Pray For My Accountant

2/9/2017

Today started as many others do. A few clients in the morning. An uninspired Healthy Choice meal for lunch. A little witty repartee with Megan, my across-the-hall fellow psychologist and valued friend. We were talking about how many hats Megan bought for her son this year, which is a subject that we cover a lot, because I think she buys too many hats and I tend to bring up the same subjects over and over. I bet she gets sick of that. So anyway, it was business as usual until she said, "I've gotta work on my taxes today."

I gulped.“Your taxes. Does that mean…Tom’s coming?”

“Yeah, Tom’s coming.”

Tom’s coming. Two words. Infinite fear.

Tom is our accountant.

Please let it be known that my fear has very little to do with Tom himself. Tom is a lovely man.  He is smart, patient, and tactful. He helps me to make good financial choices. In fact, I think if everyone could have Tom in their lives, they’d probably be a lot better off.

So no, it’s not Tom per sé that gives me pause. It’s the stuff I find myself having to say to Tom. Like, “Oops, I totally forgot to send you that mileage number again,” or “Can you explain how SIMPLE IRAs work, one more time?” (I’d already asked like 9 times), or “Wait, was I supposed to mail a check for that last week?”

“Ah, shit,” I said, trying to figure out how I was going to not look like an idiot in front of Tom. Again. And this time was bound to be especially bad, because I’d been harboring a secret.

You see, I didn’t get into psychology to be a businesswoman. I really didn’t. In my ten years of higher education, I didn’t take one—not even one!— course in business. Every lick of business knowledge I have is from way back in the day, when I took Accounting I and II in high school. 

So what did I do, immediately upon graduating with my PhD? Open a business. YOLO.

That’s where Tom comes in. He’s a powerhouse of financial knowledge. Incredibly helpful? YES. A bit intimidating? Also yes.

So, I’m usually nervous when Tom comes to visit, and nerves make me more clunky than I already am.  My mouth runs ahead of my brain, and I'm pretty sure I make a lot of weird, strained faces. Also, I’m inherently socially awkward, namely because I SUCK at socially acceptable small talk. Which I didn’t even realize about myself until I learned about some of the most common American social scripts in a multicultural communication class in undergrad and realized I was DOING THEM ALL WRONG. For example, when an American says “How are you?”, in passing,  it is meant to be a greeting, not a legitimate question. You are supposed to reply, “Fine, thanks. How are you?”

You guys, this info blew my mind. I’d always thought that when people asked how I was, my job was to be honest and forthcoming, you know, like “Actually, terrible, because I’ve got cramps and my TV show didn’t record last night and I’m also feeling really insecure about this conversation that I had with a friend this morning.”

But at least now I understand why so many folks in undergrad stopped asking how I was when I saw them in the hall.

Anyway.

Before I’d even had a chance to formulate a plan for disclosing my shameful secret to Tom, the office door bell rang.

“Is that him?” I mouthed to Megan, standing in the threshold of my doorway, out of the line of sight of the waiting room and hallway.

Megan nodded.

I took a deep breath and stepped out of my doorway, and there, just ten feet away from me, was Tom. I smiled my most winning smile.

“Tom! Hi!”

“Hello there!” His tone was friendly, but I caught the way he froze, just a little.

Imagine this from his perspective: you go to a client’s office, and on your way down the hall to her door, another of your clients, NOT the one you were supposed to be meeting with, comes popping out of nowhere, smiling hugely, saying your name like she knew you were coming. Creepy, amiright?

“I was going to email you today," I said. It was almost the truth. 

“Oh, were you? I was starting to think you were avoiding me!”

I knew he was joking but SHIT did I feel called out. Dude saw right through me.

I eased into my confession. Started with a positive. “I put some money into my retirement account!”

He smiled. “Okay, that’s good!” He looked at me expectantly...probably because I was blocking his way into Megan’s office. 

I did that smile that’s not really a smile, but more of a baring of teeth. I guess it’s a grimace? It looks like this:

“Okay, so another thing. I’m a little behind on my Quickbooks for the year.” 

Tom, because he is a lovely man, once spent well over an hour in my office teaching me how to use Quickbooks. For a few years I’d been able to use it on my own with relative proficiency. Then 2016 happened. (Author’s Note: If you’re new to me, or to the blog: 2016 was not my best year. Read this if you want to know why.)

He furrowed his brow, just a little. “All right, like how far behind are we talking?”

“Ummm…pretty behind.”

“When’s the last time you updated it?”

“December.”

“Oh, that’s not bad. You can get that caught up.”

“No…like last December. December 2015.” More teeth baring.

“Ookkay.” He narrowed his eyes. Not unkindly, just kind of a “what in the hell should we do with this?” kind of face. It felt like the time I drove my dad’s pickup into a snowdrift in the country and got it stuck. Just like back then, I’d done a bad thing, and there was nothing to do but come clean.

Tom was nowhere near as pissed as my dad had been the night of the truck in the snowdrift. Tom didn’t say “Fuck” even one time.

Yet despite Tom's total lack of criticism, my need to please rushed forth and started pushing nonsense out of my mouth. “I’ve got all of my bank statements! I could go through and get it all caught up really quick! Should I? I can! I definitely can. Yep. But, I mean…does it make more sense for me to do it, or for me to just have you do it, at this point?”

He paused, considering this. “I think it’s probably best if you just get me the statements, and I’ll do it. It’ll save time for you, anyway.”

Later that day, Tom and I came up with a system that will work better for me for the upcoming tax year-- which includes not trying to do my own Quickbooks from now on. This will cost me a little more in terms of what I pay him, but will be worth the savings of time and guilt.

Before he left, he flipped through the bank statements I'd managed to find for him. “What’s this Capital One deposit?”

“Distribution. That’s just a regular deposit into a savings account.” Ah, the thrill of competence!

“And how about this $22.30 at Super Saver?”

I squirmed. “Umm….pretty sure that was office supplies and postage.” And Tom, if you’re reading this, it was definitely also two large bags of Hershey’s Kisses, which I DO hand out to clients on the regular. Total business expense.

I started to get nervous thinking about Tom going through all of my bank statements. Tom was now going to know every time I went out to eat. He’s going to know every cent that I spent on every book, every training, EVERY BAG OF CHOCOLATE. When you really get down to it, your accountant is like a benevolent Big Brother—not the genetic type, the Orwellian type. So you’d better damn-well have someone you trust. Thank goodness I trust Tom.

Trust aside, I was still jittery thinking about the Big Brothery aspects and also still feeling sort of like a daughter having just admitted some grave error to her father.

So I started rambling on about all kinds of weird shit, I don’t even know what, but I do know that it got worse and worse as it went along, culminating in me comparing Tom to a priest who had just absolved me of all of my financial sins, literally crossing myself, and saying “I’m not even Catholic, but I guess I’m Catholic today.”

Yep. That happened. My Protestant ass crossed myself in front of my accountant and pretended that he was a priest. (WTF?)

To be fair, he did give me permission to throw all of my guilt away. I mean, was crossing myself after that situation really so wrong? (Hint: Yes.)

After assigning me three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers (not really), Tom left, and I have to imagine he was relieved. Ultimately, I was also relieved, but not because of his absence, but rather, because I’d “come clean” and it really wasn’t all that big of a deal. All of the meetings with Tom are like that: we hold our breath, we talk about the financial truths of the situation at hand, he tells us what to do in that calm, no-nonsense way that he does, and then we all move on with our lives. Sometimes we do what he says. Sometimes we don’t. But even when we fail he helps us figure out what the next best step is.

Best accountant ever.

Lucky Megan: she got to hear the entire "I'm Catholic today" shitshow go down. Given the proximity between her door and mine, she Very Often sees me making an ass of myself.

And, lucky me, Megan thinks I’m “cute awkward.” I want to believe her, but somehow her sentiment smacks of that way that parents think the weird things their kids do are cute. But I guess that’d make me Megan’s kid in this scenario, and that doesn’t really work because we’re not like that, and plus if I was her kid she’d start bringing me all of these hats and dear god, please don’t let her buy any more hats.

Cute awkward, actual awkward, whatever I am--I’ve accepted it’s how I’ll always be. Even with my accountant. Especially with my accountant. If you think about it, say a prayer for Tom tonight. When it comes to our office, he needs all the help he can get. And it’s tax season, y’all. 

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UPDATE: TOM READ AND APPROVED OF THIS POST (see the comments below). I FEEL LIKE I HAVE WON AT LIFE. Quickbooks be damned.