Wednesday, November 24, 2010

A Blockbuster Week From Hell.

The thing I'm most thankful for right now is that this week, at least as far as enforced dealing with the outside world, is OVER. This one will go down in the books as a bonified week from hell.

On Monday my boss had an insurance guy come in to talk about changing his group insurance, as it's too expensive. My boss has always provided health insurance for me, but not through his group policy - I had my own private policy when I started there and he just paid that instead.

My boss has an accounting firm handling his books ... I've had my taxes done by someone almost every year ... there was no reason that my boss paying for my health insurance should have thrown up any red flags in my world. But this guy, out of the blue, just blithely informed us that we'd been committing tax fraud for 14 years, as the way the laws are set up, because I wasn't a part of the official 'group' plan, all money my boss paid towards my health insurance premiums should have been taxable income to me, and if I ever got audited, I'd owe taxes on it (minus the part I would have been allowed to write off - if they consider it income to me, they have to allow me to write off what "I" am paying for health insurance, to a point, but there's a cap on it - it would no way have been all of the premium every month).

The astronomical health insurance premiums times 14 years meant I could have owed the IRS upwards of $100,000. Needless to say, I was kind of freaked out. Yeah, only if I got audited, but still ... for someone who is beyond anal about always making sure they do things like taxes absolutely right (I paid a tax person $40 a year for a decade to do my taxes all just because of a $20 a year royalty check I got from a gas and mineral rights contract - I'm anal about taxes).

So I was pretty freaked out about that, but the next day my boss checked with his accountant, and Mr. Insurance Guy Who Thinks He's A Tax Expert was wrong. My boss' accountants DID set it up right, so that it's all legal and above-board, nothing wrong.

Then on Tuesday my boss sprung on me that the day after Thanksgiving, which I've had off paid for 14 years, is no longer a paid day off. I can work it, or I can take it off without pay.

Lovely. I respect the fact that economy sucks, and that a lot of people do have to work that day - but that was low on several levels. For one thing, I've been there FOURTEEN YEARS ... I'd think I deserved a little consideration, especially considering not paying me for the day saved him a whopping $95. Big deal. I'm sure that didn't make or break him financially, but it's 3 or 4 Christmas presents for me - right now, mere weeks before Christmas.

But even more crappy, he could have freaking given me some warning, instead of springing it on me two days before-hand - and that only because I asked, because I'd heard a rumor that's what he was doing. For financial reasons, I'd have probably chosen to work it instead, but after the way my week went steadily downhill (oh, the best is yet to come), I was in NO MOOD and desperately wanted that long weekend to recuperate. So I took the hit and took the day off, without pay.

And that really pissed me off.

Then, the icing on the cake was, I came home and accidentally did this in the driveway.

WARNING: Disturbing Photo To Follow


Yep. That's my Droid. To say I was pissed was the understatement of the decade. I was taking my stuff out of the truck when I came home from work, and it just slipped and hit the driveway.

Sigh.

Initially I thought I was going to have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new phone (no, of COURSE I didn't have the damned insurance). But something finally went somewhat right. (or, well, it might - remains to be seen).

The phone does still work, completely normally - it's just annoying as hell looking at everything through that web of cracks. But I found out that these screens (or "digitizers" as they are actually called) are replaceable. The guy who does our computers at work has done this many times for people. I ordered one on ebay for $40 (which our computer guy said was a really good price) - it's advertised as being brand new, still in the original packaging, never opened or used. And I did some poking online, and apparently this is REALLY common, and many people have successfully fixed the phone this way.

I only say 'remains to be seen' because it is possible the process could go awry and wreck the phone - it looks complicated to me, as you basically have to take the entire phone apart from the back through to the front, removing the motherboard and all it's guts ... but even if that happened, I'm not out anything but $40, because I would have to get a new one anyway if this wasn't an option - as I said, I can't deal with trying to read anything on the screen through all those cracks for very much longer.

So ... there's hope that it can be restored for a mere $40. Which makes not having the insurance a little more of a non-issue, because with the insurance I'd have had a $50 deductible, they'd have only sent me a refurbished phone, and I'd have had to set it all up all over again. This way I get to keep my phone, all personalized the way I like it, and it cost $10 less.

I think I need to be kept away from expensive electronic equipment. I wrecked the keyboard in my netbook last spring by spilling an entire drink into it (well, that really wasn't my fault - someone set a full drink down RIGHT in FRONT of the keyboard, without me knowing it, while my back was turned - so I turned around reaching towards the computer, and knocked the whole thing over right into it - I never, EVER sat my drink down that close to the computer, so I don't take full responsibility for that one).

Sigh. I just want to go hide in the Imaginarium until next Monday morning.

No comments: