Police Drama

You would not believe the day I'm having. It's a tale of police action, mystery and intrigue. Blog at 11. via Twitter - 1:07pm.

No one commented on this Twitter bombshell? My 89 Twitter followers and 25 Facebook friends are either remarkably incurious or simply inattentive today. Ah, well. I'm used to being ignored. [/selfpity]

The question now is, how much of the story can I tell you, given my self-imposed restraints, for reasons of both ethics and professional self-preservation, about saying too much about the places where I work? Well, let's start with something I let slip last night. My new job consists of sitting at a desk in a cash cashing store, as a seasonal tax accountant for a local CPA firm. (The firm does not own the check cashing business.) It being early days for the receipt of W2 and 1099 forms, I haven't actually done anyone's taxes yet, which is probably just as well. I'm still training myself for the job. (More on that anon.)

So. The work day is 10 AM to 7 PM, four days a week, and four hours elsewhere on Friday. I caught the lights wrong this morning, and it was about 10:01 when I reached the storefront's door. It was locked. Someone inside eventually came over, told me they were closed due to some unspecified problem, and would reopen in an hour. I should come back then.

Uh, okay. I called my recruiter to let him know, rushed home, gave my dogs a very brief, unscheduled morning trip to the dog park, rushed home again, and returned to the store at 10:59 AM. There were two police cars outside. I sat in my car and watched them coming and going from that same door I'd stood at an hour earlier.

My recruiter agreed with me that it probably wasn't a good idea to walk in myself at that point.

He made some phone calls for me, and was told approximately nothing. Fair enough; it's none of my business what "issue" the check cashing business was having. I don't work for them. But it was disconcerting. My recruiter suggested that I go to lunch and then return to work.

By this time, I was having a bit of a stress reaction, which pretty much kept me from lingering over lunch. Half a sandwich later, I returned. Still two police cars.

"Go shopping," my recruiter advised. "Buy yourself something at Macy's."

I went to a store called Catherine's instead. I found career slacks that both fit well and have pockets, something I needed rather badly. From there I went on to Barnes and Noble, where I ran into Kevin and told him about my day so far. He was agog.

Back at the storefront, one cop was still there. I left a phone message for my recruiter and went home. That's when I posted that tweet that has so singularly failed to grab your attention.

While I was home, a potential employer who first called me on the land line before Christmas (a call I failed to return until after New Year's) called me. He had a job opening at a hospital in the Arizona boonies. I mean, even boonier than the other job. Was I interested? I checked Google Maps. It's not sure there is such a place, but if there is, it's about 90 minutes from my house. I called John. "Absolutely not," he said. "Too much wear and tear on the car." So much for that.

Just before 1 PM, I called my recruiter yet again, and was connected with one of my other recruiters from the same business. She checked for me, and the answer came back: ignore the police and return to work.

So I drove back to work. No police car. No sign that anything whatsoever had happened. No comment, no verbal acknowledgment that I was making a late start on the day, nothing.

Aside from a brief, pleasant meeting with someone from the CPA firm, who brought me a tax book, supplies and instructions, I spent the rest of the day tackling the most difficult of the practice returns. I was determined to figure out the complexities of self employment, a home office, MACRS depreciation and other aspects of company car expenses. It was a lot of fun, and I mean that without irony or sarcasm.

Here's hoping that the most exciting part of my job tomorrow will involve practice returns, or possibly the successful completion of a return for my first real-life tax client. Am I ready for that? Gulp!

Karen