1. Last week kicked off with the FP&A director casually mentioning that a ‘draft’ copy of a debt compliance package was needed. So out of nowhere, I had to turnaround a massive package in a couple of days when typically I have 6 weeks of lead time.
b. On top of that, I spent 3 days hounding the Colombian team, who is the primary liaison for the Brazilian team, to help resolve an issue that the Brazilian team should’ve addressed with the Canadian team 4 months ago. Confused? I was too at first, but it turns out the communication choreography was just the tip of the iceberg so I’ll spare you the details.
III. It took me 8 straight hours to fix a cash flow statement that wouldn’t balance, in part, because I spent half the time sifting through a sh*tload of Excel tabs and files. The Excel files were so daisy-chained that whenever I clicked on a cell I had to shuttle through 3, 4 and sometimes 5 different workbooks before I got to the source document.
4.1. The senior accountant who handles a bulk of the day-to-day work mentions she’s taking some time off next week. The CAO has already cleared it, but she’s just now getting around to telling me.
4.2. That same CAO, who hired me 3 weeks ago, and who has only been here for 6 months, just put in his resignation and will be out the door by the end of this week. Surprise!!
#5. Oh, and I still have to read through a 70 pg reporting package that I’m pretty sure only has 15 pages of relevant data.
And that’s not even the half of it!
.
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I spent a lot of last week shaking my head and mumbling “What the f***?!” to myself as I handled a rapid fire of issues and announcements. And what I realized was the sh*tstorm I was in wasn’t a passing thing, but a regular thing. Apparently, incessant fire drills are the status quo here.
*sigh*
So right now, I’m in bed, with a glass of wine, praying for patience. Lots of patience. And a bomb-ass recruiter.