As you're slogging through yet another busy season, just keep in mind that it could be worse. You could be on your 70th busy season, like Sidney Weiss was up until he retired at the ripe old age of 92.
A resident of Silver Spring, MD, Sidney Weiss grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Back in his day, he and his pals hanging around on the corner knew what they wanted to do with their lives:
He wanted to be an accountant. As long as there were taxes, you’d have a job.
“I wasn’t the only one,” Sidney said. “They all wanted to study accounting, all the guys who hung out on the corner there. The guys that didn’t go to the City College, we thought they were stupid.”
As for deadbeat liar clients? Forget that. Weiss never had time for them:
“I had a client who wanted me to deduct some life insurance premiums,” Sidney said. “I said they’re not deductible. He said, ‘That’s because you don’t want to deduct them.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly right.’ ”
And why didn’t Sidney want to deduct them?
“They weren’t deductible,” Sidney said with a shrug.
When the Washington Post's John Kelly asked him if he ever got stressed by busy season, Weiss had a surprising answer:
No, Sidney said. “You just keep going.”
I'm just going to leave this here.
