With the big SEC deadline on Monday there’s a good chance that some of you might be pulling some weekend hours. These are crucial moments where mistakes are not optional (especially food orders). Your attention to detail is paramount.
Being so close to a deadline can tempt some to cut corners, especially newbies. Things like ghost-ticking (btw, have we mentioned that everyone does this at some point?), plugging numbers and maybe not reading that draft of the 10-K as closely as you should are common shortcuts.
A reader passed along a link to an 8-K (no, not same form but the point is same you dolts) from 2005 for City National Bancshares Corporation of Newark, NJ and despite its age, it serves as an important teaching opportunity (emphasis unnecessary):
RESOLVED, a description of such 6% Non-cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series E, including the preferences and other rights, voting powers, restrictions, limitations as to dividends, qualifications, and terms and conditions for redemption, all as set by the Board of Direc you fucking new when i asked you liartors of the Corporation, is set forth in the attached Certificate of Designation Establishing the 6% Non-cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series E and Fixing the Powers, Designations, Preferences and Relative, Participating, Optional and Other Special Rights, and the Qualifications, Limitations and Restrictions, of the 6% Non-cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series E.
Do you see what happens? Intentional? Accidental? Doesn’t matter now, but somehow this awesome embedded message slipped by someone and now it lives for all eternity at the SEC. The point is, you should probably read every word of the filing to find obvious mistakes like these. Whether you choose to suggest a correction to your client is another matter entirely. Personally, we could handle seeing more of this.