Catching my breath

The weeks since vacation have been a whirlwind of activity for me at work. I knew it would be. I still wouldn't have done things differently. The long stretch of time with my family was a gift we all needed. But it did make for a rough return.

The office is always busy in January. Usually mundanities but things that take time. Changing files, removing old data. We have to save 3 yrs of stuff so there is this big shuffle of what to keep and what to consign to the lower depths. My company keeps talking about shredding old files pre-1990 but haven't done it yet. I have worked there since 78. Trust me, LOTS of files and lots of shuffling.

I need to complete a census of all residents for the city I live in. Time consuming since there are more than 300 apartments that I manage.

And this year, for reasons unknown to our staff, our regional mgr scheduled our annual audit by the local overseeing agency for January. It has been March for the 30 yrs I have worked there. This year, she thought January was nicer. Swell. There are tons of additional exhibits of paperwork that must be generated just to prepare for the auditors. My home office also decided it would be a nifty time for me to generate a spread sheet of data to prepare for a rent increase. I could feel my stress level rising as the month wore on.

Today was the audit day. 3 auditors descend on my office. 1 is nice. 2, well harder to read. They weren't nice last year when they essentially told me my files were not up to agency standard. I am an ultra organized Virgo type. That didn't sit well. What it boiled down to was overseeing federal agency had changed the regs on what should be in said files and had in its infinite wisdom failed to disseminate that information to field offices such as mine. Oh joy. So I have looked forward to this years visit with all the enthusiasm I would save for a doctor visit.

But things went well. I had obviously implemented all the new things they had discovered the previous year. They were happy. I was happy that they noticed that I had made the changes in a timely manner. Apparently afraid that I might become giddy with compliments, they waited till I had left the room before telling my office assistant that the files were "beautiful." Poor thing was horrified that they were telling her and said "but I told them you do the files!" Whatever.

It isn't that I want the accolades. But I know that future funding, and even the type of audits that we face, depend on getting the best scores possible. I don't know yet what our final score is, but it seems likely that we did very well. In my line of work this is far from our only audit. There is another one taking place at our main office right now. I have had to send files and data to them for this for weeks. And there are two other oversight reviews that can happen this year as well. But for now, I don't need to worry about that. I have survived this one and things are well. And that is enough.