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10:20 a.m. - December 30, 2005
End Of the Year Procrastination
It�s the end of the year, and that means it�s our busiest time at work.

I don�t know if its procrastination, or waiting to see how one is doing financially, or a combination, but more people put off making their gifts until the wire in December.

(Frankly, we also have a big month in June, at the end of our fiscal year � as people remember to make their gift to be included in the honor roll, etc. But December is still our biggest month.)

There are a lot of rules, of course, that the wonderful IRS imposes on taxpayers. And I�ve had to read at my share of IRS publications and look at tax rulings from time to time.

The trickiest rule is the rule on when a gift is counted on December 31 of this year or not. If it�s a check, and the gift is postmarked by December 31, then it counts. But on a credit card, it has to be approved and debited against the credit card account by December 31. So if you mail in a credit card gift, and we can�t process it until after the new year starts, it doesn�t count for 2005. Technically.

At least I say so � others in the office disagree and we�ve had arguments about it. Yeah, that makes for some workplace drama � arguing over the IRS. Next up will be a lunch symposium about the Smoot / Hawley Tariff law and its ramifications in the present day, followed by a lot of beer drinking.

I know it�s arcane tax law, and I know it�s boring everyone. But it speaks of procrastination. Why wait until the last minute if you want to take a deduction by the end of the year? Why not estimate the income and make the gift earlier? Or better yet, make the gifts in January and February (or July, even). We�d be sure to process it quickly!

But donors will take whatever deduction they can, and all we can do is provide them a receipt. We can�t be their conscious.

�Ebenezer, you can�t take that deduction. It wasn�t processed until the 5th of January.�
�Bite me, ghost!�

But the last minute rush isn�t just limited to non-profits, though. Many businesses ship as much as they can in December, pushing their employees to the brink during the holidays.

Then in January, there�s nothing for them to do, relatively speaking.

People who work on the floor are used to it, but they really don�t like it, because it ruins the Holiday season for them (they�re too tired to do much of anything), and then in January they�re bored silly. I know they like the OT, but sometimes the OT isn�t worth it if you�re so tired from work you fall asleep on the Christmas ham and someone slaps a pineapple on you.

The publishing company I used to work for did a lot of shenanigans to make sure the books were �shipped� by December 31. That included loading books on a trailer, and parking the trailer off site until they could get a delivery appointment in mid-January.

They did these kinds of things at the end of each quarter as well. I know they wanted to make the quarter look better, but it�s an endless cycle. You�re artificially boosting the last month of each quarter, thereby artificially lowering the first month of the next quarter.

I don�t think the world would have ended if they decided at some point to just smooth it out to make a more constant workflow. Because if you�re only going to ship X amount of product each year. So pushing people to work 12 hour days and Saturdays (and even Sundays), then basically have nothing for the full-timers to do for the next two weeks doesn�t make sense to me, in a business sense.

And if you want to ship more product, then make sure the sales people do their job, and the product is made on time, so the distribution folks don�t have to go crazy at the end of the year whilst the rest of the company is barely working.

Silly me, being practical.

In most offices, too, that aren�t tied to distribution or year end panics (including some areas of our office, only us who deal with the giving side have to deal with the phalanx of philanthropy) the Christmas / New Years time means a lot of cushy schedules for those who don�t punch time clocks, but are salaried.

Dress codes get a bit more casual. Heck, once I went to work in baseball and hockey jerseys and jeans.

Instead of rolling in at 8 or 8:30, people come in around 9, 9:15.

Instead of leaving at 4:30 or so, people take off around 3, 3:30.

Lunches can get liquid.

Face it, sometimes there�s not a lot to do at times when your clients are taking extended holidays themselves. You just need a presence to make sure the world doesn�t blow up.

Even those under a time clock get a break, sometimes. �You can leave now and I�ll say you left at your normal time.� This is nice and builds morale.

So anyway, as you�re lazing around, keep our office in mind. Some of us are putting our nose to the grindstone, hoping to get all of the gifts processed in a timely manner.

Or we were, anyway. Because we have today off as well as the 2nd. Lah-di-dah!

 

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