In other news, it’s been a terrible, stressful couple of days. Stripe, my credit card processing company, has decided to withhold half of my funds until a week after my event is over. Why? Because apparently I’m now “high risk”. And, because they can. In doing a little math, I will *probably* be ok financially - I may have to defer payments to a few people/contractors until the money is released, but it’s not catastrophic. Still really awful and frustrating and panic-inducing at the time, though.
Just as that was happening I had a huge falling out with a fellow mom who does the taxes for the school booster club I’m treasurer for; it was a comedy of errors with her having emailed me through some random email attached to a Google doc that I don’t even know how to access and thinking I was ignoring her, and her not being able to read a spreadsheet I sent and me not understanding why when it was the same thing I sent her last year, and her suddenly blowing up at me and going off via email, and me firing her on the spot. It was awful. But it got worse - after conferring with the booster club’s President, and finding an accountant/advocacy group that could help us file the now late taxes, it turns out that, inexplicably, this accountant never filed last year’s taxes despite telling me that she did. So we’re facing about $12,000 in penalties that go up every day we haven’t filed. It’s a total disaster, and if we had not filed one more time the Department of Justice would have revoked our charter. I’m mortified all of this happened on my watch - I had one job - but at the same time, I did nothing wrong. In fact this woman, who I have now unfriended on Facebook in a petty rage, is also the current PTA president and is roundly loathed by everyone, to the point that the principle of the school was trying to remove her. So yeah. It’s not just me. But in my last few weeks as treasurer - I hope! My term is up but I don’t know who will replace me - it is my job to clean up all this mess and get two years of returns filed, and it’s a lot of work and confusion and misery. Thankfully the president has been helping unravel everything, but it’s a mess and the last thing either of us have the mental space for. I’m really regretting ever taking on this work. I’m out of my depth, not being an accountant which is who should really be doing this, and I haven’t met any other parents or had any fun. If anything it’s only shown me how impossible it is to strike up friendships with other parents and how not connected I am at this school while everyone else seems to be. I don’t get it. But I also don’t care that much. Adult friendships take a lot of work and these people will only be in my life for a couple of years, max. I’d rather nurture my dance friendships that will last a lifetime. More useful place to put my energy. But yeah - I learned my lesson. No more getting on non-profit boards. Every time I’ve done this it’s been absolutely horrible. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment