June 13, 2014
Dear Everyone:
My upstairs neighbor (she’s working on getting her
CPA) and I were
talking about organization.
She postulated that I, being a
Records Manager, must be very organized.
Well, yes, at least at work.
Back in the days before “The Paperless Office”, when everything was
printed on “hardcopy”, I used to construct whole towers of stacking desk
trays to try and keep all that paper under control.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
At work.
At home, it was different.
Come home after a hard day’s work, drop the mail on the dining table.
And, before you know it, there’s a mountain of paper on the
table. “Horizontal storage”
one person called it. This
became a problem when I would overlook paying certain bills because they
got lost inside the mountain.
At various times I would take a stab at organizing the mail.
I got some plastic table-top drawers and marked them “Bills”,
“Medical” (because I was getting a lot of mail pertaining to health
concerns) and “Receipts”.
There were other drawers, of course.
One for “Beggars”, all those “worthy organizations” that could
save the world if I would just send them a preselected amount of money.
One for “Thieves”, those companies dying to issue me yet another
“pre-approved” credit card.
And one just marked “Mail” for everything else.
Needless to say, this was the biggest drawer.
And it overflowed in a very short period of time.
As did the “Beggars” drawer.
In fact, one year, out of curiosity, I set up a large bin just for the
“Beggars”. And a second bin
when the first one got too full.
At the end of the year, I sorted through all of these “worthy
organizations” and put them into individual piles.
There were dozens of them, many from organizations that I had
never contributed to (they talk to each other.)
I discovered one organization had sent me over 50 missives, begging for
money. That works out to
about one per week. Did they
think I was made of money?
Others “settled” for once per month.
I have a certain amount of money in my annual budget for
Charitable
Organizations, the
tax-deductible kind.
I made a list of these organizations and, once I received a
request, I put it in the “Beggars” drawer and marked it on the list.
I had some mailing labels left over from some project or other and I
used these to create “Return To Sender” labels.
Once I had received the first envelope from an organization, I
placed a label over my address and put it in the mail for the Postal
Service to return it to the sender.
In time, some of them started to get the hint, even the once-per-week
group. “Maybe she died,”
they speculated, and eventually stopped spending postage on me.
In any case, the avalanche has decreased substantially.
More recently, worthy organizations now all have websites where you can
make contributions using your credit card.
No postage required.
But make sure you have enough money to pay off that card.
The
IRS allows you to deduct the contribution, but not the 26%
interest that the credit company charges.
Now, excepting the obligatory election deluge, the mail is much easier
to handle, at least for me.
“Jeannie”, on the other hand, not so much.
In fact, the last time “Alice” came for a visit, she tried to help
“Jeannie” get her mail organized.
They purchased a small two-drawer cabinet (assembly required),
which we set up right next to the front door.
As soon as “Jeannie” came inside with the mail, she could drop
any bills, incoming checks, and other “action required” mail in the
upper drawer (we even labeled it for her) and less important mail in the
lower drawer.
Then “Alice” went home.
The next time I came by “Jeannie’s” place, I noticed that the little
cabinet was no longer by the front door.
It had moved to the dining room.
A few weeks later, it moved into the downstairs bathroom.
And the mail was once again forming a mountain on top of the
little round table in the middle of the living room.
In other words, Situation Normal.
Nevertheless, in the interests of Full Disclosure, my
“To-Be-Filed” stack (bills paid, paperwork waiting to be filed) is
currently about six inches high.
Nobody’s perfect.
Love, as always,
Pete
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