5/26/13: Sunday is blogging day?

Whether it is good or bad, I don't know, but the fact is that I have been incredibly busy lately.  I am trying to meet some deadlines at work, deadlines that to the outside world would seem perfectly reasonable, but with all of the other things that come up every day at work, the deadlines keep slipping from my grasp.  Now, in an effort to get this weight off my back I have started working late every night (until about 8:00) and will work some weekends until I get it done.

The big deadline that is hovering over my head is getting year-end 2012 financials done.  I know, I know.  Year-end?  Shouldn't that have been done months ago.  And, yes, preliminary year-end financial statements were done months ago.  But you have to remember that I am new to this position and getting all of the asset and liability accounts reconciled has been an absolute nightmare.

The company I work for was started 15 years ago in the founder's basement.  We make an incredible product and by the sheer force of the product alone, the company now has about $20 million in revenues a year.  Along the way the company has hired some incredible engineers, which is why the product still stands out among the competition.  We've also developed some decent manufacturing practices.  Unfortunately, the books were never a top concern.  They were kept by someone that did not have any accounting background or expertise.  I was hired in August and I have been determined to clean up the books and make sure they are accurately telling the story.  This would be a big enough project without the myriad of other issues that keep getting in the way, projects like the factory in China.  I had no idea that China would take up so much of my time.  In fact, I am probably going back to China for a few days this week.  The relationship between the company I work for and the company in China is incredibly complex and somewhat of an enigma, even though we own 50% of it.  The biggest challenge is the difference in business cultures.  In the US we build business relationships on the basis of trust.  At the end of the day, we believe we can trust our business partners to try to do the right thing.  Yeah, everyone makes mistakes, we know that.  We also know that there are the occasional untrustworthy people out there that will try to steal from their partners, but for the most part business is built on trust.  The same cannot be said for China.  Listen closely to all of the stories coming out of China lately.  You will hear the same theme over and over and over again.  Corruption is rampant and pervasive, throughout the government as well as private industry.  In the attempt to get ahead in a country where the government "controls" everything, bribery and thievery are the ways an individual or a company can get a bigger piece of the pie.  It comes as a shock to the American business person when they realize that their business partner is not a partner at all, but an individual that is bent on getting the biggest piece of your company's pie as he can get.  It's disheartening and terrifying, all at the same time.  If you listen closely to the news you will also hear that many American businesses are pulling their manufacturing out of China.  Why?  I don't think it is because China is more corrupt than it used to be, but perhaps it is.  I think it is because it is no longer worth it to deal with the corruption.  China is no longer the ridiculous bargain it once was.  There was a day, not too long ago, when it was so cheap to manufacture in China that it was worth the risk and the hassle to deal with the corruption and dishonesty.  Not anymore.  With China's wages increasing, it is becoming more expensive to manufacture in China and solutions closer to home are getting more and more attractive.  Less corruption, lower shipping costs, easier logistics, less complex language barriers, fewer cultural barriers, the ability to automate so many more processes; all of these factors are starting to make manufacturing in the US or our close neighbors more attractive.  There are still some things to work out, like supply chain logistics, but keep listening to the news and you will begin to understand what we are up against as we try to keep the company in China running smoothly.  It certainly has been a crash course in international business.

There are also other parts of the business that I am getting involved in, that have nothing to do with finance and accounting, just because they are so in need of intervention that I can't help getting involved.  One of them is improving our employee benefit package.  I was disturbed when I learned that our cheapest health insurance plan was too expensive for some of our employees.  I was also not impressed with the package when I was hired.  I knew it needed to improve and I knew I had the expertise to make it happen.  I started talking about it practically on the first day that I was there.  Of course, talk is cheap and nothing was moving and it became pretty obvious to me that the only way it was going to get better is if I did something about it.  Human resources is often the department that is neglected by small companies, it is often a secondary function of someone that has other, more immediately pressing, responsibilities.  That is certainly the case at the company I work for.  The director that is responsible for human resources, and therefore the benefit package, wears many hats and has no previous experience in human resources.  With my 20+ years of experience working for small companies, I have way more experience working with insurance brokers and designing benefit packages than she does.  Therefore, about three weeks ago, I got the ball rolling on this.  I talked to my CPA who recommended three brokerage firms, we set up initial meetings that were attended by the manager in charge of HR, her assistant, and me.  After the initial meetings we narrowed it down to two brokerage firms, invited the president (who is running a company for the first time and also knows nothing about health insurance, benefit packages, or what you should expect from an insurance broker), and had second meetings with the two finalists.  One was a massive disappointment, the other blew us away.  That made the choice easy.  During our shareholder meeting on Friday we described the process to date and they approved our plan to switch brokerage firms and agreed with the direction we are going in regarding benefits.  Our plan is to offer a high deductible plan of which we will pay 100% of the employee's premium.  That way we will know that all of our employees have health insurance.  We will use that premium amount as the basis for what we will pay for the employee for the richer plans, so the employee will bear the cost of buying up.  We will also offer FSA's at a minimum, and may offer a qualified high deductible combined with an HSA plan, if feasible for a company our size.  I am very, very excited about these changes.  They need to happen.  Yet I am driving this change through someone else's department and it does slow down my progress in getting year-end financials done.  But sometimes I have to weigh the benefits:  Make sure everyone has health insurance vs. making adjusting journal entries to last year so I can tell the bank that the year-end numbers won't change again.  It's hard to choose reconciling a liability account over getting health insurance coverage for our employees.  The good news is we are going in the right direction on both fronts.  It's just that progress in one slows down progress in the other.

What impact has all of this had on my "Get Fit Initiative," you may ask.  None, really.  I get up very early every day and exercise hard, just like I have since February 2012.  I am trying to get to work a little earlier each day and I am working way later every night, so blogging is tough.  It's hard to sit down and put up a blog post when I think about everything I need to do at work.

Also, all of the hours I am putting in at work make maintaining my share of the chores at home just a little more difficult; therefore, I am using my time in the mornings to clean a little and make sure I am picking up at least a little bit of the burden of maintaining a household.  This is not at Jack's request, mind you.  This is something that is important to me.  It makes it easier for me, when I've worked a 12 hour day, to come home to a lack of clutter and to know that Jack has healthy food in the fridge to eat and doesn't have to wash my dishes.  The clutter is mine, by the way, not Jack's.  He is neater than me and puts stuff away as he uses it.  I tend to let stuff pile up on the kitchen and dining room table, or in the corners of the rooms.  He also does many of the chores around the house.  We've done a pretty good job dividing up our responsibilities.  So when I work 12 hours a day, the only time I have to do my part tends to be in the mornings, when I used to blog, and the weekends.  So, being very busy at work has sucked my blogging time away.

But my blog is important to me and it is important to others, as well.  I received a lovely email from a woman I used to work with at YBCA who told me that she has been reading my blog and that my blog has inspired her to start working with a trainer.  She said she has committed to exercising every day, for the rest of her life, and my blog helped her make that decision because my conversation helped her understand how important it is to her health.  Wow!!  Reading that email helped me understand that this blog helps more than just me, it helps others, too.  So I have committed to keep blogging, even if it is just once a week until my schedule allows me to blog more often.

So here's a quick update on my "Get Fit Initiative:"

• My exercise continues to go well with few changes to my routine.  I am strength training three times a week, meeting twice a week with my trainer and doing it once a week on my own.  I added the second meeting with my trainer for two reasons.  First, I was having a little trouble getting up on Friday mornings and driving to the gym, so I was starting to do makeshift workouts at home.  I was OK with the makeshift workouts, they were hard enough and in some ways the variety was good, but it was really laziness that was causing me to stay in bed for an extra half-hour.  Second, I had sessions that I had paid for and didn't use because of the transition period with Jeremy.  For a couple of months after he was promoted to manager he was still training me, but it was kind of "off the books" so we weren't scheduling the sessions on the system and using up the sessions I already paid for.  Therefore, since I was having trouble making the drive to the gym on Thursdays and I had paid-for sessions to use up, I decided to sign up to meet my trainer two mornings a week.  It has helped a lot.
  
  I do cardio three times a week.  On Mondays I swim, on Wednesdays I run, and on Saturdays I bike and run.  Some Saturdays I split them up, on other Saturdays (like today) I do them as a brick, and on yet other Saturdays (like next week) I add a swim and do a brick with all three.  Today, technically, is a Sunday.  Depending on what Jack and I have going on sometimes I flip my Sunday workout (strength training) with my Saturday workout.
• I am still eating more protein, which has caused me to gain a couple of pounds.  I am struggling to stay under 154 pounds, with my weight bumping up to 155 pounds at least a couple days a week.  On the one hand, I feel a whole lot better now that I am eating more protein; I am getting stronger and faster; and I look healthier.  On the other hand, I am eating some stuff I don't need to be eating (ice cream a couple days a week, candy now and then) and I could do better.  I am not eating any wheat, so that helps a lot.  I drink very little alcohol.  The last time I drank any alcohol was my birthday weekend (May 3rd) and then I didn't drink much.  But even the little I did drink caused me to feel kind of depressed for a few days afterwards.  It is just not worth it.  So the eating, for the most part, is fine.  I feel good about my decision to eat more protein, at least 100 grams a day, and not eat wheat.  Jack and I eat plenty of fruits and veggies.  Practically everything is homemade.  We eat no fried foods.  The only "dead foods" are clearly treats.  I suppose I need to eliminate those.  For some reason, that is hard to do.
• I have done a complete triathlon in training which is a 1500 meter swim, a 24 mile bike ride, and a 5 mile run.  I have run 5 miles in 50 minutes.  Those were two of my big three goals for the year.  The third is to be able to do a pull-up.  I am still a ways from that.  Now Ruth and I are starting to talk about a marathon (or a half-marathon) next year.  Maybe our niece, Elizabeth, will do one with us.  Setting new goals when I have accomplished my established goal is an important aspect of my plan.  Goals keep me motivated.  I'm not sure I could keep doing this every day if I didn't have goals more solid that "be healthy" to work towards.
• It is starting to dawn on me how serious all of the exercise is and how I have to take other aspects of training, like nutrition, seriously, too.  I bought some books on training for tri's to help me.  I find them difficult to read.  It just doesn't sound like they are talking to me.  On the other hand, I am loving the book I bought about total immersion swimming.  I am looking forward to becoming a more efficient swimmer.
• Jack is officially on the program.  He has lost several pounds, looks great, is eating better, and is exercising regularly.  It makes me so happy that he is doing these things.  I know exercise and good nutrition does not guarantee a long and illness free life, but it sure helps.  I want him around for a long, long time and it eases my mind that he is doing the things he can to make that happen.

I guess that's it for now.  It's getting late, I got to get out there before traffic gets ridiculous.

Have a wonderful day!!