wherein Liz has an interesting morning
Apr. 9th, 2019 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingI was at Not the IRS this morning (9am-1pm) basically to catch walk-in clients. I got two.
The first I sat down, asked a couple questions, and said, "You need to see Office Uncle. He's the guy who specializes in handling people in your particular tax situation. Let me schedule you an appointment with him." So that was quick and painless.
(The situation, btw, is "graduate student in the US on a non-resident visa". We get a lot of that in Ithaca, because Cornell. Some of them are very simple, but once you add in any complicating detail, things can get very messy very fast. Hence Office Uncle's specialization.)
The second client, on the other hand, was a TRIP. She brought in six W2 forms, and as I typed them up, proceeded to tell me, in a very loud voice, how she'd quit every single one of those jobs because either they made her work with underage alcoholic drug addicts, they refused to let her organize appropriate safety procedures, or both. (I have, shall we say, my own opinions about why she can't hold a job.) She also told me a number of confused stories about her parents and the zero population movement, how she should have been a twin but wasn't because [train roars past], how she got a stress fracture in a large bone but she would say no more because [train roars past], how we were both people and the computer isn't a person and isn't that remarkable, and so on.
I am actually pretty good at navigating that sort of conversation for short periods, particularly in a structured encounter -- which a tax prep interview is -- so we ended with her thinking I'm the bees' knees and very happy to return next year. But wow, that sure was something.
She's going on my list of most notable client encounters, right up there with some of my old smoke shop customers. Still not as out there as the man who told me he'd cured his girlfriend's diabetes by giving her a diet of foods balanced from all seven continents, and wanted a coffee blend similarly balanced, but I don't think anyone's ever going to top that level of disconnect from reality. (Coffee doesn't even grow in Europe! The climate is all wrong! *headdesk*)
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I think I will now take a short nap (just half an hour or so) before moving on through my to-do list for the day. :)
The first I sat down, asked a couple questions, and said, "You need to see Office Uncle. He's the guy who specializes in handling people in your particular tax situation. Let me schedule you an appointment with him." So that was quick and painless.
(The situation, btw, is "graduate student in the US on a non-resident visa". We get a lot of that in Ithaca, because Cornell. Some of them are very simple, but once you add in any complicating detail, things can get very messy very fast. Hence Office Uncle's specialization.)
The second client, on the other hand, was a TRIP. She brought in six W2 forms, and as I typed them up, proceeded to tell me, in a very loud voice, how she'd quit every single one of those jobs because either they made her work with underage alcoholic drug addicts, they refused to let her organize appropriate safety procedures, or both. (I have, shall we say, my own opinions about why she can't hold a job.) She also told me a number of confused stories about her parents and the zero population movement, how she should have been a twin but wasn't because [train roars past], how she got a stress fracture in a large bone but she would say no more because [train roars past], how we were both people and the computer isn't a person and isn't that remarkable, and so on.
I am actually pretty good at navigating that sort of conversation for short periods, particularly in a structured encounter -- which a tax prep interview is -- so we ended with her thinking I'm the bees' knees and very happy to return next year. But wow, that sure was something.
She's going on my list of most notable client encounters, right up there with some of my old smoke shop customers. Still not as out there as the man who told me he'd cured his girlfriend's diabetes by giving her a diet of foods balanced from all seven continents, and wanted a coffee blend similarly balanced, but I don't think anyone's ever going to top that level of disconnect from reality. (Coffee doesn't even grow in Europe! The climate is all wrong! *headdesk*)
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I think I will now take a short nap (just half an hour or so) before moving on through my to-do list for the day. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-10 12:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-10 01:19 am (UTC)