Still Sitting Here

Busy day in the old office today.  I was met at the door by the 9 AM by the first squirrel.  He was clearly annoyed that The Boss wasn’t in yet.  So was I.  The Boss showed up about ten after, which is fantastic for him. 

The next three hours was a constant stream of scheduled squirrels, drop in’s and phone calls.  It was crazy. 

I had nothing to do.

Well not exactly nothing.  I answered the phone.  I scanned stuff.  I shredded stuff.  I smiled and offered coffee.  Nobody wanted coffee. 

I am really anxious to do my first return.  Scared shitless might be a better phrase, but you get the idea.  I am making such little money here that the prospect of making a commission on a return is making me drool.

I know it’s going to happen sooner or later.  Part II has already done a return.  She couldn’t finish it, but she’s getting the credit for it.  I can TOTALLY do half a return.  Bring it on! 

I just scheduled another return for Part II next week.  It’s one I could handle, but the client can’t come in when I’m here.  Nerts!  Hopefully Part II will remember this and throw one my way soon.

Nothing Doing

I have been effing bored out of mind at this job for weeks now.  BORED.

Two days ago The Boss gave me a "giant project".  It involved scanning.  Lots and lots of scanning. An entire year's worth of bank statments for some barber.  And then every receipt for every little comb, twenty-four dollar towel,  roll of TP and mophead he ever bought in 2002.  Even the register tape was in there with everything else but was only lists of numbers that weren't even dated. BORING.

This morning I found a pile of documents on my desk with a post-it saying, "Please open a file and enter what you can."  It was documents for some other dude's year return from last year.  It had some basic things in it that I could deal with and then a ton of crap I had no idea what to do with.  I called Part II over and she was equally stymied.  Online IRS and the giant tax guide are no help.  Truly, I have nowhere to turn to get the answers to these questions.  Hours later The Boss rolled into the office and stayed for a grand total of seven minutes.  I kid you not.  I didn't even have time to bring up return.  So here I sit with an incomplete job and no way to continue on with it.  BORING TIMES TWO.

The phone just rang and I got so excited for something to do.  It was just the printer saying that our new business cards were done and she was going to drop them off.

It's something to look forward to at least.

I know that soon, very soon, we'll be mind-strangling busy.  But waiting for those days to start is such a drag!

The Day I called 648 people

The Boss had a fabulous idea.  Combine all of his contact lists (there were three of them) into one big list.  When that was done, we could send out one mass email about using our office to get their taxes done.

I got right on combining all three lists.  That wasn't a big deal and made a list of around 1100 contacts.  Then Part II went through the list and found the duplicates which put it down to around 900.  When we sorted it out by who had an email address it only yielded about 225 contacts.  That left a sizable number of people not being contacted.

"You can just call the other ones and leave a message," The Boss suggested with a breezy wave of the hand.

Part II looked horrified.  "There's no way I'm calling 700 people!"

"Me either!" I piped in, riding on her bravery.

The Boss never looked up.  "Yeah, well maybe we can find one of those programs that sends a recorded message."

Five minutes later he had found a place that sent out your message for three and a half cents a successful call.  You don't even have to do the math to figure out that's much cheaper than making me hand dial 700 people.

The next day Part II set up the account.  I wrote the script for the message and sent a test message to see how it worked.  It was all fairly easy.  When it came time to record the real message, Part II and The Boss decided I should be the one to say it, so I did.

In the next half hour, my message successfully called 648 people, talking to real people and leaving messages on machines and voice mail.

The Boss checked his phone.  "I just got a text from a buddy of mine.  He wants to know who's the broad who just called him from here."

I wonder how "Phone Broad" looks on a resumé?