so you want to be a volunteer

well, the first client session for VITA was thursday night. as i left to go to it i was already exhausted, and really didnt feel like going. i mean, come on. volunteering is like communism...in theory it's great, but in practice, ehhhhh.

so i arrived at 530, pretty much convinced whoever i helped that night was fucked. and not fucked as in "i've been on the real world" fucked. and not fucked in the good way either. i'm talking fucked. all of our training was on the regular paper version of the 1040, but the actual program is done on this taxwise software, on which we had one training session, where the lady just sped thru it all at a rate that's 10 times faster than tom cruise can masturbate to the idea of scientology.

while we were all sitting down at our computers, the coordinator mentioned that for the first few weeks we could work together if we wanted, to get the feel of the program and the general process down. well, being tired i was also a bit antisocial, and didnt feel like putting up with small talk or anything else useless like that. further, i noticed most of the other people pussed out and had paired up. there was this one guy in the row in front of me, but i figured i'd learn the program/process better if i just did it myself. jump right in, ya know. and i'm glad i did.

it also helped that my first client was very nice, and also patient. but i mean, there's no reason not to be. in a few hours, someone else is doing your taxes for free. you cant/dont want to do them yourself, that's why you're there. you can't/dont want to pay for them to be done professionally, that's why you're there.

there were definitely points that were frustrating and/or confusing, but it turned out that most of these times were due to glitches in the program. i'm not exactly sure why this particular program is used (as opposed to something like turbotax, or even using paper forms), but i dont think its too much to ask that they fix the program so it doesnt fuck things up that you need to override all the time. if i wanted my computer programs to be fucked up, i'd buy another dell.

but the job got done, with only 1 or 2 very minor errors on my part. not bad for the first time. i can live with that. and clients stopped coming in by 9 or so, so i got to leave a little early and made it home in time to see "the office." not so bad after all. now if we could only do something about these social classes...