It was kind of a "social week" at the office this week. First, it was our boss's birthday and we had a little lunch party, and second, we went to a St. Patrick's party last night. We have been crazily busy at the office this week and having those little get-together to have fun were really awesome. I even heard Loretta saying, "We should change the stereotype that accountants are boring" before we went to the party last night. It was really fun!
On the other side, since it's the busy time of the year in the office, we are receiving a lot of phone calls than usual. I am the only one in the office who has not been trained yet at the reception area, but I am trying my best to help them by answering phone calls. I was really hesitant with answering phones before if that was not for me, but with this busy season, I feel like I am training myself. There was one lady who called to ask if wigs are a deductible medical expense and since I completely don't know the answer, I have to tell her that I will phone her back. What really surprised me was that no one in the office knows the answer and Ted, one of the firm's partners, had to search for it. I phoned the client back and told her that wigs are deductible medical expenses and she was really glad to know it. She was actually not the only one who was quite happy about it, but everyone in the office since that was kind of a new knowledge on that day. This experience made me realize that clients also bring new knowledge to the people in the office. I was always scared to answer phone calls because I am scared of not knowing the answers to every client's inquiry and will eventually hurt the firm's image. Because of that little experience, I became more confident in answering phone calls without having the fear of not being able to help them.
Another story of my week was when I filed the GST return of one of my clients and phoned her to tell her how much she owe for GST. She did not know that the GST for most of her expenses can be deducted from the total GST that she collected so she was expecting to pay more than the actual amount that she has to. I told her how I calculated her GST and she was really glad to know about it because her business was a newly GST-registered one. It made me feel good because I know that the client was really happy with my service and it made me realize how important my job was.
Because of my work, I realize that small accounting firms like A1 Accounting are really important especially to the people who do not really know much about tax and accounting. I am always thinking that helping people is really a satisfying job. Working with this small firm gave me the chance to help those people with their taxes and accounting and it was always nice to see them being able to understand the things that I explain to them. It was really fulfilling and it makes me love being an accountant even more - no matter how stressful it might be.
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