Catching Up A Little

It's been a busy year!

Sorry for the long delay, I got really busy with work and while I knew it was a while since my last post, well missing a whole month is not a good thing.

Of course, better to miss a month of blogging than miss work or family. I also admit I have been paying a lot of attention to Baylor Football, especially the fantastic run by RG3, Robert Griffin III, as he won the Heisman Trophy and the Bear's first 9-win season in decades.

So, a bit of catching up. After a long hot, dry summer, we finally got a bit of cold and rain - and the battery died on the truck. I also broke a molar back around Thanksgiving, which means I have been to the dentist twice for what is going to be a 3-part root canal. Here's a thought - if waterboarding is out for interrogating terrorists, let's give 'em root canals. Just a thought.

But back to The Job. Those who have read my work, or more precisely put up with me, know I am a Credit Manager. The last month of the year is always a bit stressful, with trying to accomplish all the things your boss promised the board you'd do this year. DSO was 72 earlier this year, got it all the way down to 56, but of course I have been told I am expected to get it all the way down to 50 by end of year, something which won't even be mathematically possible if we ship the product amount we are projected to do, but there you are. The big challenge, though, is to address Bad Debt. Put simply, Bad Debt is the money owed which gets really old and usually has big problems associated with it. In my case, the biggest chunk-o-bucks in Bad Debt right now is stuck in a few accounts we have in a branch in the Pacific (can't toss out details here, for what should be obvious reasons). We've been negotiating with the customers to try to address some of this, and in one case the customer is just not speaking with us in an effective way.

Should never have loaned my magic wand to that Potter kid. Looks like I will need it to meet the expectation.