Busy season

I am sure I have mentioned it, but we are in the throws of busy season right now in the Huebner household. I thought I would give a few details as to what the means to us and just some general observations by me to give you a better idea -

1) Our busy seasons aren't the exact same, which works out okay actually. Lela's is generally over at the end of February, mine more mid march. So right now Lela is in the throws of hers and though I am busy, I am not in the bad part like she is. In a few weeks those roles will likely reverse.
2) For me this generally means working later at night at home. I like to work in front of the tv, not that I am really watching it, but having it on in the background helps me relax for some odd reason. I will put on a movie in the background that I have seen a bunch while I work, a habit I picked up in college when my roomie Travis would watch Braveheart while studying for most exams. Right now my rotation includes Knocked Up, Superbad, 21 with a little Ocean's 13 mixed in. We have free movie channels for a bit so I have been rotating through those movies, with Knocked Up probably being number one since you know Lela is knocked up, except it is now cycling into a "oh, our lives aren't like that and some of the things on the movie are sort of sad actually" type thing where I can only watch certain parts. Once I get busy I will generally go to more of a Star Wars/Karate Kid rotation. Yeah, I know only cool people are into those movies;)
3) Weekends become a battle for efficiency. We don't watch any of our tv shows during the week (which includes 24, Lost, Heroes, Top Chef and Friday Night Lights) so we have to rush home on friday and then try to watch some fairly quickly so we can get to bed early, so we can get up early to go for a run before going to work. Yeah, its about as much fun as it sounds - I am all for getting an early start on my Saturdays since I am an old man, but there is a line that is a dot its so far behind us. If I were to need to go pick up something, say at CVS and we go back and forth about what to get a couple times, it escalates quickly into someone is wasting someone else's time because even trips to CVS must be ultra efficient. NOt that that would ever happen. . .
4) I have noticed that chain emails rise in public accounting land during this time. There's always a bunch of top 10 type lists floating around that say things like, 'The 6 phases of Public accounting' which would show how you come in all chipper and then are turned into this grumpy workaholic or "stuff accountants like" which would detail how we like post it flags, excel shortcuts, and workpaper references among other things. When the email goes out everybody talks and says, "that's so true, amen brotha." Well maybe I am the only one who adds amen brotha, but you get the theme. I think this yr there have been more, its sort of the cheezy christmas sweater party type phenomenon that occurred a yr or so ago. You know where everybody was throwing some variation of a cheezy christmas sweater party, and everyone goes because its such a novel idea, to the point where regular Christmas parties aren't cool anymore and you feel like you would never go to one of those any more? That's how these emails seem to have become, where its not enough to just say you are wore out anymore, you need a list. Actually, I am making a list of sort right now it seems, so basically I am now that cliche' guy. Whoops!
5) Lastly by the end of busy season I think we feel like we could never get anything done by just working 8 hr days, because we are brainwashed. Its almost eary being at home together and making a meal on a school night, you kind of look at each other like, woh, what should we do now. Obviously that feeling quickly disappears!

Anyway, just thought I would throw that out there so you all could better understands what busy season means and so you in accounting can have another list to say "amen brotha" to.