually late morning) I need about 90 minutes to complete the scheduled vs worked hours report, the Payroll Taxes report and the Kitchen comparison. First thing in the morning, however, I go through GenPro and perform weekly maintenance on it.