the deep moans round with many voices

I have been working a lot of overtime at the rental company, because August is our month of AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH (in other words, half of our apartments turn over during a 3-week period and then there's the concentrated chaos of several hundred new tenants moving in), and I should probably go work some more overtime tomorrow even though Wednesdays are one of my two days off per week.

The thing is, I'm not sure any of the apartments I still need to stage/photograph/video will be ready? But then again, I do have a bunch of other tasks I could afford to throw a few hours at, and just having an additional body in the office to answer phones and wrangle people who walk in the door is extremely helpful.

Also I am not just getting paid time-and-a-half for extra hours -- at the end of the month, I'm going to get a check that totals up an additional $2 for every regular hour and $3 for ever overtime hour I work during August, so I do have a mercenary motivation as well as a bleeding heart guilt trip motivation.

...

Yeah, I'm gonna go in, but I think not until 11am because bleep mornings anyway, and I'll do my best to leave around 4pm. (I suspect I will fail in that attempt, but it's good to have goals. *wry*)

And now, I think, to bed. :)

Today at work Mr. Geniality, Mom Boss, Aunt Boss, and I had an hour-long meeting with Lawyer Man to discuss potential new methods of data tracking so we can get information to Company Owner in A) a timely manner and B) in a format he understands, which will hopefully then 1) keep him happier, 2) stop him from giving us price and availability information based on incomplete or outdated information, and 3) create a single searchable database going back at least five years.

It's a good idea! I am unsure how practical it will end up being, but we really do need a way to present data to Company Owner that ( cut as a vague gesture toward data privacy )

Some of the information Lawyer Man wants in the database is about inquiries and prospects, which is NOT going to work out the way he wants because he clearly doesn't understand how ephemeral most inquiries actually are, and also there is no good way to automate our email responses any further than we already do via templates that are then adjusted to suit the specific questions each person asks.

It would be nice to automate tour reminders, though. That's a good thought.

...

Anyway, aside from that I spent my day entering prices and lease dates on our website, and also entering the same prices as market rent data in a separate database tab for the accounting department -- at least when I had prices, because Company Owner still hasn't priced a floor and half of one building, or the majority of apartments in another, smaller building. *sigh*

Tomorrow I will work on price charts and tables, and probably also posting new ads for downtown properties, the way I have been working on new and updated Collegetown ads since the start of September.

I am not entirely sure how I ended up in charge of our online ads, but it's probably for the best. Mr. Geniality is great, but he never remembered to refresh or update anything when he was still in charge of our Apartments.com listings, and Mr. Artistic is still struggling with our Collegetown craigslist update schedule, and I refuse to hand off the other Collegetown ads until he gets that down. (I don't do Facebook or Instagram stuff -- that's Social Media Guy's job, though I do provide him the basic ad text for monthly campaigns -- but pretty much everything else is now in my purview.) There are times when if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

And then maybe I can get back to making building key plan printouts for Company Owner, after which I can FINALLY get back to editing all my apartment photos from this summer (and the backlog from last summer, ARGH).

...

I'm going to go finish my test on advanced rental real estate tax issues now. I feel like it will be less stressful.

(Oh, also I got my annual [reason redacted] bonus check, which is for a very nice amount, and I think I will promptly chuck half of it at my IRA. So that's one good thing!)

Things about this week:

1. Worked in the Collegetown office on Monday, as per usual. Got a bunch of stuff done, but not the main project Miss California left for me -- mostly because of an absolute deluge of packages that had been building up over the Thanksgiving break. Do not speak to me of packages. *headdesk*

2. Had my annual urology checkup on Tuesday. Because of my kidney stone, I go in once a year to get an ultrasound of my bladder and kidneys, give a urine sample, and have a 5-minute consult with my urologist. This year my urologist was out of the office for undisclosed reasons, so it was just the ultrasound and urine sample. Apparently that meant I had no copay, since I didn't see the doctor -- even though that is the most useless part of the checkup??? The intersection of capitalism with health care never stops being absurd.

3. On that note, I signed into the NY state health insurance website last night and updated my information (insofar as I could, without having some relevant info from the rental company). According to the data I entered, I am no longer eligible for the Advance Premium Tax Credit, which on the one hand is good (yay, I am earning more money!) and on the other hand is annoying (boo, I have to pay more for health insurance). So today I talked to Ms. Rise-and-Shine at work to get information about the health care the rental company is offering for 2022-23, and honestly I think I may go with that plan? It sounds like a reasonable deal, and it's not like I'll be any more able to carry a state-based plan with me to Minnesota than an employer-based plan.

4. On a semi-related note, I think I need to fix my tax withholding. This requires filling out a new W4 form, ugh. I despise the revised W4 form -- I just want something where I can say, "I file single and take no deductions; please withhold based on that, plus an extra $whatever per pay period for federal taxes and an extra $whatever per pay period for state taxes."

5. I probably could have attended the Zoom version of a church board leadership training session last night before attending my paid training course for Not the IRS, but there is a limit to how much information (and how many online meetings) I can handle per day, and honestly, no. Too much.

6. The Not the IRS training course was ridiculous, honestly. It was 85% about marketing and I cannot stand marketing. (I mean, it's okay when it comes to apartments, I guess? But I hate working that crap into tax prep. I just want to ask you some questions, make numbers go into the right places, and explain to you why you wound up with any given refund/bill and how to tweak your plans for the coming year to change that final number.) I should go log back in and take the test tonight but I don't want to. Honestly, I think I would prefer to do that during my lunch break tomorrow.

Yes. That is now my plan.

7. In response to the campaign finale of Rusty Quill Gaming: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I mean, I do respect Alex's craft? And I think that the ending is shaped correctly in terms of story structure, character arcs, and narrative weight. But holy FUCK does that need an epilogue. (Which I know we will get, but still! I want it NOW, not next week!! *shakes fists at the sky*)

8. This afternoon the rental company had our annual meeting to introduce new employees, discuss upcoming challenges for 2022, and hand out year-end bonus checks. It was a silly time of day -- 3pm is late enough that most people had already eaten lunch, so the pizza and soda were fairly superfluous -- but eh, whatever. My bonus check was very nice this year. :)

And now I think I shall websurf a little before falling into bed.

Things done today:

1. Attended the third session of my virtual tax CE course on investment income. Now I just have to do the case study portions and the test will unlock.

2. Set up auto-pay for my car loan. However, that won't kick in until October, so I then went into town and made my first payment in person. I have decided to pay more than the minimum each month so as to A) pay the loan off faster and B) pay less interest.

3. Started a new paint-by-number project. Which reminds me, I don't think I posted about my previous paint-by-number project over here -- that's all been on Tumblr, which has a simpler image posting interface. I will correct that omission at some point.

4. Picked up the second of the two loaves of bread (baked to order) that I purchased at last year's service auction. It is delicious. :)

5. Belatedly did homework for and attended the second session of my virtual church Board of Trustees training course.

I am working to get a new savings account set up, which I will then use exclusively to pay down my car loan. (I want to make sure I always have enough money in there, basically, and don't get it muddled with either my actual savings or my general checking.) This has been unnecessarily complicated, mostly because my own bank -- the bank at which I already have two accounts and am setting up this new account -- decided it couldn't recognize me and had to go the long way around on verifying that I do, in fact, have access to my own savings account. *headdesk*

Also one form I need to print out, complete, and mail in got utterly mangled in the download -- probably because it's in a horribly outdated version of Word rather than a .pdf -- and nobody has yet answered my question about whether I should come to a branch office in person to fix this, or if it's okay for me to fill out and mail the horrendously formatted version that I managed to open via Google docs.

...

Anyway. Moving on!

I always used to get the occasional car insurance junk mail, but they were addressed to "Current Resident" or something equally anonymous.

Since I bought a car, I have received two car insurance mailings address specifically TO ME BY NAME, and also experienced a sudden upsurge in car insurance spam email. Privacy is really a very thin illusion, you know?

...

I bought a jug of wiper fluid, and some little tissue boxes. I need to rig up some kind of waste basket or trash bag, but that may take a bit of thought, some scissors, and possibly a clothespin or two, and is best undertaken on a less beastly hot and sticky day than we've been suffering through this past week or two.

...

I should get back to editing apartment photos now. *sigh*