I'm finally remembering to update
New Guy that replaced Moon Moon is awesome and already finding errors that Moon Moon never did catch in his JEs after being there for 6 months. He's already asked questions leading to examples of why we fired Moon Moon, and already given me that wide-eyed, dropped jaw, "I don't believe you" look when I tell him a couple of examples. He's also worried that this position doesn't seem at all like a lot of work, and 1) he can't understand how Moon Moon wasn't able to accomplish the basic JEs that we had limited him to (let alone other work that he was supposed to start taking on), and 2) he's worried that he'll get bored and actually run out of things to do. I reassured him that as we were in the process of cleaning things up, he would definitely be given more work, but that in the past 6 months we were too busy fixing Moon Moon's errors to move forward with other plans.
We now have New Girl and New Guy who are both completely capable and understanding of accounting. I feel a heavy sigh of relief. Both of them will be 100% cross-trained so that either of them can do the same JEs as the other. As I have told them both, I feel confident that either of them could do ALL of the month-end JEs if only everything else aligned, such as getting the backup from other departments in a timely fashion, and the accounting system not slowing down to a ridiculous frozen molasses crawl during month end. However, that perfect alignment never happens, which is why we still need two people in this role. We're also losing the Junior Staff Accountant as of Monday, and we might not have to replace him and can divvy up his work to the new folks instead.
I wasn't done with the JE Month-End cleanup that I initially started as a task for this company, but already I'm being given a couple of other tasks. I'll be taking over one accounting task from the Jr who's leaving and looking to see what might need to be cleaned up there, although I'm still waiting on access to the accounting system that program uses. Bank Recon Lady has finally come to terms with accepting me coming in and helping her get those caught up, but she's going to have to train me on some things in the system that are different from all other systems I've worked with. In the meantime, she's also giving me pointers on the other system I'm inheriting from Jr, so she's gradually warming up to my presence and seeing me less of a threat to her existence or someone coming it to Tell Her Like It Is when she's been there 20+ years. That's never my goal, and I only call out issues when I actually see them, and I'm thinking she's starting to see that.
In other news, I've been describing my hair color as a Gothic Easter Egg.
We now have New Girl and New Guy who are both completely capable and understanding of accounting. I feel a heavy sigh of relief. Both of them will be 100% cross-trained so that either of them can do the same JEs as the other. As I have told them both, I feel confident that either of them could do ALL of the month-end JEs if only everything else aligned, such as getting the backup from other departments in a timely fashion, and the accounting system not slowing down to a ridiculous frozen molasses crawl during month end. However, that perfect alignment never happens, which is why we still need two people in this role. We're also losing the Junior Staff Accountant as of Monday, and we might not have to replace him and can divvy up his work to the new folks instead.
I wasn't done with the JE Month-End cleanup that I initially started as a task for this company, but already I'm being given a couple of other tasks. I'll be taking over one accounting task from the Jr who's leaving and looking to see what might need to be cleaned up there, although I'm still waiting on access to the accounting system that program uses. Bank Recon Lady has finally come to terms with accepting me coming in and helping her get those caught up, but she's going to have to train me on some things in the system that are different from all other systems I've worked with. In the meantime, she's also giving me pointers on the other system I'm inheriting from Jr, so she's gradually warming up to my presence and seeing me less of a threat to her existence or someone coming it to Tell Her Like It Is when she's been there 20+ years. That's never my goal, and I only call out issues when I actually see them, and I'm thinking she's starting to see that.
In other news, I've been describing my hair color as a Gothic Easter Egg.