It’s a good think I’m only a bookkeeper and not someone with a more important job (like an accountant). I took a shortcut today that I never thought I’d take. I’m not proud of it, but it seems like such a minor thing, in the grand scheme. All I did was leave out a few steps. I might have still come up with the correct solution. I mean, I’m not a chef leaving out ingredients, or a cop tampering with evidence. I’m just a bookkeeper.

Of course, a bookkeeper’s reputation (and sometimes even his job) depends on accuracy. I really, truly hope my accuracy wasn’t compromised by the shortcut I took today. But the bill was already past due and I didn’t have time to make all the reconciliations and double-secret backup worksheets I usually do before I pay. I could be sorry, some time down the line, but I wasn’t thinking about down the line. I was thinking about getting the check in the mail and getting on with my day.

The workers comp payment is due on the eleventh of each month. Today is the twelfth. Yesterday was the eleventh, but it was a holiday. No mail. So I could probably justify (in my own mind if not in the real world) backdating the check to the tenth, as long as I could get it in today’s mail. The only way I could do that was by not double checking all the payroll figures, the way I usually do. They don’t always come out right on the first try, and I might be borrowing trouble when the auditor comes to check the numbers. But in my mind, being wrong was better than being late.

Hey, that would make a good slogan, if I should ever try to go into the freelance bookkeeping business. “Sometimes wrong but never late.” Except, of course, that this check, right or wrong, is already late. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.