Think of a number

The end of December saw some frankly dire performance against plan; wiping about a third off the surplus I’d been building up. Looking at January, if things don’t pick up, I’ll be well into the red before the month’s out. This is not, good.
Now obviously I want the figures to tail off towards year end - coasting to a respectable 100-105% of plan. But I expect to be intentionally stifling growth, not the victim of some unforeseen events.

This calls for some concerted effort to get things back on track - I'm off to see Finance to have the forecast revised.

Now the plan numbers are clearly wrong, but the usual response, at BigCo or elsewhere, would be 'mmm, yep we fucked up, good luck with achieving it'. However, in the warm and fluffy world of Stuff-u-Like, they're all very apologetic, and give me a figure lower than 06 actual.
The unreality of it all is comical. I'll do just as little work; make just the same amount of profit; but now it'll be 5% over plan, rather than 20% below. Not bad for 1/2 an hours work - I take an early lunch.