(No) More Meat Please

Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse?  Fogo de Chao...Texas de Brazil...I know there are more whose names have escaped me...

They are a meat lovers paradise.  For anyone who has never been to one, I'll briefly explain. After you are seated you are offered an endless salad bar.  As far as salad bars go, it is top notch.  Quite possibly the best salad bars in the world!  Except no person in their right mind spends more than 2 seconds at the salad bar because you're not paying $50/person to eat lettuce - you're paying for meat!  So, you get a modest plate of lettuce and cheeses, enjoy them quickly, and then you're off to the races.

Endless meat.

Each person is given a card of some sort that has red on one side and green on the other.  When you need food you flip your card to green and gauchos (a fancy, perhaps Brazilian, word for servers) flood you with meat.  You want the chicken?  You want the pork ribs?  You want the filet?  You want the house special?  You want sausage?  ...

You can hardly answer one before the other is cutting off a piece of their slab of meat for you as well.

Then, when your plate is full and you are sufficiently overwhelmed you turn your card over to red to indicate that you have enough for the time being and need no additional food.  

Sometimes they listen, but sometimes they don't.  They seem to try to anticipate when your plate MIGHT be getting low, or when the person next to you has an empty plate, or when the plate across the aisle is empty...or when no one has an empty plate but they have a big ol' rack of ribs they just haaaaave to distribute.

Oh let's face it, green or red, you are essentially always fair game for the gaucho party.

And thus is the life in busy season in public accounting!

I got back to work on Tuesday after three days off and my usually-baren mail box was stuffed full of returns waiting to be prepared.  My heart felt a little hint of happiness as I was not forgotten on my long journey to foreign lands.  A couple of hours into my day, though, those returns had seemed to multiply and while I was spinning around endlessly in my chair trying to organize, scan, copy, enter, delegate and review I was also fending off the gauchos.  

Can you prepare this return?
Do you have time for this one?
Do you have a lot on your plate right now?  You do?  Well can I add this one?
Can you check this one for me?
Do you have time for a quick little check?
Hey - do  this.
Here.
dump.

The gauchos don't seem to see the red card that I know must be blazing atop my head.

Or maybe it's not.

Public accounting is a big game of time management, and I'm good at nothing if I'm not good at time management.  So to the gauchos, I say bring it on.  As for the endless plates of meat, I'll have to decline.  Sedentary days at the desk are bad enough on the love handles.

Yikes.

See ya in April!