h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The IRS want an $100.00 a month now, to be received by each 15th of the month.

It has to do with a misplaced number that I had written on a form almost two years ago.

It also has to do with Uvula waiting until the last minute to tell our accountant that she was filing as "head of household" over there and leaving me to file by myself as a single indiwidual.

wonderful

Also, day before yesterday, Uvula called me on the cellophone as I was leaving work to tell me to stay there until she could pick me up in her "new car".

Pleh.

Does that mean they think you earn more than you do?

No, they think I took home more than I was entitled to from my last job.

Of course, when I wasn't working, I didn't hear a peep from them about the money I wasn't making for them.

Makes them a little different from my ex...

Are they right? Was it their mistake? Is there room for negotiation on this? $100 a month seems an awful lot!

Yes, it seems they are owed.
If they had reviewed my actual budget, they could have gone down a bit, but I kinda want it over with. I have sent my first cheque for a bit over.

Over how many months, Tonsil?

Well, let's see, since I am paying a bit over, probably 18 or 20.
They tacked on interest and penalties and interest on the penalties and a one time fee of 43.00 dollars for the payment plan paperwork...

Fffrrrfft!

I had to go into work this evening to assist the WR.
She was nauseous and short of breath and was havign trouble seeing, as well as having a severe hotflash.

The moment I walked into the store, I could smell the problem. Buffer machine exhaust! I propped open the doors and spent a couple hours helping her. The moronic new floor care company had their employees use a propane or natural gas powered power buffer to make the floor shiny, but the idiots didn't have enough sense to open the doors, the only fresh air access to the store, to let the exhaust out.
They probably are used to it.

The WR was so bad off when I got there that I had to get her a bucket.
She was sitting on the floor behind the counter and half out of her mind.
Later she had diarrhea and vomitting at the same time. I got her to drink a liter of water and eat some saltines and peaches. She was much better by the time I left.

Lord! How stupid these mortals be!

Mmm, haven't they heard of Health & Safety at Work? Do you have a Health & Safety Executive there (or an equivalent)?

Eh... It is a tiny store and we have one manager, soon to be owner, if the franchise goes through, three assistant managers, and five drones. The WR is one of the assistant managers.

All of us are supposedly Health Department certified.
As for safety, there are a few pages and questions in the computer based training with regard to box knives, ladders and lifting, but that's about it.

OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, apparently has little power. A guy got killed last month at a factory I used to work at. He got wrapped up in some machinery exactly a year after a local musician lost the use of his arms in the same factory on a different machine.

This is a "right to work" state, so Unions are few and far between.

'OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, apparently has little power.' Aren't there laws about health & safety and consequences for firms that breach them? Or do they wait until someone is seriously injured or dies? What happened at the factory you used to work at?

He was standing too close to a reel that was winding flat ribbon steel onto a spindle and something on his person went along for the ride. When the search and rescue people got there, he was dead and well-layered in the steel. His body was sent to Dallas for an autopsy.
Yes, there are laws, but there are also lawyers. Most of the dangerous firms have even more dangerous firms representing them.
It takes years, a mountain of evidence, a good lawyer and some intent victims or survivors to get something changed.

Plus, places like the one where this fellow died are full of clearly marked yellow danger areas that everybody ignores at their own risk.

I don't Uvula ever understood just how fortunate I was to come home whole from a couple of those places.