(no subject)
Most of the people that I know hate their jobs.
In general, people work because they have to. They need money. And so they deal with employment that they dislike to make ends meet. Some people enjoy what they do for a living, but they're far and few between compared to the majority of the work force, who puts their nose to the grindstone each day out of simple necessity.
Financially, there is absolutely no reason for me to have a job.
I have a job because I want the job.
And I want the job because I Love The Job.
I am an employee of H&R Block.
You've probably heard about my company on the news, and most likely there have been negative connotations attached to our name. We owe the IRS 32 million dollars in back taxes, due to mistakes we made filing our own corporate returns. We've been sued by the state of California over our Instant Refund program. We've been condemned by the NYS governor for extorting money from poor working-class families by encouraging them to enroll in 401 K plans, and offering them high-interest refund anticipation loans that the governor says is no better than stealing money right out of their pockets.
You've heard these things for one simple reason - the CEOs of H&R Block are all silver-spoon corporate big-wigs who've never sat a day in a tax office, prepared a private tax return, or met a client face-to-face. The people who run my company are flat-out retarded, and there's nothing that can be done about this - they sit in their luxury office chairs and hand down decrees to those of us in the trenches, but they have NO IDEA what we actually do, day to day, or why.
We are managed by monkeys in suits, and I will be the first one to admit this.
But nevertheless, H&R Block isn't the demon that we're being made out to be. We do NOT steal money from the working poor. I work in an inner city office, and most of my clients are on social security, welfare, unemployment, or have basically made no money for the year. These people aren't financially capable enough to prepare their own taxes, even with the aid of software like Turbo Tax - a program that, provided you know exactly how to do your tax return, will helpfully print and electronically file the results for you. But a tax software program is no substitute for a professional tax preparer who will sit down with these low income families, re-work their taxes until they've gotten them the highest possible deductions, and then help them plan for their financial futures. We offer these families 401 K retirement plans that will help them to create their first ever fincial nest-egg, instead of living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of their lives. We work with them to keep their fees as low and reasonable as our computer pricing systems will allow. We cut every corner we can when it comes to company beurocracy, and absolutely none when it comes to the quality of the work that we do for our clients. The refund anticipation loans that we offer DO have high interest rates, but they provide low-income individuals with a means of paying for their taxes - by having our fees directly deboted from their federal refunds - when they otherwise couldn't come up with the cash to pay us; it's not a scam to extort money from the working poor, but a tool to allow them access to the same professional financial services as middle and high income families, with the same high-quality results.
I work my ass off every single day to keep tax season low-stress and simple for my clients - and let me tell you; a lot of these "working poor" that we're supposedly ripping off are people who sell their child's social security numbers to strangers for drugs, who come into my office with cellphones more expensive than mine, manicured and pedicured, wearing 1000$ worth of designer clothes that they bought with their child support money. These people are NOT all victims, believe me - but I digress. It's not my job to make judgement calls, it's my job to do taxes. And at my office - that's what we do; taxes, plain and simple. We are not The Man, robbing from the poor to fatten the rich. We're not out to jerk anyone around, drain anyone's pockets, or be Big Corporate Assholes. We do taxes, and we do them better than any other tax pro company on the market today.
So don't believe all the shit that you hear in the news - take it from someone who's worked in the H&R Block trenches for a decade; my company's no angel, but it's not a demon, either - it's just a big corporation that does it's very best to function like a small business within the community. We may be run by corporate retards, but as far as customer service goes, we bust our asses every tax season to form personal relationships with our clients.
We're a good company, and we do good business. And I feel like it's time that someone stood up for it.
Sorry to bore the shit outta everyone :)