Today I bought a shoe rack. I needed a shoe rack because I normally keep my shoes under my bed, and dust and other crap was starting to accumulate. It got to the point that whenever I put on a shoe, I'd have to shake the dust out, despite it only being put under my bed like two or three days earlier. So in my opinion, I thought it will prove to be a rather valuable asset.
But then breeds an interesting (somewhat) question. Having done (and done badly on) an accounting test last Friday night, I'm in an analytical kind of mood. I don't believe in letting this sleeping dog lie, smug and satisfied, having maimed me and half of the other people doing the “Issues in Financial Reporting” course.
Question: Can I classify my shoe rack as an asset?
To define an asset, the item in question must pertain 3 distinct properties as characterised by Australian Accounting Standards.
1) The item must be within the control of the party
2) The fair value of the item must be able to be reliably measured
3) The item must entitle the user to probable future economic benefit
So let's apply that test here. Is my shoe rack an asset?
1) The item must be within the control of the party
It's a shoe rack. It sits in the corner of my room now, having bought it at the reject shop in North Rocks. Why the reject shop?
Because I'm a student, and it's the best that I can do right now.
I'd like to think that I have adequate control over my shoe rack. Hell, I think my shoes have adequate control over my shoe rack. 7 pairs of my shoes and one pair of thongs sit on the different levels of this rack. They're heavy and durable, characteristic of the weight felt by walking a thousand miles in my shoes. They are a hardcore garment, and prevent my shoe rack from being blown away by the frequent tropical cyclones and gale force winds that give my room such a ravaged appearance.
Had this cow been wearing my shoes, it would be significantly less airborne
I don't expect my shoe rack to get up and run away any time soon. It doesn't have a life of its own, meaning it wouldn't cheat on me with any of my other furniture, without taking into account the risk of me smacking it down with my open palm (I joke!). So yes, I would like to think that I have adequate control over my shoe rack. At least I hope I do. The last thing I want is my friends to know me as 'the dude who couldn't even control a shoe rack'. They'd never ride in my car again.
2) The fair value of the item must be able to be reliably measured
Like I said earlier, I bought the shoe rack from the reject shop. It was a calculated investment, and I had seen it in the shop only a week before I rocked up today. That, my friends, is foresight at its best. The fair value is defined as the amount that I'd be willing to trade it for at an arms length transaction. So to illustrate the transaction that was made earlier today:
Dr Shoe Rack 12
Cr 'Cash' 12
It was a bitch to assemble though. A 12 dollar shoe rack from the reject shop, even if it was made in JAPAN, is still a 12 dollar shoe rack from the reject shop. Judging by build quality, improperly aligned screw threads and RUST, I'd deem it to be worth less than 12 dollars.
Assembling it was a pain in the ass, requiring the use of an electric screwdriver at several points to conquer the tinny-white beast. So taking into account things like build quality and the overall badassery that it took in accomplishing this feat, I think I'd have to recalculate the worth of this rack to be somewhere around here:
If I take away the drink from my happy meal, I'd still be reluctant to trade it for your piece of crap shoe rack
3) The item must entitle the user to probable future economic benefit
Yes. I do agree. This piece of crap shoe rack entitles me to far longer term economic benefits than your piece of crap happy meal does. While your kids are sent into prepubescent cardiac arrest (again, I joke!!), I won't be wondering where my shoes are, because I'll know EXACTLY where to find them. That is one of several perks that I am rewarded me having slayed this dragon.
Economic benefits come in abundance when you roll through life with a shoe rack my friends. I'll be out making more money, because the shoe rack helps me get there.
It calls my name to remind me, saying "Ren! don't wear those thongs today. You already have to run for the bus."
I won't have to reach under my dusty bed to grab a pair of shoes and risk triggering my already aggressive dust allergy, which might potentially lead to a sick day at work.
I'll be more fashion conscious and time efficient, because all my choices are right in front of me. It's like a smorgasbord of footwear at my convenient disposal.
And I think what might be the most rewarding benefit that I get from having built this shoe rack, is the overwhelming sense of accomplishment that I get.
Noah…I feel you bro.
So yep, I think I can, having applied Australian Accounting Standards, classify my shoe rack as an asset.
What implication does that have for me?
None whatsoever. I’ll clean the dust out from under my bed sooner or later, lol.
In other news, I like this song. I think from now on, when I post on this blog, I'll include a video of the song that I quote in the title of each entry.
It's 1:35am, and I have church in about 9 hours. And to think I haven't had coffee since year 12. In theory, this means that I need to wake up at 9:30, shower/eat etc, and leave at about 10am to get to church at 10:30. This is discounting the fact that James also needs to shower, among other things.
The thing is though, I know that I'm going to end up pushing it. I think that's part of my nature; once I get away with something, I want to try and push the envelope with it. Getting up in the morning is probably the best example. The process normally goes something like this:
-Day 1: Wake up at 7:30, shower, dress up, have breakfast, watch Sunrise while eating breakfast, out the door, budgeted for traffic, at work 20min before 9am start.
This is where things get interesting. At this point, I start to question myself every cold morning when I open my eyes about whether I'm doing things efficiently. I suppose that's a sugarcoated way of saying "I'm trying to find ways to justify being in bed longer". So eventually, the process evolves:
-Day 2: Wake up at 7:45, shower, dress up, butter some toast and watch Sunrise while toast is toasting, eat toast on the way out and finish it off when I brake during traffic, get to work 15min before 9am start.
-Day 3: Wake up at 8:00, shower, into the kitchen while wearing a towel to put toast in toaster, dress up, take toast out of toaster, eat it while driving, get to work 15min before 9am start.
I begin to see patterns on how each day progresses. This is where I start to make certain mistakes, like forgetting to budget for traffic. My morning routine continues to evolve:
-Day 4: Wake up at 8:15, shower, dress up, grab a banana, eat it while driving, get to work 10min before 9am start.
-Day 5: Wake up at 8:30, shower, dress up, get to work 5min before 9am start.
At this point, I push the boundary too far.
-Day 6: Wake up at 8:40, shower quickly, dress up, get to work at 9:05, 5 minutes late. Have tea at work for breakfast.
Now the pessimist in me would reason that I'm an idiot for waking up so late. But the optimist in me, the half of me that likes to sleep, would reason a little bit differently. That part of me sits on my shoulder during my reasoning process, and sounds way more persuasive than the other guy. "It had to happen sometime," he says, "at least now you know your threshold. Take it as a learning experience."
So I do.
-Day 7: Wake up at 8:35, shower, run into kitchen to grab a banana, eat it while dressing up, out the door and I'm at work at 8:58, 2 minutes before 9am start.
And that's how things have been working for me for the past two weeks. Equilibrium point has been reached, and I now maximize the time I spend in bed given all the 'important stuff' that keeps me awake into the early hours of the morning.
The crappy thing is, school holidays are over. Which means Carlingford is going to turn into a massive school zone, and traffic is going to be really heavy. Really, really heavy. It would be faster to take an escalator to work than to drive down that part of Pennant Hills Road.
I'm working at Isis at the moment, while writing up the first entry of this blog.
I don't explicitly know why I started this blog. I suppose it has benefits, like, I have something to put in that "write something about yourself" section of your facebook profile. On the contrary, life is freaking hectic at the moment, with interviews, rejections, assessments and exams, and everything else that only seems more important when you have to prepare for the above. I want to get so much done, but I feel like I have so little time. This is what I always seem to write about, lol.
Ceteris paribus, life is pretty good at the moment. I mean, despite how stressful everything is, I must be fine because my heart is still beating. After a cumulative 8 hours of sleep over the last 3 or so nights, my heart is still beating, strong enough to move on its own, and not collapse onto some caffeine-driven travelator. I just personified my heart.
That aside, here is a thought.
What is the purpose of money, if not for spending?
To elaborate, I mean, why have money, if we don't intend to one day spend it? I'm not encouraging compulsive retail therapy, or impulse buying, or anything like that. It's just an observation from the perspective of a twenty year old to-be graduate working in the business sector; people cling onto cashflows like fountains of youth. As if cash and security in wealth would actually lead you to live forever. I want to dispute this theory, because something about it just seems so, so wrong.
Or did I just have a brain fart.
It's just a thought. I mean, cash in coins, paper or credit is the most useless thing ever, unless you exchange it for something else. I suppose in thinking about what I want to do with my life, I can see that I'd wanna live a pretty good one. One that is, to a degree, comfortable, that would make me happy, but not complacent. I suppose a large part of me is scared of becoming a miser, or becoming somebody who measures success by how much money they make. These are a few things I've been thinking about lately.
So back to the second line of this post; why am I blogging at work? Normally, this would be our busy period, pandemonium in lodging every tax return from every procrastinating client by the ever-nearing lodgement date. The typical state of affairs in our office would look something like this:
But lately it's looked a bit more like this:
...and I don't have much work to do.
I wonder what the life cycle of a ball of tumbleweed is?
I've been told that I think strange things or that I think too much. Personally I think that I don't think enough. But here's some food for thought; cooked up on train rides, long drives, hot/cold showers, and ready for you to eat off your computer screen.
