The satisfaction of a job well done

I never thought we'd manage it but we've successfully negotiated year end on the stock ordering and receipt system, all the invoices have been reconciled, budgets closed, outstanding orders rolled over and standing orders renewed. Noreen's copped for most of the work herself as Betty's been off sick after getting a gyppy tummy on holiday (a present to herself for successfully completing two months' orders in the last two weeks of the financial year). I offer to help and am reminded how little I know of the invoicing process.

But 'tis done: save for twelve problem records all is well with the world.

Turns out that these problems are (hopefully!) the last of the ones caused by someone in IT deleting the programme files for the system one day last autumn. The subsequent disruption of live transactions broke some of the connections between the orders and the invoices and I'll have to manually edit the records and reindex them. We could safely leave them alone as they're not doing any harm but as we're crawled over twice a year by auditors it's as well to fix the links. It would be just our luck for those twelve to be picked out of the quarter of a million on the system. Not that we'll be telling the auditors than I can do this: that opens a storeful of cans of worms.

T.Aldous is overheard telling somebody that year end went very smoothly this year. Damned if I can imagine how he'd know one way or another. His understanding of the workload is immense:

"Why did it take three weeks to process these items?"

"Why has it taken three years to fill our vacancies?"