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Bow-Wow-Wow-Yippie-Yo-Yippie-Yeah
Mar. 8th, 2022 11:21 amBusy, busy, busy!
Though my main takeaway from yesterday was driving home from TaxBwana-ing at night through the pounding rain on a dash and a prayer. I literally could not make out the white lane markers on the road.
This is it! I thought and cranked up George Clinton who was singing about atomic dogs:
Bow-wow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Bow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Then the cosmic playlist switched to Sly and the Family Stone who wanted to take me higher:
Boom laka-laka-laka, Boom laka-lak-goon-ka boom
And those syllables somehow contained enough magic to guide me safely home.
###
One of my clients last night was an elderly woman who spoke English poorly and who was filled with resentment about having to come to the mall for tax preparation. (I can certainly sympathize with that!)
She had an issue.
The issue was not with her 2021 taxes. A quick review of her income documents revealed she didn’t really have to file 2021 taxes.
No, the issue was with her 2020 taxes, which had been prepared by [Name of Big Tax Preparation Firm Goes Here], and which she couldn’t understand. It took me about half an hour to assemble the pieces of that particular jigsaw puzzle, and all the while, I was asking myself, Why are you doing this? This is wayyyy beyond your job description.
In the end, I sorted it all out, and managed to overcome both language and bureaucratic jargon barriers and explain it to her. She was happy! She was smiling!
Which should have been rewarding, right?
Only it wasn’t.
My emotions were a kind of fury at a social system that had abandoned this woman to a friendless and vulnerable old age but also a real impatience with her, however well I was managing to mask it.
This is how I know I’m not a real altruist.
Though my main takeaway from yesterday was driving home from TaxBwana-ing at night through the pounding rain on a dash and a prayer. I literally could not make out the white lane markers on the road.
This is it! I thought and cranked up George Clinton who was singing about atomic dogs:
Bow-wow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Bow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Then the cosmic playlist switched to Sly and the Family Stone who wanted to take me higher:
Boom laka-laka-laka, Boom laka-lak-goon-ka boom
And those syllables somehow contained enough magic to guide me safely home.
###
One of my clients last night was an elderly woman who spoke English poorly and who was filled with resentment about having to come to the mall for tax preparation. (I can certainly sympathize with that!)
She had an issue.
The issue was not with her 2021 taxes. A quick review of her income documents revealed she didn’t really have to file 2021 taxes.
No, the issue was with her 2020 taxes, which had been prepared by [Name of Big Tax Preparation Firm Goes Here], and which she couldn’t understand. It took me about half an hour to assemble the pieces of that particular jigsaw puzzle, and all the while, I was asking myself, Why are you doing this? This is wayyyy beyond your job description.
In the end, I sorted it all out, and managed to overcome both language and bureaucratic jargon barriers and explain it to her. She was happy! She was smiling!
Which should have been rewarding, right?
Only it wasn’t.
My emotions were a kind of fury at a social system that had abandoned this woman to a friendless and vulnerable old age but also a real impatience with her, however well I was managing to mask it.
This is how I know I’m not a real altruist.
