Between two professional credentials that each need a lot of continuing education, plus family vacation time, you’ll find that Wendy works in weeks-long surges but is frequently out of the office in between. That’s okay, we’re planners, we’re good at this! Here’s how we put the Tea in Team:
- Wendy is the only one who can create trade proposals if you need to buy or sell things – but Gary can help you fetch money from your account if you need it for something we’ve planned.
- Wendy is the only one who can review and finalize tax returns – but anyone in the office can get you a copy of a completed tax return or tell you the status of the tax return.
- Need a statement or a Capitect report? Gary does the Capitect reports, and either Gary or Samantha can print and send you statements from the Custodian.
- Wendy is the only one who gives financial advice – but both Gary is able to give provisional, supervised advice in the form of, “here’s what I think the answer is, but Wendy will look at this when she gets back.”
- Wendy already doesn’t do the scheduling – that’s Samantha; or the billing and renewals – that’s Gary; or the data gathering of your statements for reports or tax prep info – that’s either of the above and sometimes Jennifer if she’s covering.
So, hurray, even though Wendy will be out of the office, we can keep everything running smoothly.
In 2022 Wendy’s vacations are scheduled to be:
- Each January, right after the big push to get year-end statements and organizers out, but before tax season hits, Wendy goes on a restorative vacation to get some sun and rest up before tax season hits. In both ’21 and both ’22 COVID caused those to be staycations, but in general expect her to be gone the Friday before MLK Day to the Friday after.
- Each April 15th, the moment tax season ends, Wendy gets a comp day for each week-end she worked in tax season. This is usually a staycation (split between Greenfield and Peaks Island) April 15th through April 27th. She won’t be off-grid if there’s an emergency, but we hope someone else can take a stab at helping people until she’s back at her desk in the last week of April.
- Wendy takes roughly a week off in June, July and August, each.
- She does a big “bucket list” trip somewhere – this year it’s to Istanbul, Budapest, Vienna & Munich June 22 – July 8. Helping our people reach their goals has inspired us with some of the YOLO spirit, too!
- She tends to take a week of vacation on Peaks. This year it’s roughly scheduled for July 18 – July 24. These are semi-working vacations.
- Each year she goes camping in Michigan with her dad – with very limited cell & internet service! This is a re-occurring trip: this year it’s scheduled for August 14 – August 20.
- There’s be a week in early October where she is going to be taking care of her “baby” when Wendy’s daughter has her OWN baby!
She doesn’t take any vacation weeks between the August and January vacations, but she does take the Wednesday and Friday off around Thanksgiving. We ARE open the week between Christmas and New Year for urgent last-minute tax planning and tax loss harvesting issues.
Conferences are scheduled for:
May 3 to 6 is the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) Conference Spring Conference in Atlanta.
Oct 8 – 11: XY Planning Network Conference, probably in Denver
September 28- October 1 (plus travel days): Alliance of Comprehensive Planners Annual Conference in Minneapolis
Sometime in November or December there’ll be a two-day tax update course, probably Dec 7-8 in Miami (with a long week-end to shore up Vitamin D levels) to follow.
Sometimes when people aren’t scheduled to be in the office, Wendy will spend time at Peaks Island on a “work retreats”, where she researches issues or learns new tools, or during COVID times attends virtual conferences. These are not vacations, but she can be hard to reach if she’s offline reading, writing, or in a conference. These dates are only a spare day here or there and she can be reached in an emergency. She’ll run regular email/trading block times during these location-independent work times; don’t feel bad for reaching her at Peaks if it’s not an actual vacation week!
In 2023, already spotted on the horizon:
In January ’23 she’s planning to go to Puerto Rico: tentative dates Are Friday before MLK Day to the Friday after.