Day 42 - Liars Inc.
Feb. 11th, 2010 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolfsbrideToday my boss was in fine form!
I got a call from a client regarding a letter the government sent in response to a letter my boss had sent them. In her letter she stated that when the client had given her their 2008 personal tax receipts, she'd found an RRSP slip for a prior year and could they adjust the prior year accordingly since she was sending the slip in now. The client said the government was asking for an original of the receipt and could I please pull our copy and give them the information so they could go back to the investment company to get a new slip issued.
That sounded kind of weird to me since when you send in your tax you send them the original receipts so I asked them to fax me the letter and I'd pull their prior year's tax and take a look. Well! It turns out the receipt was NOT a new receipt. When you get RRSP slips they come in threes. So what had happened was one copy went to the government, one copy went to the client and our copy was a COPY of the one that went to the government. Obviously the client had kept the original receipt by accident and that's how it ended up coming to us with their 2008 stuff.
It took me five seconds to realize this. How? BECAUSE I LOOKED AT THE FREAKING RECEIPT NUMBERS! I was flipping through the slips for that year when my brain went PING! WAIT A MINUTE! That number looks familiar. Sure enough, when I checked it against the one my boss had sent in with the letter it was the same slip.
In the meantime, the client is all set to start calling all the companies they'd bought RRSPs through for that year. Which probably would have cost an arm and three legs the way these things go. So I pull my boss aside and casually point out her mistake and then I say so you'll have to call the client and tell them they don't need copies and then you'll have to call the government and tell them to cancel the adjustment request. I guess you'll have to tell them you made a mistake.
HOW NAIVE OF ME!!!
What my boss did was this. She called the client and said and I quote! In reviewing the file, I see that the slip we were asking about is a DUPLICATE WITH A DIFFERENT NUMBER so that's why I thought it was a new slip. So no need to worry, you don't have to do anything. BYE! LIKE WHAT???? HOW CAN IT BE A DUPLICATE IF IT HAS A DIFFERENT NUMBER!???!?!? How do people let her get away with this crap????
Anyway, having lied to the client, she now calls the government and proceeds to tell them the same lie. Only instead of saying it's a different receipt she calls it a WRONG receipt. I'm over at my desk mentally going OMG! OMG! OMG! YOU DON'T USE THE WORD WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT!!! They're going to start wondering WHAT ELSE MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRONG WITH YOUR TAX RETURN!!! If we're VERY VERY lucky, this will not come back to haunt the client but I'm having visions of the government wanting to audit this client's tax year to find out what the hell is going on.
And that was before lunch!
Later in the day, she had me email an invoice to another client as she'd let us know too late for us to send her stuff out by courier for tomorrow. I'm not sure what the bloody rush was since even if the client's records and the invoice had gone out tomorrow, she wouldn't have had a check before next week anyway. So I did that. Then about an hour later, I got a call. It's the client. I ask her how she is and she responds with.. Well... I'm a bit shocked by the invoice. In my head I'm going yeah you and me both toots. But since I can't SAY that to the nice lady, I pull the billing file and TRY to explain why the price is so much without coming right out and saying that the boss is a greedy cheating bastard. Finally, I just say, you know what, I'm going to pull your file together and pass you over to the boss. Which I do.
What follows is an award winning performance in subterfuge and redirection. Honestly, I was ready to give her an Oscar after she hung up. She started out with oh well when you're a proprietorship you only have to keep track of income and expenses and when you're incorporated you have to keep track of so much more stuff never mind the fact that the lady has been incorporated for four years now.
Then she followed that up with we started you out on spreadsheets you know. Now you're doing so much more stuff. Again, nothing has changed from last year really. In some respects there was probably less stuff because the woman's revenue was down.
Then she brings out the big guns. She turns to my co-worker and says so that the lady can hear her was anything really different from last year. Of course, my co-worker says yes, we were using a different program last year. This is where her performance really shone! Suddenly, the light dawned. She was all OH! Well that explains it! I'm sure you know yourself from trying something new that there's always a learning curve with such things and my co-worker must have taken a lot longer because she wasn't used to the program! Meanwhile my co-worker is glaring daggers at the back of her head because WE HAD MENTIONED JUST THAT VERY THING AND AT THE TIME SHE WAS ALL I DON'T CARE!
Then she segues into you know, if you need to you can split it up. So then it comes out that business is slow for the lady so she's watching her cash flow WHICH MY BOSS KNEW because I'm the one that puts together the year ends and I TOLD HER the lady made less money than she did the year before. So now it's all.. You should talk to so an so! They're in the wedding business too! You could put some of your photos there to advertise!
By the time the conversation wound down the lady was apparently cool with paying the exorbitant price but my boss out of the GOODNESS of her heart, offers to give her a discount because you're a really great client and we wouldn't want you to be unhappy!
Like I said, today was the performance of a life time. I kinda wanted to stand up and applaud when the day was done.
I got a call from a client regarding a letter the government sent in response to a letter my boss had sent them. In her letter she stated that when the client had given her their 2008 personal tax receipts, she'd found an RRSP slip for a prior year and could they adjust the prior year accordingly since she was sending the slip in now. The client said the government was asking for an original of the receipt and could I please pull our copy and give them the information so they could go back to the investment company to get a new slip issued.
That sounded kind of weird to me since when you send in your tax you send them the original receipts so I asked them to fax me the letter and I'd pull their prior year's tax and take a look. Well! It turns out the receipt was NOT a new receipt. When you get RRSP slips they come in threes. So what had happened was one copy went to the government, one copy went to the client and our copy was a COPY of the one that went to the government. Obviously the client had kept the original receipt by accident and that's how it ended up coming to us with their 2008 stuff.
It took me five seconds to realize this. How? BECAUSE I LOOKED AT THE FREAKING RECEIPT NUMBERS! I was flipping through the slips for that year when my brain went PING! WAIT A MINUTE! That number looks familiar. Sure enough, when I checked it against the one my boss had sent in with the letter it was the same slip.
In the meantime, the client is all set to start calling all the companies they'd bought RRSPs through for that year. Which probably would have cost an arm and three legs the way these things go. So I pull my boss aside and casually point out her mistake and then I say so you'll have to call the client and tell them they don't need copies and then you'll have to call the government and tell them to cancel the adjustment request. I guess you'll have to tell them you made a mistake.
HOW NAIVE OF ME!!!
What my boss did was this. She called the client and said and I quote! In reviewing the file, I see that the slip we were asking about is a DUPLICATE WITH A DIFFERENT NUMBER so that's why I thought it was a new slip. So no need to worry, you don't have to do anything. BYE! LIKE WHAT???? HOW CAN IT BE A DUPLICATE IF IT HAS A DIFFERENT NUMBER!???!?!? How do people let her get away with this crap????
Anyway, having lied to the client, she now calls the government and proceeds to tell them the same lie. Only instead of saying it's a different receipt she calls it a WRONG receipt. I'm over at my desk mentally going OMG! OMG! OMG! YOU DON'T USE THE WORD WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT!!! They're going to start wondering WHAT ELSE MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRONG WITH YOUR TAX RETURN!!! If we're VERY VERY lucky, this will not come back to haunt the client but I'm having visions of the government wanting to audit this client's tax year to find out what the hell is going on.
And that was before lunch!
Later in the day, she had me email an invoice to another client as she'd let us know too late for us to send her stuff out by courier for tomorrow. I'm not sure what the bloody rush was since even if the client's records and the invoice had gone out tomorrow, she wouldn't have had a check before next week anyway. So I did that. Then about an hour later, I got a call. It's the client. I ask her how she is and she responds with.. Well... I'm a bit shocked by the invoice. In my head I'm going yeah you and me both toots. But since I can't SAY that to the nice lady, I pull the billing file and TRY to explain why the price is so much without coming right out and saying that the boss is a greedy cheating bastard. Finally, I just say, you know what, I'm going to pull your file together and pass you over to the boss. Which I do.
What follows is an award winning performance in subterfuge and redirection. Honestly, I was ready to give her an Oscar after she hung up. She started out with oh well when you're a proprietorship you only have to keep track of income and expenses and when you're incorporated you have to keep track of so much more stuff never mind the fact that the lady has been incorporated for four years now.
Then she followed that up with we started you out on spreadsheets you know. Now you're doing so much more stuff. Again, nothing has changed from last year really. In some respects there was probably less stuff because the woman's revenue was down.
Then she brings out the big guns. She turns to my co-worker and says so that the lady can hear her was anything really different from last year. Of course, my co-worker says yes, we were using a different program last year. This is where her performance really shone! Suddenly, the light dawned. She was all OH! Well that explains it! I'm sure you know yourself from trying something new that there's always a learning curve with such things and my co-worker must have taken a lot longer because she wasn't used to the program! Meanwhile my co-worker is glaring daggers at the back of her head because WE HAD MENTIONED JUST THAT VERY THING AND AT THE TIME SHE WAS ALL I DON'T CARE!
Then she segues into you know, if you need to you can split it up. So then it comes out that business is slow for the lady so she's watching her cash flow WHICH MY BOSS KNEW because I'm the one that puts together the year ends and I TOLD HER the lady made less money than she did the year before. So now it's all.. You should talk to so an so! They're in the wedding business too! You could put some of your photos there to advertise!
By the time the conversation wound down the lady was apparently cool with paying the exorbitant price but my boss out of the GOODNESS of her heart, offers to give her a discount because you're a really great client and we wouldn't want you to be unhappy!
Like I said, today was the performance of a life time. I kinda wanted to stand up and applaud when the day was done.
