Story of the Day 3/ 15/ 2014

Idiocy.

Today, one of the local rabbis came up to my son and asked him to interpret for the program they are having , tomorrow. There is a deaf family coming, and they have neglected to get an interpreter.

I should not say that they didn't try.
They did.

They called or contacted one interpreter.

That one interpreter is from a list of about one dozen that my husband gave him. Names, email addresses, cell phone numbers. I suppose my husband did neglect to give him the make and model and year number for their cars.....

Then, today, he asked my son- who is not an interpreter, but who knows ASL , if he could interpret.

This is my son, who is deaf.

Idiocy.

Story of the Day 3/ 5/ 2014

I can sleep , at night.

That is because I have finished doing our taxes.
Our is a very plural term.
I do my husband's and mine- we file jointly. It kind of goes with being married, at least, if you are like us and not wealthy .
And I do the forms and file them for our two youngest children.
I do not do it for my oldest; his fiancé does.
I liked the fiancé quite a bit, when I met him.
And I have decided that I like him a whole lot more, now that I know he can do taxes.
This might end up being very beneficial relationship....if I can sucker him into doing the rest of the family's......

But back to the current year.

I finished doing our taxes, and I e-filed them. the federal part, because that was free.
I did not e-file the 4 state forms .
Please explain why I would pay $20 ( okay, $19.95) each to file forms when the refund ranges between $0 and $7?
That is somewhat like spending $14 on gasoline to drive to the store that is halfway across the city because the canned cream of corn, and only the canned cream of corn, is 10 cents cheaper.

But Turbo Tax thinks that I should.
Not drive to buy the cheaper canned cream of corn, which I don't' eat.
But to pay to file my state taxes.
They asked me that several times.

And they also asked if I wanted their $45 service for each, in case we are audited by the IRS.

Okay, my husband and I might find that painful.
We have, in the past, when I was the victim of identity theft.
But I can't imagine the IRS is at all interested in auditing my daughter, whose income, last year, was a whopping $47.
Or my son, whose was $7.25 an hour, for part-time work.
I forget his total earnings, but he is too poor to bother with, if you are the IRS.

I had a few moments of vacillating. Should I pay this fee for this for mine? ( mine being the joint filing for my husband and me.)

We have been contacted by the IRS.
Repeated letters and notices.
This is from when my identity was stollen by someone at my previous employer.
And the person who stole my identity used it to get money from them, money which I didn't know about and for which I was later assessed for not having paid taxes.
This was when the IRS contacted me. A series of not very friendly missives.

I thought about what TurboTx offers.
They would deal directly with the IRS.
This sounded very good , until I thought about it.
Because, gee, that wasn't the problem.
The problem was my ex-employer.

It required letters from a lawyer to get corrected a 1099.
Actually, not a corrected one, because they never sent that, but an uncorrected one.
The one they mailed to whatever the new address was that they had for me- the one provided by their person who used my Social security number to steal.

That person had the 1099 sent to some other address, delaying when their scheme would be found out.
And confusing me, further, since I was being held accountable for something I had no idea had happened.

In fact, the judge for the tax hearing- the IRS judge- was nice and helpful ..... kind of ruining my previously held image of what the IRS is like.
And Turbo Tax probably would not have taken my case that far.
They would not even have contacted my ex-employer to get a 1099- one that stated how much was stolen using my identity, and then corrected one to give to the IRS.
Those things don't' seem to fit under what they provide for the $45 fee.
All they would do was take calls from the IRS, which was the only easy part of what happened.

So, I decided to lead a risky life and did not pay the $45.
You know, me and my wild lifestyle.

Tomorrow, I might even wear mis-matched socks.

Story of the Day 1/ 30/ 2014

At a bit past two in the afternoon, the phone rang.

I answered it, correctly this time. I said, "Good afternoon!"
I have this sad tendency to say , "Good morning" up until close to dinner time, so I , at least, was impressed by my acumen.

There was a pause.
Of course, what went through my mind was " robo-call." But I was wrong.
A slightly confused sounding man asked," Is this a residence?"

"Yes."

"I am conducting a survey for St. Vincent's Hospital. May I please speak with Sarah Green?"

"This is her mother. You have her name wrong. Would you care to try again?"
I was not so much being intransigent as being careful. The hospital ought to have her name right. Maybe this wasn't really them.

He starts to spell it.
They have given him a truncated form of the last name- very truncated, but it is the kind of thing that a computer will do, or a senseless person. And he had simply tried to say what was left of it that was sayable.....

I explain that her last name has been truncated, but that he is looking for my daughter, however, "She can't speak with you."

I explain that Sarah is Deaf. Deaf as in doesn't speak on the phone, but that I could provide an alternate method of communication for her.
( I , of course, was thinking of email or texting via cell phone- those wonderful technological miracles of the last century.)
I tell him that she is at college, and in class , right now, but should be available later.

There is a moment of silence.
He replies, somewhat shaken, " I will just mark that as she has moved."

"She hasn't moved, this is her permanent address. Would you like an alternate way to contact her?"

He didn't.
He has lost all desire to ask her any survey questions.
Her being deaf is too much for him to deal with. He says goodbye and hangs up.

Now, I understand that this guy is a poorly paid, untrained person calling for a business that does surveys, but he just made the hospital come off as a snotty place that has zero regard for their Deaf patients.
Apparently, these Deaf patients are not even worth contacting for a survey to find out how their experience was.

Considering the fact that the Deaf often are treated worse by hospitals and medical offices in terms of being treated as if they are an annoyance for requiring an interpreter, or being told "Can't you bring relative with you to do that?" or being provided with interpreters who are less than well trained, and then the patient is not sure if the doctor is speaking down to them ( adding insult to injury), I would think that they could at least try to get their opinion on a survey.

I wasn't the patient, but , if they opt to ask me I will tell them that they failed whatever test this was.
A big fat zero, since they didn't even try.







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Story of the day 1/ 29/ 2014

This morning I received an embarrassed email from my mother.
She apologized for almost forgetting my birthday,today, but here was an email and I should know that I was not totally forgotten.

It would have been better,
if today actually was my birthday.