Teach Me But Tax Me Not

Teach. Initially, I thought having an Indian national as a training instructor for 6 weeks would be a complete stress, but after the first week, I realized my impression was wrong. I actually find myself enjoying the Oracle Manufacturing training despite the serious topics, the freezing temperature inside room 1.17, the lack of free snacks and Praveen’s Indian accent (we thought he was saying ‘missionary’, when he meant ‘machinery’). I have the ‘privilege’ to work closely with Praveen since I was sort of his assistant like if he needs something and I don’t have a problem working for that since he’s a very humble, approachable and considerate person. It’s been my closest encounter with a foreigner, when in fact, as most of us, I find myself still uncomfortable around English speaking folks. I guess this training will help me overcome such insecurity and I’m sure by the end of this six-week training, I’ll learn a lot about Manufacturing, gain a new layer of respect for our Indian brothers and sisters, and improve my English conversational skills without adopting a different accent.

Tax. It’s the season of filing income tax returns to the government and honestly, I never cared about how much tax they deduct from my salary since it’s imposed by the law, until I got an email in my corporate inbox reminding that we need to accomplish a form with regards to substitute tax filing by Monday. Then another email came about Community Tax Certificate and instantly it reminded me why I never dreamed of becoming an accountant because the world of tax and money just hurts my head. Even so, tax, as much as we hate it but certain politicians love, is one of the many things we can’t avoid in this life.