So, here’s what I have learned in the last 10 months (since leaving the old job):
* Work sucks. Too many hours, annoying coworkers, annoying clients
* Employers suck. They don’t let you work overtime (see above), they don’t hire enough people to do the job, blah blah.
* Yeah.
So anyway! In Big Payroll, sometimes you get to deal with Particularly Crabby Clients. Today, I had a super po’d client on the phone who was pissed because we didn’t psychically know that their unemployment tax rate changed. (Psst…we’re not psychic. Sorry about that). When they don’t tell us this, we don’t debit them enough for their unemployment contribution and then the client gets a letter from the state about how much they owe, plus interest and penalties.
If there’s something clients love, it’s a letter from their state that talks about penalties and interest. Oh yeahhh! So, the client gets this letter and then they fax it to us and the usual answer is “Umm, did you tell us your rate changed?”
“But if you do payroll for Any State, you should know that the rate for employers in Any State tripled!”
(Umm, NO. Because it doesn’t triple for EVERYONE, just crap employers like you with a preference towards hiring degenerates*).
So apparently we have all of these notices and it’s overwhelming to our department who works in that area so now they want Pattie and I to work on them too. I really, really hate this. I don’t want to work on tax stuff, I want to key payrolls and take phone calls (when I absolutely have to…). I don’t want to send out emails saying “Yeahhh, you should pay this money directly to the state. Have a nice day! Please don’t fire us!”
I hate – HATE – giving out bad news. To me, the cool thing when clients send tax notices is, is that I can forward it to the right people and tell the client that I have forwarded it to the right people and they will be in touch. I don’t want to be the person to get in touch with them, too. Ppphhhhhfffft.
* The angry client is in an industry that I have some familiarity with, so I am sure I am OK to make this judgement about her employees.