I did payroll

I did payroll today. That made me happy.

While my health has taken most of my attention, the Pakistan project has continued without a hitch because I work with an amazing team. It’s a small group of internationals who support an equally small group of Pakistanis, but every one of them is dedicated to the project and its centerpiece, the News Lens news cooperative.

They all stepped right up and took on the responsibilities. I don’t have to worry about anything on the project while I’m recovering.

My company, NearMedia LLC, is the grantee for this project, and so I’m responsible for all the administration and finances as well as overseeing the activities of the project.  Most of those tasks are tedious – but payroll isn’t.

At the beginning of the grant, I set up a separate bank account. I pay all the team from that account via direct pay.

To access that section of the bank’s website, I use a security fob – a little device that generates a new six-digit number every minute. I have to enter that six-digit number to get access. Because there’s only one fob, and it’s with me, I’m the only person on the team who can do payroll. Can’t delegate it.

On the Direct pay page, there’s a list of payees. I could fill in the amounts for everyone all at once and click Submit. But I actually like doing them one at a time.

I picture the team member and think of all they did that month, and it makes me happy to click the button that pays them.

Today, doing payroll is an especially happy task. Not only because my team is so awesome that they let me recover without any worries about the project.

Because I’m alive to do it.

Today’s penny is a 2012. That’s the year this great team started working in Pakistan.