Mayhall for president!

Look what I found on the news!

There is a bill working its way through the Mississippi House of Representatives now that would require restaurants to refuse to serve patrons who are obese. The bill would require eateries to keep track of customers BMI's and have scales at the doors. The states Department of Health would be responsible for enforcing compliance, and would revoke business permits for those dining establishments that violated the legislation.

This bill was introduced by Representative W.T. Mayhall, JR. Though he doesn't think his legislation will actually pass, he is very serious about it. He is concerned about the "serious problem of obesity and what it is costing the Medicare system." You can read the full text of the bill at this link.

While some of us are agonizing over which candidate in the primaries is a lesser evil and a scumbag, there is an honest and caring man spending the taxpayers' money wisely and fighting real issues. Why fight poverty and worry about homeland security when there are so many fat people? I say we nominate this guy for president.

SOMEBODY find me SOMEBODY to file

My last few weeks at work were completely hectic and dedicated to preparing and filing our taxes. Our organization is quite complex. Even though we are not for profit, we have about 8 subsidiaries, some active, some not, and I have to file 15 tax returns in total. I worked my behind off to understand (doing it for the first time for our company), prepare and file them, staying overtime, skipping lunch, etc. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't do something that would make this process even harder, something completely dumb, something that would put the icing on this cake. In other words, even if the process were a smooth one, I would find a way to make it harder - and the process was not smooth at all...

Not for profit tax returns are quite intensive. On top of it, IRS has decided that organizations of our size have to e-file, no paper returns are accepted. There's a lot of info that needs to be reported on, some of it has little to do with numbers. One of such pieces is the compensation of key employees and other five highest paid employees of the company. For some odd reason, the higher ups or the Board decided that this info (available for public inspection on the Internet to anyone curious) is classified and cannot be shown to peons like me. So all the numbers have to be entered into the software by me, except for this "sensitive" info, which must be entered by HR consultant. There is one problem with this: the system shows a diagnostic error if some of the info is omitted, which prevents return to be e-filed. My boss was somewhat freaking out about the whole e-filing business and was very anxious to see that error-free diagnostic page. So on one of the returns in the lines where the sensitive info had to be put in, I had entered the officers' names (thank G-d that the names of the big wigs in our place are not a top-rated secret), but for their titles I put in "somebody" and for their salaries I entered "51,000" to be corrected later by HR. So the diagnostic page was finally error-free.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the HR consultant is tied up in some very important meeting. The compensation numbers are finalized 48hrs before the final deadline, and turns out that I am entrusted with inputting not all, but some of the sensitive info on some of the returns. I enter the info, I adjust the numbers, and I happily e-file. On my way to my manager's office I feel the pit in my stomach - I realize that I didn't check our biggest return prior to filing. Yes, I checked it prior many, many times, but I didn't after I entered the sensitive info. I had meticulously checked every single page of every single return, except for this one. And as Murphy's law would have it, the one return I didn't check was the one that I really should have. I somehow forgot to do this in the filing frenzy, mainly because the returns did not have to be printed out. But, I went on reasoning in my head, what could possibly change, the number tied out, right? And then it hits me and the pit in my stomach doubles its size every few seconds: on our biggest and second most important return I only changed info that affected the numbers. Pages that were purely informational were not changed - they were initially supposed to be taken care of by HR, not me, and I didn't make a note to correct them when the plans changed.

This is a major disaster. I immediately call the tax software company, and they can't help. I call IRS, and they can't help either. Once e-filed, the return is filed, end of story, the only option is to amend. So there, the tax return available for public inspection showing all the big bosses (except for the three highest) titled "SOMEBODY" (yes, in caps) and earning less than... well peons like me. I don't know what to do, and my supervisor is gone. Three frantic calls to his cell phone go unanswered, and I am not ashamed to admit that I was on the verge of crying.

I wrote this post on the day of filing, and honestly didn't know if I would have a job next week. I was hoping and praying that the whole thing would blow over. So here's the update: the next day we e-filed the amended return, and hopefully the one with a lot of "somebodies" will not make its way to the public. At least that's what IRS says, but I have grown sceptical about the government promises. I was actually recommended for the award for my hard work on the taxes. But I keep on wondering, did they recommend me before the "somebody" boo boo or after?

First impressions

I am applying to schools for my daughter now. Someone had told me that I would be able to say a lot about the school based on their application. It is true, and quite honestly I am not impressed. In one school, they asked me so many questions just to mail me out the stupid form! So if they didn't like my maiden name, they wouldn't have sent me the application?

And then there are the applications themselves... Reading through them, one cannot but think that no one put much thought into the questions and no one is concerned that for most parents this is the first real encounter with the school. I guess nobody told them that first impressions really count. In my humble opinion, only questions that matter should appear on the form - if the question is not relevant in deciding whether the child gets to step 2 - the interview - why ask it? And if those questions are relevant, then quite frankly I would be disgusted. For example, why should it matter whether the child's parents are married/divorced/deceased? One school had only two options for the marital status of the parents: married or divorced/separated. What if a parent is widowed - need not apply? And then there are questions you would like to answer truthfully, but know that your application will be tossed if you do so, so you lie, pretty much just like most other applicants.

One application asks for the picture of my child. Why? Are they afraid I might sneak in a different child for the interview? Or do they run the picture through Interpol to make sure the 3-yr-old is not involved in any terrorist activity/drug smuggling/human trafficking? What's next - blood sample and fingerprints? And that particular school doesn't even guarantee you the interview, so what are they going to do with the pictures of kids who didn't get to that step? Post them on the Internet under the "Look at the losers who didn't merit an interview with our elite school"? And once again - does the picture help them in weeding out students not eligible for the interview? Do looks matter? Should I then go for the full disclosure and send my own picture as well, so that the school can decide ahead of time if they want a mug like that associated with their unblemished name?

The whole process would be extremely annoying (as opposed to just simply annoying) if not for one school, who simply did away with applications. They just take down your name, phone number and simply set up appointments to meet with prospective students. Just for that they have scored points in my book.