Category: Fuck This Bullshit

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Getting Down to Brass Tax

From Darwinfish2:

There are now three guaranteed certainties in this life, Death, Taxes, and Republicans trying to get out of paying taxes. I saw this a couple weeks ago and it got me thinking:

First, I don't know who was "crying" about Elon Musk buying Twitter instead of "solving" world hunger. Yeah, it would have been nice for a guy like Musk to spend some of his excessive dough on projects that would better our surroundings. And he likes to pose as quite the philanthropist, but I think he prefers his vanity projects.

And since when can $80 billion "solve" world hunger? There are far too many factors and variables to make it so that no one is ever hungry again. $80 bil wouldn't make a dent. It may help a select group of people for a finite amount of time, but that's not a solution. A serious solution would look too much like Socialism and that's the last thing people who like this meme would want. Or, it might look like this idea from the 80s:

"It occurred to me that there wouldn't be world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS!"

But I was really more interested in the IRS bit. This Democrat is thrilled that the IRS is getting rejuvenated. The last administration was keen to let the whole organization whither on the vine and die so that the richest among us could still use all the tax lawyers at their disposal to ensure that the national tax burden rested on the rest of us, and not them.

I don't think the IRS is interested in chasing down us commoners for audits. Where's the payoff in that? (Other than enjoying the sadism.)

If I'm a guy working for the IRS and I want to produce results, where do I look? I look where the money is, with the rich, and not with the working stiffs. Chasing down the average citizen is a waste of time and resources. I'd want to be able to say to my boss at review time, "I recovered X-dollars' worth of unpaid taxes," where "X" is the largest number possible.

Republicans know this, probably because their rich donors pound it into their heads, so they want the IRS to be as under-manned, under-funded, and under-equipped as possible. So when the new funding bill wanted to bolster the T-men, they figured they need to get the commoners good and scared about getting audited by gun-packing federal agents. It's the tax equivalent of the "death squads" they trotted out to make everyone afraid of Obamacare, and just as misleading.

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Training

The boss's boss (whom I not-so-affectionately refer to as Ephalba) has a lady boner for Professional Development and ongoing training. When she first came on board a year ago she made it quite clear that our department had been very lax in that regard and that things were going to change. So, within a matter of weeks, a new edict was handed down that we were to all sign up for training (of some kind) at least twice a year going forward to "grow our careers."

I think I let out an audible groan.  Bitch, I am 28 months from retirement.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I thought I could definitely use some improvement with my Adobe Photoshop skills, as well as learning Illustrator (I've always been fascinated by it but never had the time or—to be completely honest—the level of concentrated interest to actually sit down and learn it. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do both.

I presented my proposal, and while my immediate boss was all for it, the Wicked Witch shot it down. "These classes need to be job-related."

(a) You said any training, and (b) what about this whole "grow your careers" bullshit?

My boss argued that this was a skillset that could be used across the organization and—should I choose to move to a different department at some point—they would come in handy.

Ephalba was having none of it.

It's no wonder that before she took over the department I actually looked forward to going to work (albeit from home, but that's another story), and now I dread it.

So I looked through the offered Microsoft classes and thought, "What can I skate through and get that bitch off my back?"

And it screamed out at me: MD-100 Windows Client

Yeah, software I've been using since version 2.1 on a IBM XT clone running DOS.

While I"m sure she would've preferred I take something like Sharepoint or Powershell classes, she didn't balk at this. After all, I am Desktop Support.

The class (all online, thankfully) was two weeks ago. It lasted 5 days. And I hate to admit it, but I actually enjoyed myself. Did I learn anything I didn't know before? Actually yes—because while the class ostensibly was for Windows 10, most everything was done in the Windows 11 environment, of which I'm only just now becoming familiar, having loaded it on my work laptop a couple months ago. (Something by the way, I'm shocked as hell that main ITS hasn't chastised me for.)

The instructor was good. He was funny. He was engaging. And while a lot of what I learned couldn't be used—either because we aren't officially on Windows 11 yet, or because main ITS has our environment so locked down that all the cool stuff can't even be accessed—it was a worthwhile experience. And it kept me home for the entire week and suspended all my usual work tasks.

In fact, I enjoyed this instructor so much I signed up for his next online class, MD-101 Managing Modern Desktops, in December, which will be another week-long reprieve from my usual crap…and fulfill Ephalba's "two classes per year" requirement.

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And You Will Never Get Through To Them

Never. Thankfully we still outnumber them  by 2-to-1 at least, so all this talk of Civil War if Trump is convicted is just chest-beating bluster. There simply aren't enough of them to maintain—much less win—a Civil War, even with their undoubtedly huge…armaments. Do they really think a collection of AK-47s are any match for an aerial drone? C'mon people…

Yes, if such an altercation starts there will be casualties on both sides, but the United States will not be brought to its knee; this "war" will come to a quick end and that end won't be the one these Insurrectionists desire. Of that I am certain.