Crawling Into My Den

It's that time of year again: Tax Season Hibernation. Tomorrow marks the first unofficial day of the busy season at work. From now until May 1st I'll be buried up to my eyeballs in tax returns, FERC forms, 10-k's, and tax area allocation reports.

Most years are busy enough, but this year we get to do it with one fewer appraiser in the division. That wouldn't be a big deal if we had a dozen or so appraisers, but when you start with 5 taking one away makes a bit of a difference.

I've been told to expect to work about a week's worth of overtime over the next two months.

It's really not that big a deal, I guess. A lot of people work that much and more. Heck, I used to work a lot more than that at other jobs, and they were physically demanding. I've gotta say, though, that I'm more exhausted after 40 hours of thinking than I ever was doing physical labor. The physical labor has a way of rejuvenating you, the thinking just sucks the life out of you.

So just a word of warning: you may not see me much for the next ten weeks. For many of you I'm sure that's an answer to prayer.