CenterPoint Accounting and Payroll customer, Swisslane Dairy was featured in the May 21st issue of Progressive Dairyman in the article, “Michigan Dairies Featured in Robotic Milking Panel Discussion.” Swisslane Dairy is one of two farms who currently use the Lely brand of robots. Read the whole story here.

Cindy Bauer is the Marketing Manager at Red Wing Software. In the past several years, Cindy’s four wonderful children have grown up, moved out, graduated college, and several have gotten married. I caught up with Cindy to ask her about the transition and how it has been for all four children to leave home and move on with their bright futures.

• The last couple of years have been a whirlwind with all the changes in your household! Please tell us about your kids and what they’ve done since leaving home.

  We have two girls and two boys. Our daughter Jordan is the oldest and she and her husband, Mike, had a baby boy, Patrick, in September. Josh and Andrew are our middle children and are identical twins. Josh is in pilot training in the Air Force and will be marrying Kaitlin in December. Andrew is a financial analyst and just got married to Megan last month in Texas. Our baby of the family, Elizabeth, just graduated from college in December and is transitioning from student to full time career mode.

• What are some tips on how to stay sane with all the planning that goes into multiple graduations, weddings, etc.?

  My husband, Dave, and I have been married for almost thirty years and have been so lucky to have four children that certainly kept us busy and on our toes. Between years spent in hockey arenas, baseball fields, and other activities, it seemed like we were always running to the car for some event. We also owned our own business and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day and sleep was minimal! To keep everything and everyone organized, I was, and still am a planner. When the kids were in school, we had a big, white board calendar on the wall and it was rare that there weren’t three or four events scheduled on each day. I am also a huge fan of sticky notes! Now with lists for wedding invitations and budget items, etc., I have advanced to spreadsheets and reminder notes on my iphone…although I still always have a pad of sticky notes nearby.

• What are some of the things you enjoy and look forward to now?

  When Elizabeth left for college and there truly was an empty nest it was really hard to get used to life not on a roller coaster. But over time, you really do find other activities that take up your time. Dave and I are fortunate that three of our four kids live within an hour of us, so we get to see them regularly. Some of my favorite things to do are going to workout classes, reading, golfing, watching sports, and volunteering. Of course since our grandbaby, Patrick, was born, all of our worlds revolve around him and watching him grow. I think probably the best thing of all is we have four children that have met wonderful people that joined our family and now they are all our best friends and we really enjoy spending time with them.

Have you ever noticed when you ask someone what they “do” you usually get one of two responses; one, they are almost apologetic about their job, or two, their voice gets high pitched as they try to put some excitement into their answer that you can tell they clearly don’t buy into. What’s wrong with this picture? We all know we spend a vast majority of our life “working” and more time is spent with our co-workers than with our own families. How can we create some excitement into our chosen line of work, or our “job”?

We need to get a “gig”!

Just the word brings a connotation of fun and a sense of freedom! Musicians have gigs, comedians have gigs -- all of the “cool” jobs have gigs. Just think, an accountant could say, "I have a numbers gig." A software developer could say, "I develop 'gigs'" (no pun intended). I, a marketing manager, have a creative gig. You get the picture. Just the word “work” or “job” sounds boring, lacking the excitement and fun of what we know a “gig” to be. We spend too much of our life just working jobs, we need to recapture what the “cool” factor or passion was that brought us to the job and re-energize ourselves and rock that gig! If you are in-between a “gig” (like I might very well be after my boss reads this post), look for a “gig” not just a job. Life’s too short not to enjoy every minute of it, and when you find that gig, rock it!

In the past decade, we have seen technology in all forms expand faster than the speed of sound. We have expanded our lingo to include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, we discuss our memory capacity in our Smartphone’s, iPods and iPads, we save to the “Cloud” and read our books on a Kindle. Our encyclopedias have been recycled in favor of Google, Wikipedia and the like, and we keep in touch with friends, family, classmates and mere acquaintances on Facebook. Remember when an apple was something you ate? I can’t believe all of the exciting innovations technology has shown us in my lifetime. Like everyone else, I thrive on all it has to offer. However, there is a downside to all of this technical wizardry, and that’s the change that has occurred in customer service. I recently called my cell phone carrier to inquire about removing my son from our phone plan. He is a college graduate, making his way in the workforce, and finally his phone is up for renewal so he can have his own plan. After calling the 800 number and “speaking” with an automated voice that answered my call, I quickly realized the trade-off we sacrifice in the name of technology. I spent a good few minutes repeating to the “voice” on the phone that I wanted to speak with a customer representative, no-go, the voice couldn’t understand my request. I tried the word agent, support, technician and finally I said I wanted to purchase a phone, a-ha, those were the magic words that got me to a real person. It took over ten minutes and I finally reached someone to help me with my request. I now realize why our customers are so happy with our customer support. At Red Wing Software, we have worked hard to be a progressive company in the technology world, but we work equally as hard to offer customers the personalized service they have always known and should expect!

Red Wing Software partner, Aatrix Software Inc, the nation's leading Automated payroll reports, plain paper printing, and Single-Point payroll eFile processors, has announced an aggressive effort to increase their presence in the eFile industry. Click here to read the full press release.

Red Wing Software customers have been extremely pleased using the Aatrix system, which operates seamlessly within CenterPoint Payroll Software. It makes the tax filing process much easier! We wish Aatrix well with their future plans! New customers have only to gain by giving it a try!