Taxpayer #2 Strikes Again

I've got this tax thing down now -- it took me less than two hours to incorrectly fill out my federal and state taxes online this year. After I submitted the federal forms I even got the standard "Dear Free File Taxpayer #2" email.

Then I got the rejection notice about five minutes later.

Automatic rejection is apparently my new superpower. I'm never playing the lottery online.

Anyhow, I went back and clicked the radio button that I forgot to click the first time.

Then I got the second rejection email.

And I went back and clicked the same radio button again and submitted it again.

The third time was the charm for the whimsical binary gods, which is good since I don't think Rvan has any pull with the IRS.

I'm trying to figure out how to turn my new superpower into something useful or even lucrative, but I'm really having a hard time here...

It's Easter...

Today was Easter which, in practical terms for the non-observant amongst us, really just means that parts of Woodland were closed all day and other parts of Woodland were open most of the day but closed early. I walked my dogs downtown, but there was no Easter parade for us to impress people at.

Anyhow, Easter for me means that I didn't get to buy groceries for the week because Nugget closed at 8 instead of 10, so I was one of the four people trying to walk through the non-opening automatic doors at 9. It's not the end of the world -- sure, I could have used some yogurt for my falafel, but I probably won't starve to death in the next week because I'm eating lunch at restaurants every weekday now.

One problem with going in to work every day is the lunch choices. Now instead of the regular Monday (Chinese), Wednesday (sushi), and Thursday (cafe) schedule, there are a whole two new days to fill. There just aren't another two restaurants near work that have food worth looking forward to every week, so that means that we'll actually have to make decisions at lunch time.

But really, if this is the biggest complaint I have in my life (and I'm not saying that it's not a super-important thing...), I probably have it pretty good.

Success...

Well, congratulations are certainly in order for myself because I managed to get to work on Monday well before 7:45, so rest assured, the fate of East Germany does not lie in wait for my new company. Probably.

Naturally the training didn't start until at least 8:30, by which time I had almost gone back to sleep again. It would have been a little less painful if I had, because I was locked in a room for the morning with two young HR reps, three new salespeople who didn't look old enough to drive, and one adult manager in sales.

For four hours we talked about how to be successful. Frankly I consider it a success if I'm gainfully employed and don't hate to go to work in the morning, but apparently if you're in human resources or sales, you must have a plan about where you want to be in five years, and five years after that. Sadly, audience participation was required, and "I don't care, can I go do my work now?" wasn't considered a valid response.

I got to see a Powerpoint presentation with the pictures and descriptions of all of the West area sales management. I don't remember any of them.

By the end I was somewhat delirious from the lack of sleep and caffeine, so the part where we joined hands and sang Kumbayah around a campfire made of the laminated company credo may have been a dream. At least I hope it was.

In the afternoon we got to learn how easy it is to offend everyone and what to do about it. We were joined by one extra person, so it was the three teenagers on one side of the table and three "seasoned" people on the other side of the table. The little kids got every question wrong because they were thinking about the questions as any nice, innocent people would. My side of the table got every question right because we've been around long enough to know that the correct answer in these sorts of training is always "rat everyone out as soon as possible so the company doesn't get sued". The only tricky part is coming up with a reason that doesn't sound like that. If someone were keeping score, we would have crushed the kids.

Then I went back to my cubicle and did some actual work.

Disorientation

After nearly four months (or four years, or possibly eighteen years depending on how you calculate things) I will be an official employee as of tomorrow.

Yes, I managed to pee in a cup not once, but twice (or even three times if you count the time almost four years ago), and pass the background check again (and actually that also was the third time in four years). There were also interviews with four different people. All for a job which I've been doing successfully enough this whole time that they opened the position in order to hire me (or someone at least as capable) in the first place.

So... if you're wondering why your cell phone bill is so high, now you know.

Anyhow, tomorrow I receive my secret decoder ring and learn the company handshake. At least, I think that's what is supposed to happen. It must be really important stuff because I'm supposed to be there at 7:45 in the morning. Without admitting too much, we'll just say that is multiple hours before I normally get to work in the morning. Adding in the additional commute time during rush hour, I do the math and come up with the fact that I need to get up really, really early. As in, a time that is closer to when I normally go to bed than when I normally get up in the morning.

This could actually be a problem. This might be the highest length of time spent getting a job to having a job in the entire history of the world. After all, I missed a trip to East Germany in 1988 because I overslept. And look what happen to East Germany.

Not that I'm saying my being late for my first day of work after eighteen years of working there would bring down the company or anything.

Nah...

You also can't make an omelet if you drop the eggs on the floor...

All I was looking for today was a good excuse to get out of mowing the lawn.

It all started out well -- I managed to stay in bed until almost 10am, which is something of a miracle in itself. By the time everyone was fed and everything was cleaned up it was time for lunch.

Then I talked to my parents on the phone until the dark clouds rolled in, so everything was looking very promising.

However, as dark as the clouds were, they refused to dump rain so I was forced to go outside, drag the mower out of the garage, and plug it in.

Halfway through the front lawn the power went out in the neighborhood. Naturally the long half of the lawn was still uncut.

I spent the downtime checking out my neighbors' new kitchen-in-progress (Hotter was working on the wainscoting, whatever that is, at the time) and then I got the entire egg production of four chickens for the past three days. What I was going to do with nine eggs we'll never know, because while I was out walking the dogs later, the cats knocked over the container and four of them landed on the floor. Four raw eggs on the floor don't make a mess or anything...

Anyhow, the power came back on after half an hour so I had no further excuse to put off finishing the lawn.

So there we have it. Another perfectly good Sunday gone.

A defensive move...

This is what I do in the morning:

1. Turn off the alarm that I set for 6:30 just so I can be happy I don't have to get up at 6:30.
2. Go back to sleep.
3. Turn off the alarm that I set for 7:00 just so I can enjoy not getting up at 7:00.
4. Go back to sleep.
5. Throw the bitey cat off the bed a few times.
6. Get up.
7. Stagger to the kitchen. Feed the cats.
8. Stagger outside with the dogs and sit on the concrete in the backyard while they do their thing (because if I don't go outside with them, they run out the door, do a u-turn and come back inside, and then have accidents in the house).
9. Come back inside with the dogs and feed them.
10. Slowly wake up.
11. Get dressed and walk the dogs.
12. Take a shower and get ready for work.

Note that at no time before step 10 is there anything like "Brush my hair" or "Become presentable". That's because I live alone in a house and I have a fence surrounding my backyard, so nobody has to know that I just got up a 9am, or that I'm looking like the creature from the black lagoon when I take the dogs outside.

However, this week my neighbors were having their roof redone. So step 8 1/2 was: "Wave to the roofers as I take the dogs back inside."

Clearly I need a higher fence.

Rich Inner Life. Really.

I was finishing my weekly trip to the best supermarket ever, and the checker asked me if I did anything fun this weekend.

So I tried to remember what I did for the past two days, and the first thing that came to mind was that I mowed the lawn. And while I was mowing the lawn, I was trying to track down the source of the "la la la" song that was stuck on repeat in my head.

About two mower-widths into the lawn, I realized that it was the song that the Smurfs sang as they went about doing whatever it was that Smurfs did. (Jojo the Enforcer watched the Smurfs when she was little -- I saw a lot of the episodes because I was nearby.)

Then I thought about Gargamel for a while and wondered what exactly it was that he did. I think he was an evil sorcerer or something. (Imagine that interview: "Describe a problem you faced and what you did to solve it." Given the number of episodes where Papa Smurf outwitted Gargamel, I can only imagine that Gargamel would have a hard time answering that question.)

Then I tried to figure out what exactly the Smurfs actually did, other than get into trouble. I could do that job. Except I'm not blue. But wouldn't that be discrimination?

And these thoughts carried me through mowing and edging the lawn.

So all this was going through my head as I was standing at the checkout counter and I finally told her I didn't do anything all weekend...