Saturday, April 19, 2025
HUMOR - THE DAY ERNIE BROKE MR. REBER'S GUN CASE
Mr. Reber was the manager for several departments, including sporting goods. I worked in furniture, housewares, the pet department, and lawn and garden.
Reb hired Ernie.
Ernie was a disaster. A very nice guy, disaster followed Ernie wherever he went.
The sporting goods department sold, among other things in those days, guns (nobody thought ANYTHING about it), and bowling balls.
Hmmmm.
One day as I was cruising from one or my departments to another, I heard a loud crash from sporting goods. Thinking someone might be hurt, I headed there.
What I saw stopped me dead in my tracks... well, for a second, but I couldn't wait to be the first to break (pun intended) the news to Reb. So, I ran for a house phone and had Reb paged to call the phone I was at.
The phone rang, I answered. He said, relatively calmly, since we paged each other all the time for various issues, "This is Reb, what's up?"
"Hey, Reb," I replied, in my smoothest, most professional manner, "Remember that glass gun case you used to have?"
"Sure, of course.... WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN USED TO HAVE????"
"Well, Ernie just dropped a bowling ball through it..."
Didn't know a guy that old could cross a store that fast... and with bad feet, too...
It all happened so fast, Ernie was still looking at the bowling ball lying amid the guns with a nearly perfect hole in the top and the middle glass shelf.
One of life's little moments not to be forgotten... not for Ernie, not for Reb, not for me... snicker, snicker.
True story, by the way.
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WHAT MAKES SHAKLEE PRODUCTS DIFFERENT?
Labels: bowling balls, donovan baldwin, Florida, sporting goods, St. Petersburg, University of West Florida, Woolco
Wednesday, July 05, 2017
Death And Taxes
By Donovan Baldwin
Just to put the world in perspective. I graduated The University of West Florida (UWF), with a degree in accounting in 1973. I took many classes in humanities, math, English, accounting, finance, and economics. Of course, I took many accounting courses; beginning, intermediate, advanced. Accounting for managerial control. Cost accounting. Government accounting. All these courses, had one or two books. Economics tended to have big, heavy books. Finance tended to have small, reasonably sized text books. I carried a briefcase with all my books each quarter (we were on quarters, not semesters). Then came the quarter I had to take TAX ACCOUNTING! The texts for Tax Accounting filled my briefcase and I had to carry the books for other classes in my arms. That tells you something. Either taxes are the most important thing an accounting student has to learn...OR...wait for it...taxes are just too damn complicated. I think citizens should pay taxes to help the government do important stuff (another discussion), but, the citizen should be able to put his or her tax information on a tax return the size of a post card, and, it should take a citizen about one minute more than it takes them to gather their data, to fill in that tax return. Somebody is getting rich from complicated tax laws, and, it is not the citizen.
Just to put the world in perspective. I graduated The University of West Florida (UWF), with a degree in accounting in 1973. I took many classes in humanities, math, English, accounting, finance, and economics. Of course, I took many accounting courses; beginning, intermediate, advanced. Accounting for managerial control. Cost accounting. Government accounting. All these courses, had one or two books. Economics tended to have big, heavy books. Finance tended to have small, reasonably sized text books. I carried a briefcase with all my books each quarter (we were on quarters, not semesters). Then came the quarter I had to take TAX ACCOUNTING! The texts for Tax Accounting filled my briefcase and I had to carry the books for other classes in my arms. That tells you something. Either taxes are the most important thing an accounting student has to learn...OR...wait for it...taxes are just too damn complicated. I think citizens should pay taxes to help the government do important stuff (another discussion), but, the citizen should be able to put his or her tax information on a tax return the size of a post card, and, it should take a citizen about one minute more than it takes them to gather their data, to fill in that tax return. Somebody is getting rich from complicated tax laws, and, it is not the citizen.
Labels: accounting, article by Donovan Baldwin, donovan baldwin, tax accounting, taxes, University of West Florida, UWF
