I'm a Junior Staff Analyst (JSA) in the Local Agency Investment Fund (LAIF), in the Investments division of the California State Treasurer's Office (STO)¹. Sounds important, doesn't it? But what does all that mean?

Well, some of the above should be self-evident... At least the STO part... The LAIF invests the money of local agencies² in the Pooled Money Investment Fund (PMIA). A JSA is a starting position, that one qualifies for by taking a test that you need a bachelor's degree to qualify to take (although the test isn't all that hard). If that's enough background info, I can now bore you with the details of my day...

Well, I usually arrive at work a few minutes early (I start at 7.30 am). Since I'm generally the first person here, I go around and turn on the computers. After I log on and open up the programs that I will be using all day long, I check my email, and then get caught up with h2g2. By then, the phones have been turned on, and I alternate taking transactions with immersing myself in h2g2. I do this until 10 am, since the phones are ringing fast and heavy so that agencies can do same day transactions. Between 10 and 11, I balance either the deposits or the withdrawals. After balancing, I either make changes to accounts (if any requests have come in), adjust transaction amounts or dates (usually dates)(but I don't always have any adjustments to make), take calls (after 10, the phones slow down), all the while pulling h2g2 from behind my work screens when I have nothing else to do. Lunch is from 12 to 1 (13, if you insist on a 24 hour clock), and guess where I usually am...After lunch, I document any adjustments I have made, make changes on accounts if more requests have come, answer the phone, and, again, pull h2g2 forward at every opportunity. At 4 pm (16.00), I run the program that tells the system that another day is done, and my day is done at 4.15.

Lately, I've been mentioning more and more work stuff on h2g2, so I thought I'd define some terms... And maybe 'introduce' some of the names I mention every now and again...

LAIF people first...

• Eileen--the LAIF Administrator (my boss)
• Connie
• Kim
• Marian
• Doris

And, although I don't work with her much, I did get her to join, so I think I should link CrazyEight...

And I should probably introduce Sean... The only one in this office who might be younger than I... He's over on the investment side, and he's the one that helps with the physical stuff³. And he started a couple weeks before I did, so we've done some training together.

Now for some of the terms you might see me drop in forums...

• Phones--OK, so everyone knows what a phone is, but what you may not realize is that answering the phone comes before anything else... And sometimes it rings when I'm in the middle of posting something...
• Reconciliation--Doris normally reconciles the bank statements, but I do it every Friday, and whenever she's not here.
• Window, End of Window, EOW--We call the period between 7.30 and 10 am the Window--it's when people can call in to do same-day transactions. After 10, the transaction is for the next business day.
• Balancing--Done between 10 and 11... Pretty self-explanatory...
• Report, running report--EOW report⁴, End of Day report (I run the End of Day at 4 pm)

Well, now you know even more than before of something you likely weren't interested in anyway