The pacific manufacturing company operates a job order costing system

Cost Accumulation System

When companies accumulate costs, they generally use either a job-order or a process costing system. The type of system used often varies based on the type of product or service provided.

Using the module readings, University online library resources, and the Internet, locate an article on how a company utilized a cost accumulation system.

Respond to the following:

Identify and describe the type of cost accumulation system that was used.
Explain how the system was used and, specifically, how overhead was allocated.
Discuss how the use of cost accumulation enhanced the company’s operations.
By August 27, 2015, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, September 2, 2015, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses.

Write your initial response in 300–500 words. Your response should be thorough and address all components of the discussion question in detail, include citations of all sources, where needed, according to the APA Style, and demonstrate accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Do the following when responding to your peers:

Read your peers’ answers.
Provide substantive comments by
contributing new, relevant information from course readings, Web sites, or other sources;
building on the remarks or questions of others; or
sharing practical examples of key concepts from your professional or personal experiences
Respond to feedback on your posting and provide feedback to other students on their ideas.
Make sure your writing
is clear, concise, and organized;
demonstrates ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; and
displays accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Grading Criteria

Assignment Components
Max Points
Initial response was:

Insightful, original, accurate, and timely.
Substantive and demonstrated advanced understanding of concepts.
Compiled/synthesized theories and concepts drawn from a variety of sources to support statements and conclusions.
16
Discussion Response and Participation:

Responded to a minimum of two peers in a timely manner.
Offered points of view supported by research.
Asked challenging questions that promoted discussion.
Drew relationships between one or more points in the discussion.
16
Writing:

Wrote in a clear, concise, formal, and organized manner.
Responses were error free.
Information from sources, where applicable, was paraphrased appropriately and accurately cited.
8
Total:
40
Assignment 2 Grading Criteria
Maximum Points
Initial response:

Was insightful, original, accurate, and timely.
Was substantive and demonstrated advanced understanding of concepts.
Compiled/synthesized theories and concepts drawn from a variety of sources to support statements and conclusions.
16
Discussion response and participation:

Responded to a minimum of two peers in a timely manner.
Offered points of view supported by research.
Asked challenging questions that promoted the discussion.
Drew relationships between one or more points in the discussion.
16
Writing:

Wrote in a clear, concise, formal, and organized manner.
Responses were error free.
Information from sources, where applicable, was paraphrased appropriately and accurately cited.
8

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying Chapter 3 , you should be able to:

· LO1 Compute a predetermined overhead rate.

· LO2 Apply overhead cost to jobs using a predetermined overhead rate.

· LO3 Compute the total cost and average cost per unit of a job.

· LO4 Understand the flow of costs in a job-order costing system and prepare appropriate journal entries to record costs.

· LO5 Use T-accounts to show the flow of costs in a job-order costing system.

· LO6 Prepare schedules of cost of goods manufactured and cost of goods sold and an income statement.

· LO7 Compute underapplied or overapplied overhead cost and prepare the journal entry to close the balance in Manufacturing Overhead to the appropriate accounts.

· LO8 ( Appendix 3A ) Understand the implications of basing the predetermined overhead rate on activity at capacity rather than on estimated activity for the period.

· LO9 ( Appendix 3B ) Properly account for labor costs associated with idle time, overtime, and fringe benefits.

BUSINESS FOCUS: Two Former College Students Succeeding as Entrepreneurs

When the University of Dayton athletic department needed 2,000 customized T-shirts to give away at its first home basketball game of the year, it chose University Tees to provide the shirts. A larger competitor could have been chosen, but University Tees won the order because of its fast customer response time, low price, and high quality.

University Tees is a small business that was started in February 2003 by two Miami University seniors—Joe Haddad and Nick Dadas (see the company's website at www.universitytees.com ). The company creates the artwork for customized T-shirts and then relies on carefully chosen suppliers to manufacture the product.

Accurately calculating the cost of each potential customer order is critically important to University Tees because the company needs to be sure that the price exceeds the cost associated with satisfying the order. The costs include the cost of the T-shirts themselves, printing costs (which vary depending on the quantity of shirts produced and the number of colors printed per shirt), silk screen costs (which also vary depending on the number of colors included in a design), shipping costs, and the artwork needed to create a design. The company also takes into account its competitors’ pricing strategies when developing its own prices. ▪

Source: Conversation with Joe Haddad, cofounder of University Tees.

Understanding how products and services are costed is vital to managers because the way in which these costs are determined can have a substantial impact on reported profits, as well as on key management decisions.

A managerial costing system should provide cost data to help managers plan, control, and make decisions. Nevertheless, external financial reporting and tax reporting requirements often heavily influence how costs are accumulated and summarized on managerial reports. This is true of product costing. In this chapter we use absorption costing to determine product costs. In absorption costing , all manufacturing costs, both fixed and variable, are assigned to units of product—units are said to fully absorb manufacturing costs. In later chapters we look at alternatives to absorption costing such as variable costing and activity-based costing.

Most countries—including the United States—require some form of absorption costing for both external financial reports and for tax reports. In addition, the vast majority of companies throughout the world also use absorption costing in their management reports. Because absorption costing is the most common approach to product costing throughout the world, we discuss it first and then discuss the alternatives in subsequent chapters.

Job-Order Costing—An Overview

Under absorption costing, product costs include all manufacturing costs. Some manufacturing costs, such as direct materials, can be directly traced to particular products. For example, the cost of the airbags installed in a Toyota Camry can be easily traced to that particular auto. But what about manufacturing costs like factory rent? Such costs do not change from month to month, whereas the number and variety of products made in the factory may vary dramatically from one month to the next. Because these costs remain unchanged from month to month regardless of what products are made, they are clearly not caused by—and cannot be directly traced to—any particular product. Therefore, these types of costs are assigned to products and services by averaging across time and across products. The type of production process influences how this averaging is done.

Job-order costing is used in situations where many different products are produced each period. For example, a Levi Strauss clothing factory would typically make many different types of jeans for both men and women during a month. A particular order might consist of 1,000 boot-cut men's blue denim jeans, style number A312. This order of 1,000 jeans is called a job. In a job-order costing system, costs are traced and allocated to jobs and then the costs of the job are divided by the number of units in the job to arrive at an average cost per unit.

Other examples of situations where job-order costing would be used include large-scale construction projects managed by Bechtel International, commercial aircraft produced by Boeing, greeting cards designed and printed by Hallmark, and airline meals prepared by LSG SkyChefs. All of these examples are characterized by diverse outputs. Each Bechtel project is unique and different from every other—the company may be simultaneously constructing a dam in Zaire and a bridge in Indonesia. Likewise, each airline orders a different type of meal from LSG SkyChefs’ catering service.

Job-order costing is also used extensively in service industries. For example, hospitals, law firms, movie studios, accounting firms, advertising agencies, and repair shops all use a variation of job-order costing to accumulate costs. Although the detailed example of job-order costing provided in the following section deals with a manufacturing company, the same basic concepts and procedures are used by many service organizations.

IN BUSINESS: IS THIS REALLY A JOB?

VBT Bicycling Vacations of Bristol, Vermont, offers deluxe bicycling vacations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other locations throughout the world. For example, the company offers a 10-day tour of the Puglia region of Italy—the “heel of the boot.” The tour price includes international airfare, 10 nights of lodging, most meals, use of a bicycle, and ground transportation as needed. Each tour is led by at least two local tour leaders, one of whom rides with the guests along the tour route. The other tour leader drives a “sag wagon” that carries extra water, snacks, and bicycle repair equipment and is available for a shuttle back to the hotel or up a hill. The sag wagon also transports guests’ luggage from one hotel to another.

Each specific tour can be considered a job. For example, Giuliano Astore and Debora Trippetti, two natives of Puglia, led a VBT tour with 17 guests over 10 days in late April. At the end of the tour, Giuliano submitted a report, a sort of job cost sheet, to VBT headquarters. This report detailed the on the ground expenses incurred for this specific tour, including fuel and operating costs for the van, lodging costs for the guests, the costs of meals provided to guests, the costs of snacks, the cost of hiring additional ground transportation as needed, and the wages of the tour leaders. In addition to these costs, some costs are paid directly by VBT in Vermont to vendors. The total cost incurred for the tour is then compared to the total revenue collected from guests to determine the gross profit for the tour.

Sources: Giuliano Astore and Gregg Marston, President, VBT Bicycling Vacations. For more information about VBT, see www.vbt.com .

Job-Order Costing—An Example

To introduce job-order costing, we will follow a specific job as it progresses through the manufacturing process. This job consists of two experimental couplings that Yost Precision Machining has agreed to produce for Loops Unlimited, a manufacturer of roller coasters. Couplings connect the cars on the roller coaster and are a critical component in the performance and safety of the ride. Before we begin our discussion, recall from the previous chapter that companies generally classify manufacturing costs into three broad categories: (1) direct materials, (2) direct labor, and (3) manufacturing overhead. As we study the operation of a job-order costing system, we will see how each of these three types of costs is recorded and accumulated.

MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING IN ACTION

The Issue

Yost Precision Machining is a small company in Michigan that specializes in fabricating precision metal parts that are used in a variety of applications ranging from deep-sea exploration vehicles to the inertial triggers in automobile air bags. The company's top managers gather every morning at 8:00 a.m. in the company's conference room for the daily planning meeting. Attending the meeting this morning are: Jean Yost, the company's president; David Cheung, the marketing manager; Debbie Turner, the production manager; and Marc White, the company controller. The president opened the meeting:

· Jean: The production schedule indicates we'll be starting Job 2B47 today. Isn't that the special order for experimental couplings, David?

· David: That's right. That's the order from Loops Unlimited for two couplings for their new roller coaster ride for Magic Mountain.

· Debbie: Why only two couplings? Don't they need a coupling for every car?

· David: Yes. But this is a completely new roller coaster. The cars will go faster and will be subjected to more twists, turns, drops, and loops than on any other existing roller coaster. To hold up under these stresses, Loops Unlimited's engineers completely redesigned the cars and couplings. They want us to make just two of these new couplings for testing purposes. If the design works, then we'll have the inside track on the order to supply couplings for the whole ride.

· Jean: We agreed to take on this initial order at our cost just to get our foot in the door. Marc, will there be any problem documenting our cost so we can get paid?

· Marc: No problem. The contract with Loops stipulates that they will pay us an amount equal to our cost of goods sold. With our job-order costing system, I can tell you the cost on the day the job is completed.

· Jean: Good. Is there anything else we should discuss about this job at this time? No? Well then let's move on to the next item of business.

Measuring Direct Materials Cost

The blueprints submitted by Loops Unlimited indicate that each experimental coupling will require three parts that are classified as direct materials: two G7 Connectors and one M46 Housing. Each coupling requires two connectors and one housing, so to make two couplings, four connectors and two housings are required. This is a custom product that is being made for the first time, but if this were one of the company's standard products, it would have an established bill of materials. A bill of materials is a document that lists the type and quantity of each type of direct material needed to complete a unit of product.

When an agreement has been reached with the customer concerning the quantities, prices, and shipment date for the order, a production order is issued. The Production Department then prepares a materials requisition form similar to the form in Exhibit 3–1 . The materials requisition form is a document that specifies the type and quantity of materials to be drawn from the storeroom and identifies the job that will be charged for the cost of the materials. The form is used to control the flow of materials into production and also for making entries in the accounting records.

EXHIBIT 3–1 Materials Requisition Form

The Yost Precision Machining materials requisition form in Exhibit 3–1 shows that the company's Milling Department has requisitioned two M46 Housings and four G7 Connectors for the Loops Unlimited job, which has been designated as Job 2B47.

Job Cost Sheet

After a production order has been issued, the Accounting Department's job-order costing software system automatically generates a job cost sheet like the one presented in Exhibit 3–2 . A job cost sheet records the materials, labor, and manufacturing overhead costs charged to that job.

EXHIBIT 3–2 Job Cost Sheet

After direct materials are issued, the cost of these materials are automatically recorded on the job cost sheet. Note from Exhibit 3–2 , for example, that the $660 cost for direct materials shown earlier on the materials requisition form has been charged to Job 2B47 on its job cost sheet. The requisition number 14873 from the materials requisition form appears on the job cost sheet to make it easier to identify the source document for the direct materials charge.

Measuring Direct Labor Cost

Direct labor consists of labor charges that are easily traced to a particular job. Labor charges that cannot be easily traced directly to any job are treated as part of manufacturing overhead. As discussed in the previous chapter, this latter category of labor costs is called indirect labor and includes tasks such as maintenance, supervision, and cleanup.

Today many companies rely on computerized systems (rather than paper and pencil) to maintain employee time tickets. A completed time ticket is an hour-by-hour summary of the employee's activities throughout the day. One computerized approach to creating time tickets uses bar codes to capture data. Each employee and each job has a unique bar code. When beginning work on a job, the employee scans three bar codes using a handheld device much like the bar code readers at grocery store checkout stands. The first bar code indicates that a job is being started; the second is the unique bar code on the employee's identity badge; and the third is the unique bar code of the job itself. This information is fed automatically via an electronic network to a computer that notes the time and records all of the data. When the task is completed, the employee scans a bar code indicating the task is complete, the bar code on his or her identity badge, and the bar code attached to the job. This information is relayed to the computer that again notes the time, and a time ticket, such as the one shown in Exhibit 3–3 , is automatically prepared. Because all of the source data is already in computer files, the labor costs can be automatically posted to job cost sheets. For example, Exhibit 3–3 shows $45 of direct labor cost related to Job 2B47. This amount is automatically posted to the job cost sheet shown in Exhibit 3–2 . The time ticket in Exhibit 3–3 also shows $9 of indirect labor costs related to performing maintenance. This cost is treated as part of manufacturing overhead and does not get posted on a job cost sheet.

EXHIBIT 3–3 Employee Time Ticket

IN BUSINESS: BUCKING THE TREND: USING PEOPLE INSTEAD OF MACHINES

For decades, overhead costs have been going up and labor costs have been going down as companies have replaced people with machines. However, at the French automaker Renault, the exact opposite has been happening with its no-frills vehicle called the Logan. The Logan was intentionally stripped of costly elements and unnecessary technology so that the car could be sold for $6,000 in emerging Eastern European markets. The car's simplified design enables Renault's manufacturing plant in Romania to assemble the car almost entirely with people instead of robots. The monthly pay for a line worker at Renault's Romanian plant is $324 versus an average of more than $4,700 per worker in Western European countries. Thanks in part to low-cost labor, Logan's production costs are estimated to be just $1,089 per unit.

The Logan is finding buyers not only in emerging markets but also in more advanced Western European nations where customers have been clamoring for the car. Renault expects sales for the Logan to climb to one million vehicles—adding $341 million to its profits.

Source: Gail Edmondson and Constance Faivre d'Arcier, “Got 5,000 Euros? Need a New Car?”BusinessWeek, July 4, 2005, p. 49.

Computing Predetermined Overhead Rates

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1

Compute a predetermined overhead rate.

Recall that product costs include manufacturing overhead as well as direct materials and direct labor. Therefore, manufacturing overhead also needs to be recorded on the job cost sheet. However, assigning manufacturing overhead to a specific job involves some difficulties. There are three reasons for this:

· 1. Manufacturing overhead is an indirect cost. This means that it is either impossible or difficult to trace these costs to a particular product or job.

· 2. Manufacturing overhead consists of many different items ranging from the grease used in machines to the annual salary of the production manager.

· 3. Because of the fixed costs in manufacturing overhead, total manufacturing overhead costs tend to remain relatively constant from one period to the next even though the number of units produced can fluctuate widely. Consequently, the average cost per unit will vary from one period to the next.

Given these problems, allocation is used to assign overhead costs to products. Allocation is accomplished by selecting an allocation base that is common to all of the company's products and services. An allocation base is a measure such as direct labor-hours (DLH) or machine-hours (MH) that is used to assign overhead costs to products and services. The most widely used allocation bases in manufacturing are direct labor-hours, direct labor cost, machine-hours and (where a company has only a single product) units of product.

Manufacturing overhead is commonly assigned to products using a predetermined overhead rate.The predetermined overhead rate is computed by dividing the total estimated manufacturing overhead cost for the period by the estimated total amount of the allocation base as follows:

The predetermined overhead rate is computed before the period begins using a four-step process. The first step is to estimate the total amount of the allocation base (the denominator) that will be required for next period's estimated level of production. The second step is to estimate the total fixed manufacturing overhead cost for the coming period and the variable manufacturing overhead cost per unit of the allocation base. The third step is to use the cost formula shown below to estimate the total manufacturing overhead cost (the numerator) for the coming period:

Where,

· Y The estimated total manufacturing overhead cost

· a The estimated total fixed manufacturing overhead cost

· b The estimated variable manufacturing overhead cost per unit of the allocation base

· X The estimated total amount of the allocation base

The fourth step is to compute the predetermined overhead rate. Notice, the estimated amount of the allocation base is determined before estimating the total manufacturing overhead cost. This needs to be done because total manufacturing overhead cost includes variable overhead costs that depend on the amount of the allocation base.

Applying Manufacturing Overhead

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 2

Apply overhead cost to jobs using a predetermined overhead rate.

To repeat, the predetermined overhead rate is computed before the period begins. The predetermined overhead rate is then used to apply overhead cost to jobs throughout the period. The process of assigning overhead cost to jobs is called overhead application . The formula for determining the amount of overhead cost to apply to a particular job is:

For example, if the predetermined overhead rate is $8 per direct labor-hour, then $8 of overhead cost is applied to a job for each direct labor-hour incurred on the job. When the allocation base is direct labor-hours, the formula becomes:

Manufacturing Overhead—A Closer Look

To illustrate the steps involved in computing and using a predetermined overhead rate, let's return to Yost Precision Machining and make the following assumptions. In step one, the company estimated that 40,000 direct labor-hours would be required to support the production planned for the year. In step two, it estimated $220,000 of total fixed manufacturing overhead cost for the coming year and $2.50 of variable manufacturing overhead cost per direct labor-hour. Given these assumptions, in step three the company used the cost formula shown below to estimate its total manufacturing overhead cost for the year:

In step four, Yost Precision Machining computed its predetermined overhead rate for the year of $8 per direct labor-hour as shown below:

The job cost sheet in Exhibit 3–4 indicates that 27 direct labor-hours (i.e., DLHs) were charged to Job 2B47. Therefore, a total of $216 of manufacturing overhead cost would be applied to the job:

EXHIBIT 3–4 A Completed Job Cost Sheet

This amount of overhead has been entered on the job cost sheet in Exhibit 3–4 . Note that this is notthe actual amount of overhead caused by the job. Actual overhead costs are not assigned to jobs—if that could be done, the costs would be direct costs, not overhead. The overhead assigned to the job is simply a share of the total overhead that was estimated at the beginning of the year. A normal cost system , which we have been describing, applies overhead to jobs by multiplying a predetermined overhead rate by the actual amount of the allocation base incurred by the jobs.

The Need for a Predetermined Rate

Instead of using a predetermined rate based on estimates, why not base the overhead rate on theactual total manufacturing overhead cost and the actual total amount of the allocation base incurred on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis? If an actual rate is computed monthly or quarterly, seasonal factors in overhead costs or in the allocation base can produce fluctuations in the overhead rate. For example, the costs of heating and cooling a factory in Illinois will be highest in the winter and summer months and lowest in the spring and fall. If the overhead rate is recomputed at the end of each month or each quarter based on actual costs and activity, the overhead rate would go up in the winter and summer and down in the spring and fall. As a result, two identical jobs, one completed in the winter and one completed in the spring, would be assigned different manufacturing overhead costs. Many managers believe that such fluctuations in product costs serve no useful purpose. To avoid such fluctuations, actual overhead rates could be computed on an annual or less-frequent basis. However, if the overhead rate is computed annually based on the actual costs and activity for the year, the manufacturing overhead assigned to any particular job would not be known until the end of the year. For example, the cost of Job 2B47 at Yost Precision Machining would not be known until the end of the year, even though the job will be completed and shipped to the customer in March. For these reasons, most companies use predetermined overhead rates rather than actual overhead rates in their cost accounting systems.

Choice of an Allocation Base for Overhead Cost

Ideally, the allocation base in the predetermined overhead rate should drive the overhead cost. A cost driver is a factor, such as machine-hours, beds occupied, computer time, or flight-hours, that causes overhead costs. If the base in the predetermined overhead rate does not “drive” overhead costs, product costs will be distorted. For example, if direct labor-hours is used to allocate overhead, but in reality overhead has little to do with direct labor-hours, then products with high direct labor-hour requirements will be overcosted.

Most companies use direct labor-hours or direct labor cost as the allocation base for manufacturing overhead. In the past, direct labor accounted for up to 60% of the cost of many products, with overhead cost making up only a portion of the remainder. This situation has changed for two reasons. First, sophisticated automated equipment has taken over functions that used to be performed by direct labor workers. Because the costs of acquiring and maintaining such equipment are classified as overhead, this increases overhead while decreasing direct labor. Second, products are becoming more sophisticated and complex and are changed more frequently. This increases the need for highly skilled indirect workers such as engineers. As a result of these two trends, direct labor has decreased relative to overhead as a component of product costs.

In companies where direct labor and overhead costs have been moving in opposite directions, it would be difficult to argue that direct labor “drives” overhead costs. Accordingly, managers in some companies use activity-based costing principles to redesign their cost accounting systems. Activity-based costing is designed to more accurately reflect the demands that products, customers, and other cost objects make on overhead resources. The activity-based approach is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7 .

Although direct labor may not be an appropriate allocation base in some industries, in others it continues to be a significant driver of manufacturing overhead. Indeed, most manufacturing companies in the United States continue to use direct labor as the primary or secondary allocation base for manufacturing overhead. The key point is that the allocation base used by the company should really drive, or cause, overhead costs, and direct labor is not always the most appropriate allocation base.

IN BUSINESS: REDUCING HEALTH-DAMAGING BEHAVIORS

Cianbro is an industrial construction company headquartered in Pittsfield, Maine, whose goal is “To be the healthiest company in America.” It introduced a corporate wellness program to attack employee behaviors that drive up health-care costs. The table below summarizes the number of employees in five health risk categories as of 2003 and 2005. The decreases in the number of employees in these high-risk categories are evidence that the wellness program was effective in helping employees make positive lifestyle changes. This should result in reduced health-care costs for the company.

Number of Employees

Health Risk Category

January 2003

March 2005

Decrease

Obesity

432

353

79

High cholesterol

637

515

122

Tobacco use

384

274

110

Inactivity

354

254

100

High blood pressure

139

91

48

Source: Cianbro, WELCOA's Absolute Advantage Magazine, 2006.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 3

Compute the total cost and average cost per unit of a job.

Computation of Unit Costs

With the application of Yost Precision Machining's $216 of manufacturing overhead to the job cost sheet in Exhibit 3–4 , the job cost sheet is complete except for two final steps. First, the totals for direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead are transferred to the Cost Summary section of the job cost sheet and added together to obtain the total cost for the job. 1 Then the total product cost ($1,800) is divided by the number of units (2) to obtain the unit product cost ($900). This unit product cost information is used for valuing unsold units in ending inventory and for determining cost of goods sold. As indicated earlier, this unit product cost is an average cost and should not be interpreted as the cost that would actually be incurred if another unit were produced. The incremental cost of an additional unit is something less than the average unit cost of $900 because much of the actual overhead costs would not change if another unit were produced.

MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING IN ACTION

The Wrap-up

In the 8:00 a.m. daily planning meeting on March 9, Jean Yost, the president of Yost Precision Machining, once again drew attention to Job 2B47, the experimental couplings:

· Jean: I see Job 2B47 is completed. Let's get those couplings shipped immediately to Loops Unlimited so they can get their testing program under way. Marc, how much are we going to bill Loops for those two units?

· Marc: Because we agreed to sell the experimental couplings at cost, we will be charging Loops Unlimited just $900 a unit.

· Jean: Fine. Let's hope the couplings work out and we make some money on the big order later.

IN BUSINESS: ONE-OF-A-KIND MASTERPIECE

In a true job-order costing environment, every job is unique. For example, Purdey manufactures 80–90 shotguns per year with each gun being a specially commissioned one-of-a-kind masterpiece. The prices start at $110,000 because every detail is custom built, engraved, assembled, and polished by a skilled craftsman. The hand engraving can take months to complete and may add as much as $100,000 to the price. The guns are designed to shoot perfectly straight and their value increases over time even with heavy use. One Purdey gun collector said “when I shoot my Purdeys I feel like an orchestra conductor waving my baton.”