This is the busy season

Forwarded to me. Dunno the author. I can relate. =)

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Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to take a brief moment to explain to you what is known, in some circles, as "busy season". Here’s a hint before I get started though – it’s a season and it is very, very busy. Shocking, I know. If you’re an auditor (i.e. the last legal form of indentured servitude) or you have friends who are, you know this term well. Between January and mid-March, your ass belongs to whichever public accounting firm you have been fool enough to sell it to for the tuppence that you have agreed to accept as biweekly pay. You get to work at the butt-crack of dawn and routinely watch the sun rise from your desk. You see the cleaners so often, you now know the names of their children in ascending order of age and the name of their favorite pop group. You work through what used to be your lunch-break and is now just the ten minutes (usually around 3:45pm) during which you run to the bathroom, check your voicemail, check your email and/or catch your breath. You deal with bitchy clients, bitchy managers, bitchy receptionists, co-workers who used to be congenial but who are now just bitchy because they can’t stand busy season either. You get fat because of all the other things that your firm has denied you (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), it will provide you with the equivalent of your body weight in food with the highest caloric content possible. Here’s a snapshot into the snack-drawer (more like snack-closet) at my most recent busy season client – KitKat, Cheez-it, Cheetos, Doritos, Lays, Twix, Hershey bar, Ferrero Rocher (we’re classy, y’know!), Twix, Twizzlers, Reese’s Cups, Pringles, cupcakes, fruit snacks, yaki soba? -- all in bags weighing about a hundred pounds each. And what happens when you get frustrated, irritated and all-round aggravated? You reach for the snack drawer and pretty soon, your sizeable arse can no longer fit in your pathetic Office Depot swivel chair.

Of course, because of all the snacks you’ve been eating, you begin to break out, so you’re not just fat, you’re pimply and ugly too. This brings with it a wave of self-consciousness and low self-esteem comparable only, perhaps, to your ‘awkward teen years’. Perhaps. Your teeth begin to degenerate because you’ve basically been surviving on pure sugar and where do you think you’re going to find the time to visit a licensed dental professional? Not this busy season! You better pray your teeth hang in there till April.

When you notice the sun setting, you realize the second part of your day is just beginning! Your shoes start coming off under your little desk and you start getting real comfy – maybe you’re even sitting Buddha-style with your firm-issued laptop sitting beside your fifth cup of coffee of the day. The air-conditioning goes off, the client is long gone, the fatigue and the depression set in because you realize you’ve still got a full day’s work ahead of you and the partner’s just shown up. When you eventually get to leave work, your friends (remember those people? No? I didn’t think so) are practically already in bed. Oh, let’s talk about that – personal relationships. They’re shot. Just forget it. They’re shot because not only do you not really have any time to commit to nurturing these relationships, you’re so burned out from the day that the little time you do find to converse, you’re irritated, wired and snappish. So let’s recap; your formerly fabulous self has become an over-worked, under-paid, burned-out, pissed off, fat, pimply, love-less, friendless, sleep-deprived, caffeine-dependent mess, ticking and tying from here to eternity.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is busy season