Too Big to Fail?

Lucky me.  I picked accounting as a career and the world was in the midst of total financial chaos.  I worked for a small family owned business with about 240 employees.  There was a billing department, I had someone to do payroll and HR, another for Accounts Payable and one person for Accounts Receivable.  No one else had any accounting experience, none.  I assisted the owner with everything from financing equipment, mortgages on warehouses, budget administration, banking relationships and reporting to preparing journal entries and doing bank reconciliations.  I had worked there for almost 20 years.  This was the absolute worse time for me to be ill.  The banks were on top of everybody.  They wanted constant reporting, budget revisions, ratio analysis, our financial statements as soon as they were complete and projections for the next month.  I couldn't work a full day as it was.  My husband came in to help me out when possible, but I knew they had to do something yesterday.  Our financial year end was March 31st.  I would stay to finish off year end as much as I could, but they would have to call in some troops to assist.  At this point I finally announced that I could no longer keep up and was going to have to take a leave in order to get better.  I gave my notice that my final day of work would be April 27, 2010 and I would have to be placed on disability full time.  Ugh!  I had been doing accounting since I was 17, actually even before that.  I started as a file clerk at 14, did payroll at the age of 16 for the same company I was life guarding for.  I started full time at the age of 17 while pursuing my Certified General Accountant designation.  33 full years of sitting at my desk, leaning over paperwork, using a calculator and a computer.  Hmmmm.  Focal Dystonia???  Only, it would involve not only my hands but my back, legs and buttocks from sitting for hours on end.  Oh yeah, my neck as well from being bent over the desk and looking down at the computer screen or paperwork.  It was time for me to leave and use all my efforts and total concentration on getting better.