Sixth Day of Work

My sixth day of work was Saturday, the 21st of February. I have not updated in a few days for two reasons:

1) I worked 13 hours on Saturday.

2) I woke up Sunday at 2:00 PM to study for my upcoming accounting exam. My lunch consisted of cocoa puffs and a hot dog. I didn't know that the hot dog had expired some time ago, and as a result I experienced a "pleasant" onset of food poisoning symptoms that has yet to abate. I went to the Emergency Room today (Monday)...

Saturday was a long day at work. I worked on 6 tax returns and performed some clerical work. The clerical work consisted of going through a few check book registers and recording all the transactions in a spreadsheet. As for the tax returns, 3 of them were for college students.

Some clients insist on sending in the documents required to complete their return one at a time, so occasionally a statement or tax document will come in and need to be added to a client's return. I did this for one client, who received a huge stack of statements from his/her broker.

The other two returns were about the most "normal" returns that I've seen yet. No crazy numbers of mortgages or sources of income. Just typical families with typical incomes (job and interest). I sorted through the documents and wrote them into some blank "Pro Forma" forms that my supervisor could check. Eventually, I put these numbers into the tax program on the computer.

In my opinion, preparing a tax return requires two jobs: deciding where to put all the figures, and calculating the return. The computer is able to complete the second half, so we (tax accountants in general) are able to focus more of our energy on placing the figures in the most qualified places. The computer also allows us to create tax-planning scenarios which are a huge help when it comes to ensuring compliance for clients with businesses, for the next year.

Even as an intern at the tax firm, I still get Mobius-strip days. I get a pile of work sometimes that appears to have no beginning and no end. Every accountant has been there before. Nobody asked me to stay 13 hours on Saturday, but I take my job very seriously and sometimes things just need to get done.