Shouldn't Friendship and Mentorship Be Forever?
Volume 12, Number 15
Issue 563
I have to be like Superman, A/K/A “The Man of Steel” to focus on getting through over 1,100 tax returns in a three month period while at the same time trying to ignore my natural instinct to be burdened with the fact that the ghosts of Ivymont haunt me on a very deep emotional level. The extremes of working with the exciting “highs” and the depressing “lows” of people’s financial intimacies often produce the expected-to-me by-product of overwhelming stress and emotions--both good and bad.
By choice and out of love and passion for what I do, I routinely have days with 24-26 appointments in thirty minute intervals. Then, it’s my desire to work through the nights and weekends so that I can exceed my goal of 3-4 day turnaround on almost all normal returns. To do 1,100 returns, I have to keep my “blinders” on to stay focused on the over-riding goal of getting my staff and myself to and through April 15th. The focus of my entire life is getting to 5:00 p.m. on every April 15th by going “full steam” through the 1,100 tax returns, 1,000 meetings and about 2,000 phone calls. Sometimes, I hurt people’s feelings by being too intently focused. At other times, the same “matter-of-factness” and clinical approach is exactly what customers want and allows me to receive great praise. It’s a true roller coaster doing for my customers what my friend Ria Valenzi called “trying to treat people not as you would want to be treated but trying to treat them as they need to be treated.” Trying to figure out how each unique customer needs to be treated to make their experience exceed their expectations is the secret to being a successful entrepreneur.
But, at the same time that I appear to be “heading ‘em up and moving ‘em out,” I am very emotionally tied to every client story. This is both a blessing and a curse. I do get very emotionally tied to every situation, every return and every phone call. I remember everything. I live and re-live the extremes of good and bad that have happened in the old 1850s house that is my office: Ivymont Manor. I am burdened with the special, memorable and/or last meetings with clients and employees from as recently of hours ago to years ago. They haunt me like ghosts. I never lay them down. I remember everything. It’s a sort of purgatory. At the same time that this memory makes me better, it also wears upon me.
I owe so many people the fact that this was the fifteenth busy season that I have been the principal of my own sole proprietorship out of the twenty busy seasons that I have prepared tax returns professionally. The coolest thing about April 15th is that a lot of people call, send notes, fax messages or send things to the office on April 15th. Each year brings surprises from people who appreciate (ongoing) or appreciated (in the past) me.
April 15th is a very emotional day for me. This April 15th will mark over 1,000 meetings in the 90 day period since January 15, 2004 in the same conference room where a little girl--according to Ivymont’s legend--died in a fire on Christmas Day. It also marks the fact that about 1,100 stacks of client documents have been turned into completed returns and have gone back out the door in one way or another. The best people in my lives-- personal and professional friends who know how emotional this day is--always find some way to be a part of it. Each April 15th brings a few great former employees (who have moved on to other things) and a few great past clients and associates out of the proverbial woodwork who call knowing that it’s my special day.
Given the constraints of time on the 15th, I originate as many calls as I can myself to people to remind them how special they are to me. Thank you Cynthia, Tom, Rob, Devan, Rita, Greg, Gail, Alan, Deborah, Leigh Anne, Mike, Tom, Sandy, Nancy, Sonny, Jud, and all the others who made this the best busy season ever.
This busy season has marked the passing of some of my older clients, some of whom had been with me since 1990. It will be with both sadness and honor that I will carry on with their widows, widowers and beneficiaries in pursuit of the chasing of the age-old “Death and Taxes.” This busy season also had a record number of new clients who read my advertisements that “unusual situations are a specialty” and decided to take me up on it. I hope that they know what they have gotten into.
From the TV show Smallville:
Lana Lang to Clark Kent: Hi, I hope I am not interrupting.
Clark Kent to Lana Lang: No, Come on in. I didn’t know if we were still talking.
Lana to Clark: I’m not sure what happened . . . and it’s really not important because I think our friendship is worth more than one argument.
Clark to Lana: Yeah, me, too. You know, I thought for a while there that we were done.
Lana to Clark: You and me are going to be friends for a very long time. We may have our ups and downs but that’s just the way it works.
This year, I hope that anyone that I may have wronged in the past by getting too intently focused on the goal of getting to April 15th will give me the opportunity to make things right by giving me a call on Thursday April 15th to say hello.
There is life after April 15th and good professionals, employees, bosses, mentors, leaders and followers need to stick together. If you take the bonds of friendship and mentorship once, you should be taking them for life.
David B. Robinson, CPA
Index of Previous Issues of Tax Fax
