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 personal. 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.
