Filed under: Justice/community
Ah, the oxymoronic term of the week! Government, by definition these days, is not very organized.
A client vented yesterday about how angry the current economic situation was (I feel ya pal, we are all so there…) “How is it that I have to work so hard all these years and they can’t even manage to do a budget?!”
Today I am online trying to sort out the arcane requirements of a small business. Whew. Talk about a challenge - no wonder so many people just work under the table. I already passed my 2 licensure examinations and paid my $400+ per 2 years plus 36 unit hours for renewal as a psychologist. Already established fictitious business name. Forked out $ for that every 5 years. Got a business Tax ID. OK. Getting more confusing now, but I’m game. My sublesser got us a fire department inspection. I think the inspection took 2 minutes since they firepersons can just stand at our door, glance around, and OK, that’s the entirety of our bitty office.
Right now I am trying to look at additional permits or whatever needed and I am astounded and at the level of categories on the state website. Special permits for coaches, referees, and personal trainers, guide dog schools, pest control, dental hygienists…
In the job list I searched for my category. WTF? They had acupuncuritst, ice manufacturer, repossession services, photofinishing services (with the exception of 1 hour, why I can’t imagine), incineration for refuse, courier, brewery, winery, beef cattle feedlot, flavoring syrup manufacturer…but NO counselors, psychologist, therapists. What is up with that? Uhm….I guess acunpuncturist and medical doctor are the closest categories to what I do so I check those boxes. Am led to a page with more gobbledygook.
This exasperation is on top of the morass of assisting my mother through her adventures with unemployment benefits. The wise people there accused this senior citizen of fraudulently under reporting her puny temp job wage and not only tried to fine her hundreds of dollars, but also blacklist her! Yes, just go blacklist a 65 year old why don’t you, so that for 6 months she can’t access the legally entitled benefits she has worked for all her life. Never mind that her one small error was due to your indecipherable forms and incompetent phone mis-advisors. As if one could survive on the piddly benefits to begin with! I mean, if she had no family to help out - how do people survive these lean times? I can’t imagine how many others with less family support at managing. Hence our current trend on “going postal” ’round the country I suppose.
Mum’s situation cleared up a bit following a little circus that included nasty letters written by yours truly and her having to attend an actual court trial to explain her situation to a judge. They rapidly concluded that it was all just an errror. So great, she has her pittance back and has vindicated her name. Meanwhile, I am wondering how much taxpayer $$ went to this stupid farce and staffing the judge, reporter, etc, at court…much, much, much ado about NOTHING.
Breathe….the world is a better place due to the fact that P handles our taxes. Because if it were me, there’d be no end to the griping and irate letter writing…the only silver lining of sorts in all this is that I am realizing how no one else know what they are doing half the time. It’s kind of like how I felt when I began attending county behavioral health meetings. I was intimidated until I realized we were all disorganized and clueless together. Same for SSI, IRS, etc. It’s a tad alarming to realize that we are not in wise hands, but that at least I can muddle through, and probably no one will be checking.
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
