Careers & Conspiracies

I've often thought about the blessings that have come from choosing to study accounting. It seems I was being prepared for our current situation without even realizing what was happening. When making education and career decisions, I had no idea what life would be like for us now. I never would've imagined things to be the way they are. But had I known, I probably would've made no changes in my education or career path. Occasionally, however, I hate everything about accounting. Like today after I spent almost an hour on the phone with the IRS discussing an issue that I've been dealing with since LAST July. That's right, one full year. I have gotten two letters in the last five months stating they haven't had time to solve the problem. That's nice because I'm pretty sure they give people about 10 days to respond to the notices they send you and all the while they charge plenty of interest and penalties.

Now onto conspiracies. I buy into conspiracies about as frequently as I get annoyed with life as an accountant: almost never. HOWEVER, I am convinced the IRS and the post office have some lame agreement. The post office just accidentally doesn't deliver stuff to the IRS unless it's sent with the extra services. Basically, you can't guarantee anything is going to get where or when you want it to unless you pay for insurance, certified and return receipt. The IRS agent I talked to this morning kept asking me if I sent things certified with a return receipt and told me I should always do that. Shouldn't me paying postage be enough to ensure my stuff will be handled with care and delivered in a timely manner? Maybe I'll change my pricing structure for my clients. I'll start charging my hourly consulting rate and then I'll charge extra if they want a guarantee that I will comply with the laws.

Or maybe I'll just work for the government.