Some people complain about the inefficiency of government, other people complain about the inefficiency of working for a big company. I’ve been spending hours dealing with the nexus of both of these time wasters in getting my income taxes together before the April deadline.
Last year, I spent more than 20 hours on the phone trying to straighten out what day I left MegaCorp the year before. My last day was April Fool’s Day (4/1), but they marked me down as 3/31. That seems small, but it resulted in a lot of work to solve, or I had to pay an ObamaCare penalty (remember those?). In our case, that would have been several thousand dollars. The most disappointing thing was that they didn’t even understand the problem that they created!
Flash forward to this year and I am now trying to get a W-2 from my earlier MegaCorp (that I am actually an early retiree from). I need it to file our taxes because it has tax withholding from stock options we exercised last year. They said they sent one, but we didn’t get it. I’ve bounced back-and-forth between the MegaCorp HR department and their third-party administrator.
Unfortunately, the only way to get one now is to USPS mail them a form (with a $10 personal check) and wait for them to send a new one through snail mail. The form states that they will not “e-mail, fax, or have it available for download.” Hello, 1990s!
These experiences certainly remind me of the bureaucratic nonsense that I left behind!
- Related: Miss/Won’t Miss List – Retiring From MegaCorp
- Related: Fun Days / Busy Days / Bad Days – Adding Them Up
What corporate or government administration frustration have you dealt with recently?
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
Oh what fun! Doesn’t it just make you want to go back to work at MegaCorp? 🙂
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The situation does remind me of how illogical & inefficient a MegaCorp can be. No going back for me!
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Oh yeah! I had a similar problem when I left a company, they took so long to pay me my final pay packet, it went into another tax year and caused me no end of hell.
Anyway, at least you have escaped now…..you could volunteer at a non profit if you want to see how lack of rules and systems works another way!
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I serve on the Board of our Metro Zoo. They are a State-Owned Agency. Government (& Government Unions) bring added “complexity” for sure. 😉
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My most memorable struggle was over a year that Social Security claimed I had zero income. But I knew I had worked that year. After untold hours online and then on the phone with the SSA, I finally reached someone who was able to access IRS records for the year (17 years ago) that showed my income. Phew. I asked the man to correct their error. He said he couldn’t. Why?! SSA and IRS records are built on different programming languages and computer platforms. They can’t and don’t “speak” to each other. What do I have to do? Bring my W-2 from that year, with my full tax return, two forms of federal ID, to the SSA office. The extra difficulty on that sisyphean task is the company who issued the original w-2 no longer exists. For years, my spouse has made fun of me for keeping tax records long out of date. After a search of the cellar, the grail was in my hand. After waiting the required months for an in-person meeting, the records were changed manually. The SSA woman then asked, with amazement and exasperation, “Why did you want to do this? It makes no difference in the benefits you will receive!” I replied, “Because it was wrong. I earned income. I paid taxes. The point is to right the wrong, to reflect reality not errors. I’m a contributing citizen and deserve the record to show it.” She shook her head, shook my hand, looked to the arrivals desk, and said “Next.”
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Wow – that’s quite the bureaucratic mess! I’m afraid I would have left the error if there wasn’t a practical benefit to me. Someday a family genealogist won’t wonder why you missed work that year! 🙂
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I bet each call was infuriating…”why can’t they just do things correctly…” I’m sure they only know the STANDARD process for NORMAL employees which the FIRE group is not. We’re the exceptional group, the detailed, the planners and the thinkers. If we were go-with-the-flow, our lives would just be passing by, maybe even blindly so. But because we are driven-to steer our ship-we make waves for others.
I have SO many of these frustrating (non-normal) calls…yesterday with a mega-insurance corp. The only good part, was when I hung up, they went back to work on a new call, and I, well I walked on the beach. As you know LifeInFIRE rocks. Sometimes these issues are the small rocks we just have to crush.
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It was amusing at first, but as things went on, more and more people had to get involved. My former boss helped, some HR people I knew, etc. it did end up pretty infuriating – and yes, if I had been a ‘normal’ retiree (vs 49 years old) it would have been much simpler!
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You would think a MegaCorp would realize the time savings (time to look up your info) and cost (envelopes, stamps,etc) to their HR department by making all these things self-service through a website.
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Last year, I actually offered to help MegaCorp HR figure out their SNAFU, but they declined the opportunity to increase their efficiency.
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I ran a large company before I slightly early retired a few years ago but I still help run a college and a large charity foundation on a non-paid basis as the board chair of both. My board members are typically people with a similar background, people who ran or were high up in their companies, and a few who own their own businesses. As new directors they almost all come in with the idea that a government organization or a non-profit should operate with the same level of efficiency as their businesses. It never seems to happen. The mission of colleges and non-profit charities isn’t focused on maximizing profits, it is focused on maximizing improving lives and there seems to be a little inefficiency built into that no matter how hard they try.
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Agree – I am on a few boards, including an advisory board for a Big 10 College’s MBA program. The Byzantine processed by which they run that esteemed University make you wonder they stay ‘in business’ some days. Oh, that’s right – taxpayer subsidies! 😉
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