diff --git a/example-job-scripts/00-split-logs.sh b/example-job-scripts/00-split-logs.sh
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 07c4daf3b7b3d7ecbb7dd92de88b3c50463144e8..f152f1a737699fe0511e2ff455a638b526717030
--- a/example-job-scripts/00-split-logs.sh
+++ b/example-job-scripts/00-split-logs.sh
@@ -13,7 +13,17 @@
 module load Anaconda3
 conda activate gpfs
 
-logs=($(find /data/rc/gpfs-policy/data -path "*/list-policy_data-user_list-path-external_slurm-31[35]*/raw/*.gz"))
+# listcmd env var sets the command to enumerate datasets to process
+# supports passing args during sbatch, e.g. listcmd="cat split-list" sbatch <thisscript>
+# note: maxdeth speeds execution of find by avoiding deep dirs
+listcmd=${listcmd:-find /data/rc/gpfs-policy/data -maxdepth 3 -path "*/list-policy_data-user_list-path-external_slurm-31[35]*/raw/*.gz"}
+
+logs=($($listcmd))
 log=${logs[${SLURM_ARRAY_TASK_ID}]}
 
-split-log --no-clobber ${log}
\ No newline at end of file
+
+# for lazy submit. only do work if there is work to do
+if [ ${SLURM_ARRAY_TASK_ID} -lt ${#logs[@]} ]
+then
+    echo split-log --no-clobber ${log}
+fi