H&R Block and Other Irritants

I was on a conference call this morning with a client and one of our Partners (a.k.a. one of my many bosses). I love this client, but he kind of stepped in it today by accident.

Back-up a second, here's what you need to know to understand the exchange I'm about to relay. I work for an accounting firm, one of the very, very large global firms you may have heard of. Now, I am not an accountant (thank God), I do international human resources consulting. But I am a part of my firm's tax practice, which means I know a thing or two about taxes, our business model, the quality of our professionals, the complexity of the work we do and the quality of the services we provide. In short, we are pretty freakin' awesome.

So, back to the story...the client asked the Partner and me what we charge for a U.S. tax return to be prepared for a guy on expatriate assignment in the U.K. And we told him. To which he responded, "Wow, that's expensive, considering I can get the same thing done at H&R Block."

Crickets.

Followed by awkward backpeddaling on the client's part.

If you really want to piss off a highly skilled, highly intelligent, truly talented tax person (and I'm talking about the Partner on the call, not me), compare that person to someone who preps tax returns at H&R Block.

And since I've been thinking about that exchange, it prompted me to think of other things that annoy me and/or are otherwise offensive. Not to go all negative here, but I think most of us can agree on the short(-ish) list that follows:

- People who don't have an inside voice.
- People who stop at the top or bottom of the escalator.
- The walkers on the Lady Bird Lake trail who insist on walking three abreast.
- Flat tires.
- The fact that the lights on Red River aren't synched.
- Random capitalization of words.
- Apostrophe misuse.
- Nancy Pelosi.
- Use of the non-words "supposably" and "irregardless" and/or pronouncing "moot" as "mute".
- Conference calls.
- The blue screen of death.
- Business and/or tech speak.
- Douchebags, douchebaggettes and general douchebaggery.
- New Jersey accents.
- Alabama accents.
- California.
- Everyone in Congress.
- Nancy Pelosi, especially.
- Cigarette smoke.
- Stepping in dog poop.
- Slow drivers in the fast lane.
- IH35.
- Twangy country music.
- Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears...you get where I'm going.
- Being stuck in the middle seat on a plane between two fat men.
- Airline travel.
- Nancy Pelosi.
- Low flush toilets.
- Scientology.
- Obesity as a physical ailment.
- Fat people who supersize their Mickey D's orders.
- Monsanto.
- The entire month of August in Austin.
- Nancy Pelosi.

Hmmm...I should stop there for now.

In summary, I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't compare my firm to H&R Block or I'll bitch relentlessly about completely unrelated sh**. Carry on! :)