thene | (no subject)

(no subject)

This week has been officially lovely; adorkable Dessa show in Cambridge, Ting is back, fandom is amazing, new job is making me really happy, I am chipping away at writer's block (albeit in a very 'blah' way), and I have found out that Plan A is not yet dead? Some useless agency people (no really I just saved their number in my phone as 'Useless People') called to check if I was still up for a part-time tax job at a CPA firm doing, as they put it, 'high income filers and partnerships'.

I said yes; and today, while I was talking about an immigration-related tax issue (obv I am fascinated by all of these), my lovely new boss tells me that they really need a certified W7 provider at my office and I said 'YESPLSME'. A W7 is a request for an 'individual tax identification number' or ITIN, which functions as an SSN for someone who's not eligible to have an SSN - so, in most cases, undocumented immigrants. (Yes, undocumented immigrants file their taxes just like everyone else in America, and the IRS politely do not rat them out to the DHS. Next time anyone tries to tell you that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes, please give them a lovely punch in the face from me).

So I may (I have no idea how much bullshit the agency is stringing me) soon have two part-time jobs, one of which is all about 'high income filers and partnerships' and the other of which is all about undocumented people. the juxtaposition, seriously.

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That pairing appeals to me: it balances out, like "the dice equation".^* It's beauty makes me want to use my will to force it into existence.

Anyway, there you were, bitching about only having a short term contract and already things are looking promising. Congrats!!

* You probably know this, but if you look at a "dice": the opposite sides add up to 7, and there are three pairs. In fact for any die, dN, the opposite sides add up to N + 1 and there are N ÷ 2 pairs. And that's how I remember the formula to sum numbers 1 to N. So I call it the "dice equation". The point, in this case, is that the biggest number is paired off with the smallest number; and then the next biggest with the next smallest; and so on... Balance

this concept is perfect /steals, keeps forever

Mm, I am still a little worried about where I'll be come May as I bet both jobs have the same shelf-life, but at least this other prospective part-time gig has more potential for a future than my current one does, and also more networking opportunities, with any luck, although needless to say I am terrible at networking. I can accrue limited benefits (paid sick leave etc) via the agency too, and I've never had a job with those before.

I get the stress you mention below, but now you've got contacts, and know there's a good chance of getting work, can't you work like shit for the "tax season", save up, and then live frugally and write for the "off season"?

Tax Authorities losing in court is music my ears. (My turn on Friday, weather and bureaucratic-competence permitting.) But don't underestimate the time it will take Congress to sign a piece of paper. They might end up creating a new certificate, too. What's strange is that IRS/Congress are doing what, I guess, would be handled by the relevant professional body in the UK.

Yeah, money is still not a problem and it's entirely possible that agencies will come up with things - I actually turned down a job yesterday because it couldn't fit in with my schedule & didn't appear to have enough of a future to be worth dropping the job I have for. So, you never know.

Oooh, best of luck with that! And mm, the US tax industry has been hitherto something of a cottage industry - the problem being that the tax code got progressively more monstrous (mostly because it's bundled with huge parts of the benefits system), and progressively more people have required help to deal with it. People who now have a vested interest in keeping the tax code as complicated as possible, yay! I just assume that Congress will feel it's in their interests to step in and help the IRS out here by extending their legal authority; I'm genuinely curious as to how the extreme right in the House of Representatives will react, as right-wing conspiracy theorism in the US is full of kook regarding the IRS's legal powers. /popcorn

I'm really glad things are looking up for you! :DDD *hi5s* It looks like you'll be working in something that you'll enjoy, and in something that will provide good money; and I hope both thing are true.

(I had no idea undocumented immigrants payed taxes! God the xenophobia and ignorance of some people in that country, ffs. It should be a thing of public domain so they'd shut the fuck up.)

May I ask what are you writing? :3

Yeah, there is an entire system set up to allow undocumented people to pay taxes - plus I've found that the stereotype of undocumented people all being cash-in-hand day-labourers really isn't true; many of them have steady jobs with paychecks (though the new I9 program is meant to make that kind of stability harder to achieve), and they are automatically subject to tax withholding whether they want to file or not. This is even before you get to the asinine way xenophobes conveniently ignore all forms of taxation except federal income taxes; undocumented people pay sales taxes and road tolls, they pay property taxes directly or indirectly (ie. via renting), and many pay into the Social Security and Medicare funds even though they'll never be able to benefit from those payments.

As usual I'm not writing any one specific 'what' - I have a few different things I'm chipping away at. The most productive one this week has been an OF scene in which there are girls awkwardly drinking tea at each other, but unfortunately I have no idea what it's for or where it's going - I am bad at figuring out original structures.

I love learning stuff :333b The stereotype indeed doesn't hold up to reality. I can't speak for the US, but at least here (people have been becoming increasinly xenophobic the last years, since the immigration quotas have risen) while a lot of undocumented immigrants are day-labourers who work in awful conditions in zones near the border and rural zones; a good deal of city workers have paychecks and contracts (temporal contracts in shitty jobs, but even Chilean working teenagers have to be legally contracted here). I'm imagining a similar situation there? Also, same thing for the other forms of taxing. You can't just avoid that.

Keep writing! This is an advice I should follow myself, but the only way to defeat writer's block is to not stop no matter what. So an OF scene, no matter if you don't know it's direction yet, is awesome enough.

It is always funny to remember that the Latin American countries that export people to the US are also hotbeds of xenophobia. :/

I've had a very busy week and little writing has happened, but I'm trying! Ironically I've found that work rarely interferes with writing once I have the rhythm of it. I did

ff_exchange while working 50 hours a week once and I wrote 28k in a month. Last year I was unemployed for a long time and the extra time did up my wordcount for the year, but not by much - I jumped from about 75k to about 100k. The stress of being unemployed, plus of not having a permanent home between Feb and May, did almost as much harm as the extra free time did good.

Latin American countries strive to be as white as possible and that includes looking down on other Latin American countries with a higher indigenous population, and on themselves if the indigenous population is too visible, and in everyone who looks like it (usually from the lower classes). It's xenophobic, and classist. Sucks.

Fffffff, 28k in a month, that's amazing O_O Tell me your secret to it, whenever I attempt a new project making it longer than 3k is an insurmountable task. I've found out the truth in your experience first hand - It's good to have free time to write (I take my hat off to you for writing while working 50 hours a week) but being unhappy makes you write WAY WAY LESS than being busy. Since I first got depressed years ago, I've been out of university and doing nothing for long periods of time, and the extra time has been just lost.

I am SO ERRATIC when it comes to wordcount. I can try to make time for it to happen every day, but I refuse to ever do NaNo or have a daily target. I have days when I slave over something for hours and only produce a few new words, others when I get several thousand and then wake up the next morning and have nothing and get terrified that I'll never be able to write anything ever again. Last year I had a couple of very good wordcount months surrounded by many bad ones where I couldn't get anywhere for love nor money. I've had amazing weeks while working a lot, while working part-time and while not working at all. It's all alchemy and mania; time never seems to be a factor.

I am best at working on shortfics, but I find that the ease with which I do things is building substantially over time, and that's made my length ramp up too. It's like building a muscle; my brain can lift something a little bit more easily each time, so without noticing as such I'm picking up bigger, heavier things. (But not necessarily doing it better. XD ) One I notice a lot is my comfort with dialogue; at one point I had got so stressed about it that I realised I'd just written an entire fic with no dialogue in it at all (Jigsaw, which AFAIK is the only fic ever written about the Piece Walker flash game - god I love Rule 35). I realised I wasn't comfortable with conversations involving more than two people. Now I don't even think about it most of the time.

lol @ the IRS. Just...lol.

But yays for working, at least? Hope at least one of those turns out to be a permanent thing.

THEY JUST GOT RID OF ALL THE CERTIFICATION STUFF. ALL OF IT. IT JUST GOT STRUCK DOWN BY THE COURTS. I am inclined to take the EA exam asap anyway though.

I strongly doubt it - just hope I can line up something else, and even if I can't, I'll have both a better resume and better references.

IDK WHAT THAT MEANS BUT I GUESS IT'S A GOOD THING FOR YOU.

Resume padding, yes, if I get hired at this restaurant, that will push the one fast food job I was forced to take for a few months in 2008 right off ;_;

ACTUALLY, NOT EXACTLY. It was my boss who told me - she'd just got the news via email - and we talked about it for a while. As I AM up to date on the new certification, it being eliminated doesn't benefit me - they already wasted my time and now I don't even have any upside from that. Bosslady and I both think that basic certification is necessary, and I had hoped that it would bring an increase in pay & prestige and an increase in business (as providers who weren't competent enough to get their assses certified left the profession). I also figure that at most, the court ruling pushes it back a few years - they decided the IRS don't have the authority to certify people, and all that means is that Congress will have to sign something to let them start certifying people again. I don't imagine that will take long. The HILARIOUS part is that last year my boss was offered a job in the IRS's shiny new certification department which just got abolished by a court order, and she turned it down. Bullet dodged there. XD In any case I still want to get the more advanced kind of certification, which still exists.

Hahahah yes, what I am looking for is references who I don't think secretly hate me or are flakey and insane. D.M. has apparently vanished without a trace; I just hope I get a damn W2 out of her useless ass.

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