End of the month is traditionally a day when we try to ship everything that we possibly can so as to post the highest possible dollar value of shipments for the month. It can be quite hectic. But there is an even stronger tradition in these parts of hunting deer after Thanksgiving–and that’s not limited to men. C.M., the shipping supervisor, is out in those hills, too.

Last week I was asked to help out in shipping today due to C.M.’s absence and I was expecting a horrible day. But it was pretty uneventful. Tomorrow will probably be horrible. Sorry, but it will. The first of the month I have to cram out as many reports as I can, and one of the harder ones to put together requires some input from the people who are off hunting to do properly. Also, something I did today wasn’t documented as desired so they want me to go back and document it tomorrow.

But, today really wasn’t bad, and I am glad for that. There is this one shipment which is not going to be ready to ship until late today which we have instructions to ignore the usual, picky process for this customer and give the shipment to a special pickup late tonight. The trucker who picks up tonight is going to bring the freight to our usual truckers tomorrow. We are doing this hocus-pocus so that we can say we shipped more stuff in November. It’s dumb and it is going to cause us more work. But, today, it was pretty harmless for me.