Happy Emancipation Day

Thank God for emancipation!

Federal income taxes are usually due on the 15th of April, unless that day falls on a weekend or federal holiday, which bumps the due date to the next business day.

Aside #15: The 15th of April is not the Ides of April. Lots of people have heard the warning, "Beware the Ides of March," from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Those people can be forgiven for thinking that the Ides of every month is on the 15th, as it is in March. But those people don't have the friends I do, and so they don't know that the Ides is only on the 15th in March, May, July, and October. In all other months the Ides is on the 13th.

Since the 15th of April (17 days before the Kalends of May) falls on a Sunday you'd also be justified in thinking that taxes were due on the 16th. In fact, the IRS thought that was the due date when they printed this year's forms.

But there is another rule which says that taxes cannot be due on a holiday celebrated in the District of Columbia. Guess what? Today (16 days before the Kalends of May) is a holiday in my birthplace, Washington, D.C. It is Emancipation Day. Therefore, taxpayers across this great land are allowed to mail their tax returns (or applications for an extension) on the 17th and still be counted as on-time.

Don't believe me? Check out the following (poorly worded) posting on the IRS website:

Questions and Answers — April 17 Deadline

So today I add a new reason to celebrate the freeing of the slaves. And we Texans get to celebrate it again in just a couple of months.

New Grindstone

After a longer time than I would have liked, I have a new job. I started today and can report that while the job search market has changed considerably since the last time I was looking, the struggles to get new hires productive are the same as they ever were.

I was told to show up at 10 a.m. But the "first day logistics team" wasn't there. Maybe that's because today was a Monday. I wouldn't ordinarily think that should be a factor, but several people expressed surprise that this was my first day because most people start on Tuesday or Thursday.

The building I work in is a secure building, meaning that there is a guard shack to get onto the property and a guarded outer lobby before you get into the soft, chewy parts of the building. Since the 1st day logistics team was AWOL I had to wait until a real employee (not a contractor) could come to let me in. I'm a contractor and even though my (new) firm has a boatload of people working in the building, none of them could escort me past the sentries because they're all contractors, too. But I did eventually get in.

Once inside I began the typical new hire game of "hurry up and wait". Except there was no apparent hurry. In fairly short order they did figure out my seating assignment, but my login and phone aren't working yet. Someone printed out a bunch of stuff for me to read and I sat down to, well, read.

ZZZZZzzzzzz. <snort!>

Oops. Sorry, I must've dozed off. My cube is in a very quiet area. It is in a single-file row, so there are hallways / aisles to the east and west and adjacent cubes to the north and south. The north cube is empty. Two of the three closest cubes across the east aisle are empty. There are no cubes across the west aisle. The cubes around me are occupied by introverted programmers. They don't call anyone. No one calls them. They don't socialize much (that's how you know they're introverts). You can't play music without headphones. There is no piped in music. The keyboards are pretty quiet. The HVAC system makes a soft sound. The lighting is dim — they must expect you to use the task lighting in your cube, but only one of my task lights is working.

In other words, it's dark and quiet. And I'm reading very dry material with which I can't really do anything.

Thank goodness for caffeine.

I'm told that my login might work tomorrow. I sure hope so because I finished all the reading today.