Chemistry. Engineering. Tax. Pretty much the same thing.
My stint working as a tax preparer is almost done - Monday I check in to see if there's anything else I need to do. Then, I take off on my long-awaited vacation.
This short month working in the tax group taught me a lot of things - how
CNIL actually works, for example: it's one thing to
describe what you get off the CRA's website on an exam - it's another thing altogether to process it on a tax return.
After hitting up a series of topics, I feel much more confident in my abilities on the tax side of things - no doubt the reason my CA students in Canada are required to work 100 hours preparing tax returns before they earn the CA designation.
In addition to getting practical experience in a broad variety of tax returns, I came to a bit of a realization: the supposed 'difficulty' of tax is overblown, once you sit down and deal with it.
The epiphany reminded me of my high school chemistry class, where our teacher proclaimed to us that the technical knowledge he was sharing with us was rather straightforward. Why do people freak out over the periodic table, or any of the other things engineering students grapple with? There's no need to be concerned.
Find out what you have to do, try and do it, and you'll be surprised to find that you'll probably get it done.
You may stumble along the way, but your mistakes will be surprisingly mundane - a misplaced decimal place or a formula being written out or copied incorrectly.
You come to the humbling realization that the work you do, while demanding a moderate technical background, can be re-performed by virtually anyone.
That's a Good Thing when you're disappearing from the workplace, of course, since it also means that you're replaceable: given a few minutes to gain familiarity with your files, someone else can pick them up where you leave them off. If you document your work clearly, of course!
At the risk of sounding excessively grateful, I have to say I'm glad I
didn't get any hassles for taking off a week before the end of tax
season. Of course, I think my aforementioned documentation is up to snuff, but despite that, there are other considerations to remember: the last week before a tax filing deadline is here!
It's also invariably the
most intense, as all the last-minute paperwork has to be tidied up and
processed. Fortunately our tax prep team is, as far as I can tell, big
and strong enough to pick up the slack from one guy disappearing - and
on another level, it's considered unthinkable to give anybody a hard
time if they're leaving for a vacation they planned well in advance.
My managers were especially understanding, though, encouraging me not to take on more work - there's plenty to go around, but there's plenty of people to work on it too. Instead, I spent my time finishing up my files, and assisting with other files that just had a few last documents to be prepared.
Even though I was pretty busy finishing up work on my files, this was an incredibly enjoyable week. The joy came from describing my trip itinerary. There will be at least nine countries to hit at a whirlwind pace - and whenever I ran through the list I could just see people's eyes light up with vicarious excitement.
Now it's time to get some last-minute preparations done - there's less than 72 hours left before takeoff.
Not surprisingly, my posting will be increasingly sporadic in May. But I'll be back. After all, I have four people to help prepare for the 2007 UFE!