monday on a wednesday
so today at work i learned there's something i should have been doing every day since i started in tax, that no one told me about. it's a little process, but all the days i didn't do it kind of added up. i had a phone conversation with the guy in new york who's the go-to person for tax e-filing - the guy who has a very special talent for making me feel stupid, partly because i understand what he's saying only about half the time, and partly because he's terrible at explanations - he was trying to show me what to do, more or less, and the conversation included this:
me: you must think i'm really dumb.
him: i didn't say that.
me: no, you didn't, i did.
(he didn't say that. he's never actually come out and said he thinks i'm stupid. for all i know he doesn't think i'm stupid, but he sure as hell makes me feel like i am.)
and then i had a phone conversation with i guess my supervisor (she who trained me on all the tax stuff i need to know, and who i ask when i have a process and/or tax question) - she was working from home today - that included her pointing out something i did, and then asking me "and does that make sense?" and me mightily resisting the urge to say "no, it doesn't make sense, none of this makes sense!" because i'm not an accountant, and the number of things i don't understand about tax returns is EPIC.
i got home to discover that the mail carrier had just stuffed all the mail for the building into my box, so i took it inside, sorted it, took it back outside, and distributed it to the right boxes. (i didn't even get any, to add insult to injury.) but hey, i apparently can't do parts of my job, so why should i expect the mail carrier to do all the parts of theirs?
also i'm not getting nbc again and i can't watch anything on on demand. (i get an error message to make sure all the cables are screwed in tight, which they are, and if the problem persists i should call comcast. yeah, no.)
i'm morbidly curious to see what i manage to screw up or just plain not know tomorrow. it's going to be that kind of week.
in much better news, if you happen to have netflix (i don't), you can stream a bunch of movies from the early days of african-american cinema. neat!
also neat, there's a kickstarter for a vincent van gogh action figure. and yes, his ear comes off. their stretch goal is a removable bandaged ear. i love it.
what a new house in greater tokyo looks like. it's four bedrooms and costs the equivalent of US$400-480k, which i think is cheap. four bedrooms for $480k? with a heated living-room floor? and absurdly high-tech toilets? and, uh, no full-size oven? (apparently the japanese don't bake so much at home.) it's not huge, because greater tokyo, but did i mention it has four bedrooms?
me: you must think i'm really dumb.
him: i didn't say that.
me: no, you didn't, i did.
(he didn't say that. he's never actually come out and said he thinks i'm stupid. for all i know he doesn't think i'm stupid, but he sure as hell makes me feel like i am.)
and then i had a phone conversation with i guess my supervisor (she who trained me on all the tax stuff i need to know, and who i ask when i have a process and/or tax question) - she was working from home today - that included her pointing out something i did, and then asking me "and does that make sense?" and me mightily resisting the urge to say "no, it doesn't make sense, none of this makes sense!" because i'm not an accountant, and the number of things i don't understand about tax returns is EPIC.
i got home to discover that the mail carrier had just stuffed all the mail for the building into my box, so i took it inside, sorted it, took it back outside, and distributed it to the right boxes. (i didn't even get any, to add insult to injury.) but hey, i apparently can't do parts of my job, so why should i expect the mail carrier to do all the parts of theirs?
also i'm not getting nbc again and i can't watch anything on on demand. (i get an error message to make sure all the cables are screwed in tight, which they are, and if the problem persists i should call comcast. yeah, no.)
i'm morbidly curious to see what i manage to screw up or just plain not know tomorrow. it's going to be that kind of week.
in much better news, if you happen to have netflix (i don't), you can stream a bunch of movies from the early days of african-american cinema. neat!
also neat, there's a kickstarter for a vincent van gogh action figure. and yes, his ear comes off. their stretch goal is a removable bandaged ear. i love it.
what a new house in greater tokyo looks like. it's four bedrooms and costs the equivalent of US$400-480k, which i think is cheap. four bedrooms for $480k? with a heated living-room floor? and absurdly high-tech toilets? and, uh, no full-size oven? (apparently the japanese don't bake so much at home.) it's not huge, because greater tokyo, but did i mention it has four bedrooms?