As I mentioned earlier, this vacation was actually supposed to start out as a work-related trip. The first week of my trip was going to be spent representing the company at a trade-show. However, after speaking up at work via email (I call this e-speaking) on Friday, I was informed on Sunday (the day before I was scheduled to leave for my trip) that I was not able to appropriately represent the company. Thus, the work part of my trip was cancelled.
Now, the question I pose to you, gentle reader, is whether or not I really was capable of appropriately representing the company.
It is true, that I was unhappy with my job. However, out of my 4 and 1/2 years at this job, only 1.33 years were spent happy. Most of that happy time was under a manager who was laid off after only a year. (I have always believed that person was laid off partly because he/she was someone who wasn’t afraid to speak up.) It is also true that during the last month of my job, my unhappiness had peaked, BUT I have always had a strong work ethic (I curse you for that Mom and Dad). Here is what I did the last month of my job, at peak unhappiness, in preparation for representing the company at this trade show. You decide if this looks to you like a person who could not represent the company in a positive way:
1) Highlight hair and hair-cut. (I thoughtfully timed this at just the right time so my hair would have grown to the nicest looking length during trade-show week.) ($100)
2) Purchase black pants that make me not look too fat with the ugly company T-shirt tucked into them. ($100)
3) Purchase black skirt that makes me look fat, but not grossly fat with the ugly company T-shirt tucked into them. ($30)
4) Purchase Spanx girdle, to try to diminish appearance of fatness while representing company in black pants/skirt and ugly company T-shirt (tucked in). ($50)
5) Purchase of pocket sized note-pad to take down feature requests, bug reports, and other things customers may mention. ($3)
6) Purchase of breath mints, so conversations with customers are refreshing and not foul. ($3)
7) Purchase of throat lozenges so that voice is clear and healthy during 3 days of conversing with customers. ($3)
8) Purchase foot deoderant powder, so that old, comfortable black shoes (required part of trade-show uniform) are not smelly and offensive to customers or coworker room-mate. ($4)
9) Polish old, comfortable black shoes so that I represent a clean, detailed image for the company.($5)
10) Purchase new clean pajamas, instead of wearing old cruddy T-shirt to bed, so as not to offend my coworker room-mate. ($20)
Total cost of trying to appropriately represent company at trade-show: $318
Total cost of getting fired before trade-show: Priceless.
These are definitely uninspired tax deduction as unreimbursed work-related expenses . . right down to the pjs. And the clothes, throat lozenges, mints and shoe polish could definitely be used for job hunting. Hey, I once claimed a parking ticket I got during a job interview as a “job hunting expense” on my taxes! Now, that’s uninspired