Oh well.
At least I didn't wait until April to make my next entry. That can be considered progress, especially if I'm to meet my goal of being a paid published writer before the end of the year.
The year started off fairly uneventful until my supervisor at Burlington Coat Factory announced that she was retiring! This was followed by an announcement that BCF was being sold by the owner, Monroe Millstein, for slightly over $2 billion to Bain Capital, a factor (bank for businesses) that owns several companies like Staples. The official word is that they won't sell us until they decide if it would be more profitable to keep us!
Yes, it's a company that makes money by making money! It's the logical progression of business that the richest companies don't manufacture, buy then sell, or even sponsor a product! They just purchase companies that do this and if they lose their profits in the process, they unload it at a profit!
I once read one of those corporate magazines that listed The Top 100 Businesses. Is it any wonder why over 50 of them were either banks, investment firms, or insurance companies? There seems to be money in money management!
What I'd like to know is what happens when The General Public finds out about this? Will they send their children to college to be investment brokers, chartered accountants, and bank managers instead of doctors, lawyers, and educators as in the "old days?" If they run out of people who can "make, build and produce" anything, what will happen to the Global Marketplace? Will all of our consumer goods be manufactured in China, Africa and Indonesia or will they eventually hop on the economic bandwagon by setting up a Class System that will elevate the semi-literate to the Educated Level and delegate manual labor to undesirables and convicts who might not be motivated to produce quality workmanship as long as they're incarcerated?
Moving on to my Seasonal Part-Time Job, I officially started working on tax returns on January 9th and I've completed over 80 returns so far. Last year, I've worked on 156 returns but some of them were either incomplete or rejected due to the contested claims by the clients' ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends as well as upstart 18-year-olds who insist on claiming themselves! Despite World Headquarters' belief that most people who owe aren't going to come in to our offices this early in the season, I've already had four clients who owed and I had to do some "hand holding" while the waiting area was swelling with clients! One in particular was frustrating as well as heart-breaking! A 70-year-old great-grandmother, who brought in one of her great-grandchildren due to her grand-daughter being called in to work and no babysitter was available while "grandmom" was having her taxes done, discovered that "for the first time" she owed money to the IRS due to her earning Social Security while she was working. She didn't realize that most responsible companies withhold taxes for overtime at a higher rate than they do for "straight-time," so the taxes for her SS income were covered. Last year, she didn't put in overtime, so I had to try to explain for over 15 minutes that she needs to withhold her SS income while she was working due to the fact that it's partially taxable if she's a single person making over $34,000 in combined income! I printed a copy of the W-4V form and filled it out for her so that all that was required was her signature and date of mailing. Hopefully, she'll follow my advice or I may have to go over it with her again next year!
Some people will follow the advice of their doctor, their lawyer, or their dentist without the slightest hesitation! Maybe 1 out of 10 of my clients have ever followed any suggestion that I've given them and then it was due to repeat incidents of owing the IRS and resigning themselves to try "something new." Maybe when I become an Enrolled Agent and I'm able to "hang up a shingle" and network with radio and/or TV, like Dr. Phil, people will accept me as a professional as well! I might even extend that image to other professionals by publicly stating that people should only have their taxes done by Certified Tax Professionals since the IRS is in the process of finally making that a requirement for doing taxes! I wonder how that will affect our competitors, both nationally and in the travel agencies/pawn shops trade?
My movie-going has been limited due to my six-to-seven-day work schedule, as what usually happens between January and April, so I've been compensating by making the random DVD purchase at Best Buy. My latest acquisitions were "The Time Tunnel : Part I" and "Death Race : 2000!" T T T I featured the first 15 episodes of the 1966 series along with "silent home movies" and the unaired version of the first episode "Rendevous With Yesterday," which started with a tight-fisted Senator threatening the government budget for "Project: Tic Toc," prompting Tony Neuman to test The Tunnel on himself and winding up on the RMS Titanic before it hit the fateful iceberg! Doug goes after him wearing an early 20th century tweed suit with a copy of the next-day's NY Times in his pocket. While they're powerless to stop the impending disaster, Tony was able to convince a young schoolteacher to go on one of the lifeboats and have a dangerous brain operation that she would have refused to pursue before Tony's passionate plea changed her mind. Many people who have seen this series have tended to dismiss it out of hand when I read their comments on the Amazon.com site, but I have very fond memories of this series! While some of the commentaries described the characters as cold and wooden, I remember the episodes where Tony & Doug argued about how to avoid the dangerous situation that they were trapped in this week, Drs. Swain & MacGregor and Gen. Kirk arguing over the risks of trying a new procedure to bring Tony & Doug back to the present, and how numerous historical figures were portrayed as real people as opposed to the "heroic archetypes" seen on late-night movies! The Custer/Sitting Bull/Crazy Horse episode immediately comes to mind, as well as the episode "The Last Patrol" where the late Carroll O'Connor played a modern-day Brittish general and his ancestor, an infamous colonel who fought Colonel Andrew Jackson at The Battle of New Orleans in 1815! I was doubly impressed with how the man who was destined to be best remembered as Archie Bunker pulled off both portrayals with such distinction! I hated the colonel, but my heart went out to the general up to the end. Brilliant!
Hearing the audio-comentary conducted by Roger Corman and Mary "Calamity Jane" Woronov while watching "Death Race: 2000" was like watching the film with them in the room! Talk about educational! I had no idea that Corman himself did some of the stunt driving in the film and Woronov, being the Typical New York Model/Actress, didn't know how to drive and was towed during her close-ups! The juicy gossip about Stallone and Caradine was fun to listen to as well! What gossip? You'll have to rent or buy the movie for yourself to find out! It cost me $13.95 plus tax to buy! The film is about 75 minutes long, so I had time to re-watch it with the commentary off as well as the filmed interviews and one of the original trailers.
After nearly two hours of snow-shoveling, I've gotten a little tired, so I'll have to cut this short.
Thanks for stopping by and I'll probably have a follow-up posting next month when I've managed to get caught up on most of my bills and obtained most of my goals for The New Year that I posted last month!
Watch your step going down and drive carefully! The temperature will drop into the teens tonight so watch out for black ice!
Goodnight.
