Let's Get Real!

So, Diamend over at Bianco Babblings is starting a Thursday blog segment called "Let's Get Real."  Its an opportunity to get something off your chest you feel the need to confess.  I am going to try and jump in as much as possible and share some random information with all two of my readers. :)

Let's get real....

The day - Wednesday January 29th (Happy Birthday Grandpa Frank).  It was starting to get dark and I had just stepped out of a training session.  The time. 4:25 PM.(ok so maybe not getting dark yet, but I need the detail to keep this sounding like I am telling one of those mystery investigator type stories...just go with it)  I walked up to my cramped computer surrounded by the days work to find this email....

"Tonya, a guy from the Texas Comptroller was just up here looking for you, he says our company owes $330,000 in taxes."

It took me a moment to let that email sink in, and with it, came sheer panic.  Most of my co-workers had already left, so I had no one to converse with over my encounter.  Why would the comptroller just show up like that....without a notice, assessment or at the least a PHONE CALL.  He just showed up. What?!?! Who does that...he must mean business.  How in the  world could we owe that?!?  I know you have been there, when something comes up where you are 99% sure it is a mistake, but you can't shake that feeling in the back of your mind of "What if I missed something? What if I made a mistake?"

Well, I freaked out a little bit -- texted my other tax friends to see if they had ever heard of someone showing up at the office.  Trying to get people to help me calm down....but I just couldn't let it go.  To make matters worse, in the state of Texas, if they feel like you are evading them, they can and WILL go straight to the home of  your officers and tell them that their company is delinquent, so these thoughts flew around my head of this enforcement guy showing up at my presidents house stating "Do you know Tonya didn't do her job and owes us $331,000??"  Alas, little sleep was to be had by this little cpa.

Well I came in this morning early, ready to conquer this.  I left the apartment telling Alex "Today it will turn out that either (a) the guy made a mistake or (b) your wife will be without a job!  I know this sounds super dramatic and even after 5 different people had tried to calm me down the night before, this is honestly how I felt.  I work for a very small company and feel very responsible to not miss anything, so when things like this happen I panic.

Well in coming in today, it turns out that our October return was missing and all we had to do was prove that we had submitted it.  The return was BLANK by the way.  He said that the system just makes up a tax obligation out of thin air when nothing was filed, so $331,000 was a straight up guess.  So.....I lost sleep, annoyed my friends and whined to my husband last night a LOT....I may have been slightly dramatic and made it a bigger deal than necessary.  So I spent a good of the morning feeling silly.

Here I am confessing.  My name is Tonya and although I proclaim to not enjoy drama -- I can dish out my fair share of drama.  Still glad that the outcome was me overreacting and not us actually owing hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it might have left me looking for a job.