I had to do some necessary corporate business today. Nothing ran as planned, of course. Two of our people had to drive down from the other side of Philadelphia; they were behind schedule, but I was pushing through my work still when they arrived, so we did not leave immediately. Then we got caught in traffic in Delaware, and reached the bank later than intended. The bank business also took longer than expected, and we were unable to complete it because we apparently needed one more person’s signature. The forms he had to sign left with us, and are now in the mail. I never manage to think of everything, but I will give kudos to our corporate secretary, who managed to get me a sealed letter of authorization for the business on very short notice. Thank you, Josh.
Banking falls under the Best Laid Plans principle around here. In 1997, when the company was launched, we selected a particular bank to handle our accounts. The major factor in the selection was that we could open the account at a branch office in Delaware, the state in which we were incorporated, but do business at branch offices in New Jersey, the state in which most of us actually lived. Then over the next few years we ran smack into the unanticipated: banks started buying and selling each other, and our corporate account wound up in the hands of a Delaware bank with no New Jersey offices. Thus whenever we have to do any significant banking, someone has to travel over there.
On the brighter side, though, we now have some people in that area, and we managed to have a quick bite and chat with one of them (I can almost say the most important without offending, but there is another very important person who has also relocated to Delaware, and it would be difficult to say which has been more important over the long haul). Unfortunately, that too did not go as planned, as the delays in getting to the bank pushed us behind schedule, and he had to get to work earlier than we realized, and then he was interrupted by a phone call calling him away to deal with another problem before work; but it was good while it lasted.
It got me home rather late, with barely enough daylight left to barbecue the California roasts I’d left marinating. By the time we were finished and organized, it was ten o’clock when we sat down to a game (what, did you think game company executives would drive all that distance and not expect to play a game?). An extra player showed up, the man who needed to sign the forms who had gotten a message from me on his voicemail about some paperwork and drove out to address it. I tracked down his character sheet, and soon he was in the game too; that was good, as more often than anyone would guess the people who are really involved in this game don’t get to play for surprisingly long stretches.
However, it also meant that it is very late, and I am tackling the end of the day’s work while extremely tired, and mostly because I realized I’d let my laundry slip through the cracks and I need clothes for tomorrow. So I’m tackling what I can before I collapse.
–M. J. Young
