Back in maybe 2006 to 2008ish, I was a tax associate at the most well-known tax service in North America. I did very well in the class you take, which determines your eligibility to be hired as well as teaching you how to do taxes, and was hired. I bounced from office to office as newbies do, and I was doing well enough that I was always the first to be called if a shift needed covering.

After my first season with them went so well, I was invited back for the next year, and the class was free because of the invitation. In case you wonder why the class is every year, it’s because tax rules change every year and we have to keep up.

Shortly after the class was over, which I aced, I was approached by the lady who ran the district. She wanted to open a seasonal office in a [Retail Chain] 50 km (about 31 miles) outside the city I worked in. She wanted me as a primary associate there: in part because I’d done so well in the previous year, in part because I’d aced the class, in part because of my background in security, and in part because I lived 20 km (about 12 miles) closer to this [Retail Chain] than anyone else on staff.

I wasn’t to be a manager, but I was going to be the only full-time associate. (Full-time associate for the location did not mean actual full-time hours; this “office” would be open four hours on weekends and six hours on weekdays.) I’d open and close almost every day and often be the only associate on-site. It was basically my baby to take care of. There were hints that it might lead to advancement in the company, as well. I was pretty excited about the opportunity.

At first, everything was great. The [Retail Chain] staff liked me, the customers liked me, and my boss liked me. I was blasting through customers. Only maybe five people walked away due to having to wait out of the few hundred who approached my little “office” beside the produce section.

Two months in, right before the tax season really heated up, I had a weekend I’d booked off the same day they’d hired me. I was going out of the province to see family. The trip had been set long before they hired me, and I’d made it quite clear that I wasn’t going to be around. The schedule accurately reflected that. So, the weekend arrived and I went and had a good time. I came home Monday evening so I could be back Tuesday morning.

When I got home, I checked my answering machine and found three messages. Two were from my boss, the district lady, and one was from the scheduler. I don’t remember everything word for word, so I’ll paraphrase.

Message #1, from [Boss], was on Saturday morning at approximately 7:00 am.

Boss: “Hi, [My Name], sorry to do this to you, but we need you in today. [Employee] who we scheduled to replace you had their car break down.”

Message #2, also from [Boss], was on Saturday afternoon at approximately 2:00 pm.

Boss: “I’m very disappointed in you for not responding to me and not showing up. I’ll be making some changes.”

Message #3, from the scheduler, was on Monday morning at approximately 9:00 am.

Scheduler: “Hi, [My Name], this is [Scheduler]. Your hours have changed this week. Call me when you get this.”

Now, at that point in my life, I was not a kid out of high school and I’d had enough experience with screw-jobs that I was absolutely not going to crawl on my hands and knees apologizing and begging for my job. If you’re going to be petty and mean just because you f***ed up, then we’re going to have problems. And so we did.

I called [Scheduler] and was told that I had been suspended for a week and should call [Boss] after a week to get back on the schedule. She said [Boss] was trying to put me in my place and teach me how to be a good manager. I’d get back on the schedule after the week was over. I brought up my pre-planned and scheduled time off, and I also pointed out that I wasn’t a manager; I was a regular employee. [Scheduler] was very uncomfortable, but she was only doing what she was told. They did need me, she said. I just needed to call [Boss] in a week.

I said sure — and then didn’t call. I was furious, and I wasn’t the one who was going to be put in her place. I called a few of the customers whom I’d been working with and explained that I was no longer working there, and they chose to keep me as their tax gal regardless. It really wasn’t intended as revenge, even though it sounds that way; the company wasn’t going to make more than it cost to have someone do their taxes anyway. This was purely a customer relationship thing. I like to finish what I start.

The real revenge was accepting my suspension. For the entire week that I was suspended, I made sure to stop in at the [Retail Chain] to see if I knew who they’d scheduled for my shift, and if we were friendly, then I’d help them out with the quirks of this location. But there was never anyone there. I confirmed with the [Retail Chain] staff; all week, they had no one working there. They were paying [Retail Chain] to rent space and getting nothing but a bad reputation for it because the heavily advertised new location had zero employees. It remained that way for the rest of the season — two months.

[Boss] never called me, and I never called her. Pride. I have no idea how it impacted her professionally; I’ve stayed far away from taxes ever since. I got another job before my suspension was over and never looked back.

I’m doing a client’s taxes. She’s a woman in her late sixties, and she’s still working. She’s claiming her two grandkids.

As I do her taxes, I ask her questions to better understand her financial situation, and I also ask her the due diligence questions required for claiming dependents — questions like, “Do you have any investment income this year?” and, “Do the children live with you?” It’s pretty tame and normal stuff.

She gets SUPER offended. She’s all huffy, saying she has “never been asked such questions”. Any question I ask — be it about her charitable donations or about whether the parents of the children also live with her — offends her more than the last. By the end, she’s very upset.

Client: “I’ve never been asked such questions in my life! It must be amateurs’ night! Can I get another tax preparer?!” 

I’ve been professionally doing this job for fifteen years. I am NOT an amateur.

I pull a manager away from his desk and give a quick explanation of what happened, summarizing it as, “She’s offended by the due diligence questions.” These are questions we are legally required to ask.

I put it out of my mind and let her be someone else’s problem.

A few days later, I’ve got an official write-up on my desk about it. My manager says I shouldn’t ask so many questions of clients.

Me: “Well… can you put that in writing? And can you provide specific examples of the questions I’m supposed to not be asking?”

So, my manager does. I send a copy of the write-up to the local authorities — eventually, it’s going to lead to some sort of fine on the company I work for — but I also stop asking my clients any questions that are similar to the ones on the list. 

No more reminding clients about tax documents they brought last year and have forgotten this year.

No more asking due diligence questions, which also means no more child tax credit, no more earned income credit, and no more head of household filing status, nor American opportunity credit. I have to ask due diligence questions to file those credits. Since I can’t ask, the client has to answer the questions without knowing what they are to get the credit.

To each client affected by the latter issue, I explain exactly what’s going on and tell them to complain to my manager. 

A few weeks and several client complaints later, my manager rescinds the previous orders with another official write-up. I’m now on strike two, and I’ve never gotten a write-up before in my career.

The thing is, it’s peak season right now, and tax places are desperately hiring to deal with the influx of clients during peak, so I’ve already got another job lined up. A couple of days after my second write-up, I’ve left without notice.

I’m getting paid roughly the same as I was before, and the place I’m working in now is a little bit further from home than before, but I’m imagining my old manager’s face getting my resignation letter — and eventually getting the substantial fine for demanding that a tax pro not do the due diligence questions — and giggling to myself.

I work in a tax office. In early January, before most people even get their W2s, a client came in with a 1099-NEC and some random bank statements that were not annotated. I asked her if she was still working her W2 job from prior years, and she said she was. I entered the 1099-NEC into the system, put everything in a folder, and told her to bring her missing W2 and we’d finish it then.

Over the course of the month, she kept scheduling appointments with us and not showing up for them. This was frustrating because it took up a time slot that a client could actually use. Every time we tried to call her phone, we got an answering service.

After four of these, I left a message letting her know that she was not a client of ours anymore and asking her to please pick up her documents. Any future appointments would be canceled.

About two weeks later, the client came in and complained that it “took too long” for us to do her taxes and she wanted to do them elsewhere. She wanted her W2 back. 

We didn’t have her W2. We’d never had her W2. 

She took home the rest of her documents. (I wasn’t present for this; this is what we learned in the after-event inquest.)

A week after that, the client came in again demanding her documents. Now, her documents were not present. Flummoxed, we turned over the whole office looking for them. Finally, we told her that they were missing, presumed shredded. (I still wasn’t present for this; this was also learned in the post-event inquest.)

She flipped out, saying it was “illegal” to shred her documents and that she was going to call the police on us. That should have gotten her barred and instructed to only talk to our legal department, but somehow, she was given an appointment with me, and even though I canceled it because she’s not supposed to have appointments with me, she knew I was working at that time, came in, and was allowed into the back to approach me and yell at me. A lot. She wambling about the police and “it’s illegal!” and stuff.

I’m autistic, I don’t deal with loud noises well, and this left me overstimulated and curled up in a ball sobbing.

Then, we had a whole inquest to figure out how a disabled employee (me) wound up in that state, where the failures had happened, and how to fix them in the future. It was determined that the return of the client’s documents should have been noted in her file, that she should not have been permitted to make an appointment with me after she was already agitated, and that the notes saying she had never given us her W2 should have been ACTUALLY READ.

I wish I trusted that my coworkers would actually follow the recommendations of the inquest.

There are a number of stories on Not Always Right about us tax accountants and our infamous fridges. Difficulties with break room cleanliness are endemic to the tax industry. Here’s another such story.

I work in a very large tax office. We share our office and break room with the local corporate headquarters. Corporate would only spring for a half-sized fridge for them and our office to share. My direct manager realized that was inadequate and bought a full-sized fridge with his own money. He never submitted a reimbursement to headquarters, so technically, it’s still his fridge.

Five years later, he retired and a new manager took over. During that time, people stopped taking care of the fridge, and food was often left to rot in it all eight months outside of tax season. Since our office was also the corporate headquarters for this region, and corporate shared our break room and fridge, corporate objected to our inability to keep the fridge clean and to the smell emanating therefrom.

Corporate threatened to take our fridge away from us if we didn’t clean it. They gave us a year to shape up.

I personally don’t bring food to work. I never have. I’ve never even used our break room. Our break room is incredibly gross, and on days I was asked to help clean, I refused. For one thing, I won’t be held responsible for other people’s disgusting habits. For another, I don’t even go into the break room when I’m on break because I’ve got a replacement organ and take immunosuppressants. I’m not going to risk my health cleaning biohazards for my job. And they don’t have the chutzpa to fire me for a clear medical condition.

Every attempt to clean up the fridge room would quickly break down when someone mucked things up for everyone again, and everyone else would refuse to do anything about it.

We absolutely failed to shape up. If anything, between the blame game and the backstabbing, things got worse.

Corporate hired a moving company to rip the fridge out of the break room and dispose of it, contents included. 

This did not make the situation better. Now, people were storing rotting perishables in the unrefrigerated cabinets or just outside the back door to take advantage of the winter chill. The smell got worse, and the back of our office became a trash dumping ground. We got an infestation of mice and cockroaches.

This is where the ownership question became relevant. Corporate did not own the fridge; [Former Manager] did. Even though he was retired, he objected to the fridge he had bought with his own money due to corporate’s stinginess being removed from the office he had close personal ties to.

So, [Former Manager] requested legal reimbursement in the form of a new similarly-sized fridge. Corporate obviously couldn’t return the fridge as it had been thrown out, and [Former Manager] wasn’t willing to accept a cash payback, so rather than fight it in court, corporate decided to buy us a new fridge.

Which we promptly started abusing once more. 

At least the return of the fridge got people to stop storing rotting food in the cabinets, many of which eventually had to be removed due to their resulting biological contamination. I’m told it looked like something out of The Last Of Us toward the end.

I continue to stay away from the break room for my own mental health and physical safety.

I work in a tax accountant office. Around 10:00 am on Sunday, I had two clients come in to do their M1PR, a rebate of your rental fees through the state of Minnesota.

They were physically disabled and in power wheelchairs with oxygen apparently built in; they both had cannulas. One of them was legally blind, and the other was hard of hearing. They were a married couple. They were brought to my office in the mall by the paratransit buses. They weren’t very mentally present, but we did our best to accommodate them.

We asked if they had cell phones as part of the tax process, and they said they did not.

I did their M1PRs and sent them on their merry way. Supposedly, their pick-up was at noon. Their pick-up bus did not arrive. They puttered around the mall for a while waiting for pickup until 2:00 pm.

Around that time, we figured something was wrong, and after some discussion, we tried to call the paratransit organization. They were closed for the weekends and not taking any calls.

Next, we called mall security to let them know about the problem. Mall security sent someone to check up on the couple but said they couldn’t do anything except not throw them out when the mall closed at 5:00 pm.

At this point, it was about 4:00 pm, an hour before the mall closed. The two customer’s wheelchairs were making distressing “low battery” beeping noises. We called 911 on their behalf. The police didn’t show up until 5:00. The police officer was very upset about the inability to get in touch with the paratransit people and said she was going to send someone over to the paratransit headquarters to physically speak with dispatch.

The medical personnel came next but said that they were not permitted to transport the clients in the ambulance unless they were taking the clients to a medical facility, so the only thing they could do was remain on site and make sure that the clients didn’t choke to death by checking on the oxygen tanks. 

They said they could take the clients to the hospital if something went wrong with the oxygen tanks, of course.

At 6:00 pm, the wheelchairs fully ran out of power. Some investigation revealed that they needed proprietary charging devices which were back at the clients’ house. The clients no longer had any mobility at all. I stayed late with the police officer, the mall security officer, and the medical personnel to keep an eye on the situation. At this point, the clients were waiting in our office instead of in the mall proper.

At 7:00 pm, the police officer told us that a paratransit vehicle was on the way and that the company would be fined for forgetting about the client.

At 8:00 pm, the paratransit vehicle arrived, but the driver of the vehicle didn’t bring the equipment to load unpowered wheelchairs and refused to load the wheelchairs without power. The police officer really laid into the driver, and she and the security guy offered to help carry the wheelchairs into the vehicle, but the paratransit guy refused to touch the wheelchairs until they were charged. 

The police officer made a run to the client’s apartment to bring back the charger andd told the paratransit driver not to go anywhere.

At 8:15 pm, five minutes after the police officer left, the paratransit driver went somewhere.

At 9:00 pm, the police officer returned with the chargers, and we started charging the client’s wheelchairs. The police officer radioed headquarters and told dispatch to send another officer to the paratransit headquarters.

At 11:00 pm, the paratransit driver arrived on site again and got into a shouting match with the police officer.

At 11:30 pm, the clients were loaded onto the vehicle to go home.

At 12:00 am, midnight, I finished the closing procedure, clocked out, and went home.