What does January – May look like in our office?
Not quite this bad! On most days.
Our full team of five plus the elephant in the room showed up to work on January 2, 2019 ready to put forth their best efforts to produce a high value, quick paced, and accurate tax season.
Brooke is most like the animals running around the place – trying to accomplish several big and bold goals simultaneously. She’s like the lamb fur – catches all the heat of the good, bad, and the ugly. The dog represents Brooke’s quickness to bark orders, spur of the moment marketing plans, management plans, client management tips and to do lists to herself and others in the office. She’s like the dragon when it comes to tax strategy for clients – full of fire to melt down the tax code to the gray area that fits the client’s greatest benefit. On the flip side, she listens to her team and clients like a quiet little mouse. The more she understands the more she can help.
Tyler is best represented by the girl making and throwing paper airplanes made of pages of the expired IRS code. He’s a note taker focused on client tax strategy, analyzing changes in tax code, pulling apart software nuisances, and making internal process and procedures more efficient. He also knows how to poke fun at himself, the team, and the governments.
Julia our office manager is best represented by the young boy trying to manage a snowman in hot room filled with people. She’s the one scheduling in person tax appointments, assigning drop and portal upload weeks, answering phone calls, compiling and mailing tax organizers, uploading organizers to the secured portal, communicating directly with clients, IT teams, and training new staff. Julia’s work ethic is something from the older generation – she works hard and smart. She’s moving buttons on a snowman in several directions at the same time in hopes it doesn’t melt before the goal is accomplished at 100%.
Darcie is our new seasonal office assistant. She’s in her first week of training with Julia. She’s polite, courteous, hardworking, self-driven, and pays attention to detail with an emphasis on confidentiality. She’s much like the woman in the front row reading the new employee policy and procedures binder created by Julia. Although I’m sure over time she’ll be the one in the front row trying to scarf down a whole meal in a matter of seconds because there’s not much time to reload during tax season.
Tammy is the librarian in the back – nice and neatly organized with a calm cool relatable to people demeanor. Each book represents a budget fund to her. And she’s a believer in the Fun Fund book! She can find a solution to any problem within any book of life. She may appear to be quiet but really her mind is spinning with actions for you to implement to improve your money ways. She takes no trash (hence the trash bin located conveniently to right) and she’s always willing to read up on new ways to help. She struggles, like Brooke, to keep plants living which is why she probably placed the plant on the top shelf. It’s going to die anyway so why bother with it? She’s great at prioritizing!
And we can’t forget the Elephant in the room! The IRS, Social Security Administration, Department of Labor, Iowa Department of Revenue, and the financial institutions. They watch from the window and when necessary they roar. Heads up – the federal agency haven’t been roaring much while on a partial government shutdown, but they will once they can get back to work.
So will we…
