I'm Batman, no wait Gumby....

So, I manage retail shopping centers. Part of my job, once a year, is to put a budget for each individual property together. If done correctly, this takes about at least a month if you are lucky, you get 2, to accomplish. You have to talk to vendors to see if they can hold their rate or what their increase will be. You have to see if services need to be adjusted. Walk each property and re-evaluate what capital work (anything that prolongs the "life" of the property and inevitably costs tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands) needs to be done, what can and what can't wait. Review the last 3 years worth of expenses and make sure you are in line - particularly with items you have no control over; How much will it snow, will insurance go up this year, will the utility companies jack their rates and if so, how much.
The reason I explain this is b/c yesterday we got the directive that budgets will be due Feb 15. Accounting hasn't loaded some of the budgets in the system from last year, so we can't analyze and they are not available for us to input into the spreadsheet that's due. Oh right, and the reports I need to run either have to be run by accounting in NY (I don't have access to them) or no one has ever showed me how to run them and our system, although I'm fairly literate with it and have taught myself numerous things, isn't user friendly so I can't just noodle them out.
Did I mention I have to go to Boston for mandatory training next week; I'll be gone 4 days. Then I'm attending a friend's daugter's wedding in Texas, so that's another 2 days. That leaves, today, tomorrow and friday, next monday, and the following monday, tuesday and wed. Oh right, forgot about the 2 hour accounts receivable call, the 2 hour property call, the 1 hour capital budget call (could I reassess this years remaining capital money b/c we may not be able to give it to you given our current cash crunch) and the various meetings I've scheduled before this mandate came down.
No other property manager in my region has 14 props; I'm the only one. They all have 5 or 6. 2 managers just quit, so my VP has to do their budgets. Considering he doesn't know how to run any of the reports he asked us to run, didn't know we don't process any of the utilties in the field nor do we see the invoices so we don't know what meters they run, and he also, is in this mandatry training, it should be interesting.
Did I mention I'm Superwoman?

Why?

And to borrow Anne's quote - WTF?
I'm so tired of being responsible for someone else's work over whom I have no authority nor control. I'm also tired of doing others work that have "don't know how to run that report"-itis. and another thing - why is it when I get conflicting info in order to do my work no one cares enough to fix it.

Okay, stepping off the box and hoping not to break my ankle doing so

Busy Weekend

Saturday brought Blue Skies and temps in the high 50s in Denver so we took off for the mountains to ski. We decided to go to SolVista Basin o ski. It's on the other side of Winter Park, in Granby. It's a small mountain where the greens are lime and the blues are teal. We got to ski for free, so it felt even better to sample this home-town mountain. The weater was perfect, we had a nice lunch in the sun and got in about 13,000 vertical feet whereupon we drove home and promptly took a nap and the watched the NHL All-Star Skills Competition.

I have also become addicted to a new show on Discovery called "Fight Quest". These two guys, one a cage fighter and the other an amateur boxer from New Jersey, travel the world to find interesting ways of martial arts, boxing and finding out how tough you really are. So far, boxing in Mexico, Pencat Silak in in Indonesia and KYOKUSHIN KARATE in Japan. It's fascinating.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful just for my friend's birthday. We had a brunch for Aileen at our house. Dawn brought potatoes, Paden brought deviled eggs and Anne made Frittatas which were muy yummy. We also had fruit and of course birthday cake. What kind, why red velvet, is there any other? And in honor of Aileen's Birthday, the cake had the Steeler logo and 7 candles for Big Ben. All-in-all a wonderful feast and good fellowship.

Countin It Down

I wish football season was 12 months long!

My friend Aileen and I, along with our hubbies and varied other people have spent the football season at each others homes watching our teams progress along the path to the superbowl. Unfortunately, neither have made it this year. That won't stop us, however, from watching the superbowl, eating fabulous food, chatting, rooting against New England and critquing the coaches. It's been fun to get to know other people and especially to spend more time with Aileen and Brian. All I have left to say is - Go Giants Go (I can't believe after all these years of not liking the Giants that I have to stand behind them - blech)