Taking Inventory & Tutoring a Friend...

Today was the second day of taking inventory at work. Since that was going to take from 8 am to about 2 pm, I wasn't able to attend my tax class...and I wasn't particularly happy about that. But that's just part of life and you can't do anything about it. Taking inventory this year was particularly chaotic. It probably was one of the worst taking inventory session I've ever been part of. And I've now been working for 20+ years. Around 1 pm a friend with whom I'm taking my tax class called me to aks how thing were coming along. I told him that I would get back to him as soon as I'm done taking inventory. After all I had promised to tutor him, since he was going to take his payroll exam on April 2nd. I left work at 1.30 pm and headed home to grab a bite to eat and take Daisy for a walk. After a little relaxing I called him up and told him that I would head over to his place.
We started our "payroll session" about 4 pm and it was really tough at times. He was puzzeld with things that came completely easy to me. But I did explain everything in great detail. So that he get's the point why he has to do certain things a certain way. We get good along with each other and he thought that I can explan payroll very well. We had started with an fairly easy subject and than moved on to the really tought stuff. And we did spend considerable amount on the hard subjects, since those give you the big points and screwing them up can easily break your exam. And those subjects are really hard to understand. At 8 pm we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then continued with the tough stuff. But this time around he did much better than the first time. It definitely takes getting used to it. And it's a fact that if you understand the hardest excercise, the rest is much easier.
After we got done with that we did some examples on how to calculate business trips and business trips to foreign countries correctly. As it turns out I do know all that stuff quite well and having to explain it to someone else in detail also improves your own knowledge of the subject. Of course calculating business trips and related expenses is fairly easy compared to dealing with the tax side of vacation and XMAS bonus.
And our final subject was on how to calculte the termination of employment right. And there are quite a number of things to take into consideration. We were done at about 11 pm and spent some time watching YouTube before I headed back home. He has to make the call if he's ready to take the exam or not. But if I would have been puzzeled by those many subject I probably wouldn't have gone for the exam. But of course that's an individual descision. I did offer him that he can call me if he hits a snag while learing during the days leading up to his exam. All in all it was not a bad way to spend a Saturday and actually a quite fulfilling experience helping someone out. And it did show me that I do have a quite sufficient knowlege of the subject payroll.

My 43rd Birthday...

Well, today is my 43rd Birthday. Since I had to work anyways I wasn't really going for a big celebration. Brought two cakes to work and for having to work on your birthday, it was an actually quite enjoyable work day. Got quite a number of birthday wishes on Facebook and Twitter. Those were very much appreciated. Thanks guys!!
After work I went home to take Daisy for a nice walk. After that I headed into town to have dinner with a couple of friends. And if you guessed that I was going for steak, you do know me well. That's a habit I still have after having moved back to Austria almost 3 years ago. Guess that's one of those habits I picked up in the States and that are going to stick with me. It was not exactly a cheap dinner. But you've only got one birthday every year and it was quite yummy! All in all a very nice way to end my birthday.

Change of Plans...

March was pretty much an average month. Lot's of things going on at work. And it was a kinda stressful time. Having to take two classes wasn't helping either. Since my tax exam isn't going to happen before the begining of June I focused more on payroll. The plan was to take my payroll exam on April 2nd. At least that was the plan until today. Today I had to admit that I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be. Most of the excercises I don't have much of a problem with. There are only a few examples that are rather hard for me. But unfortunately gettem them wrong means a big loss in points you can get on that written exam. On top of that I wasn't nearly as prepared in payroll theory as I wanted to be. And than there's the fact that the before my planned payroll exam we were preparing at work for taking inventory. And that means that it is particularly stressful and that I won't have the time I wanted to have to prepare for my exam.
So I made the decision to push my payroll back to June. And I really wasn't happy about that. But I think it's the right choice. In June I will be sufficiently prepared. I will have had enough time to go through all the excercises and learn theory as well. I probably would have passed that exam, but just barely and I really wasn't prepared to screw up my final grade. After I had pushed the date of the exam back I was actually relieved. As it takes quite some stress away from me. It just means that I will have to prepare for my payroll and corporate tax exam at the same time. But I do think that's doable.
After I had pushed back the date of the payroll exam, I also moved my advanced tax law class, that was scheduled to start on April 5th to the beginning of September. Having to take two classes and having to prepare for two exams is just too stressful. And I really want to have a little time to relax as well. But all in all I'm happy with my decision.