Sometimes I think I’m too incompetent to be trusted with the job I do. Right now I’m working on the Big Project, which in fact is creating a series of worksheets that will go to the accountant so that he can prepare our taxes and give us our annual financial statements. It’s an important job, because it has to be right, within the framework that I’ve been given. There are internal adjustments that mean nothing to the accountant but might mean something to the people who review our tax returns (you know who I mean) and the people who authorize bonds so that we can do more work and stay in business.

We want our taxes to be as low as possible, while our statements show that we are financially sound. It’s a tricky balance, and everyone I deal with knows I won’t fudge anything. But there are gray areas, where certain items can be looked at in different ways. That’s where I have to be careful, and frankly, I’m not always that careful.

I make mistakes during the year that could easily fall through the cracks when I do the year-end worksheets, and nobody would know the difference. Some of these mistakes would benefit the company if they were ignored, and others would be detrimental. My natural lazy tendency is to ignore them, because nobody would ever know the difference. In fact, that’s what I decided to do with a couple of them as I worked through the cost reports this afternoon. That’s such tedious work to begin with that correcting minor errors from a year ago seems like more of an added burden than I want to deal with.

But you know me. I had second thoughts, and I went back and made the correcting entries so that the work I end up giving the accountant will be as accurate as I can make it. I don’t expect a medal or an award for this, because (a) it’s my job, and (2) I shouldn’t have made the mistakes in the first place. But I wouldn’t mind a little credit for ending up with the best finished product I know how to produce.

The problem is that the more time I take making sure everything I do is accurate, the later I’ll be turning in the Big Project. The Boss has already nudged me a few times this week, trying to get me to commit to a time when it’ll be done. If I do that, though, there might be a greater chance that I’ll give him something with errors in it. Errors that could be corrected if I weren’t being rushed. It’s a fine line, and I’m probably going to work through the three-day weekend, just so that I can live with what I end up turning in.