Wednesday, January 30, 2008

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?

5 comments:

Anne C. said...

Good luck, Stacey! I thought that "S" on your chest stood for "Stacey." Now I know.

Stacey said...

Thanks. We spent 6 hours today just going over prelim stuff.

jr said...

"Faster than a spedding snowplow!" "More powerful than a steaming plate of pasta!"
"Look - behind the desk!"
"It's a book!"
"No, it's a stain!"
It's SUPERWOMAN!

(soft march music)Deported decades ago from the planet Mo-ron - super woman leads us in the neverending battle for blues, business, and the correct way.

(trumpets, now - big finish)

Mummy Grabill said...

Oh, I can only imagine why planet Mo-ron would have deported Stac . . . er . . . I mean Superwoman. Superwoman hates mo-rons!!!

Stacy, you can only do what you can do. Keep your chin up!

Anne C. said...

"and the correct way"
Hee! Love that, JR!