Ma'am I Need You to Focus on What I'm Saying...

Funny thing happened to me today. At work I file my bi-weekly payroll taxes online through a program called EFTPS. It's a pretty slick ordeal. Earlier this week I realized I had posted a payment on two of the companies I do work for in the wrong tax period. Since it was recently the changing of the quarters, my prego mind got a little confused, and clicked on the wrong area. Once I realized my mistake I wasn't too worried because, yes, I've done this before and knew exactly what I had to do.

So I make a call to the IRS, and tell the first person I talk to that I needed to have them amend their record to post a payment to a different tax period. That person was short and told me, "You need to file a 941c." I was like, "Okay, but I've done this before, and it was something we just took care of over the phone. The EFTPS recording even says just to contact you and you take care of it over the phone." Her reply, "You need to file a 941c." Whatever. So I hang up and decide to try again.

Next call (another 15 mins hold of course!) I tell the lady what I need and she asks me all the identifying info and then my name and position. I tell her, and she says, "Do you have the power of attorney to make decisions?" I know nothing has been formally filed, but I say, "I don't know, but last time it wasn't a problem, I made the call, the change was made, so maybe there is." After another hold she comes back and tells me that since I'm transferring payments between EIN's, I have to get the power of attorney allowing me to do so (WTF? who said I was transferring money between EIN's? and by the way, I know that's not true because I've had to do that before also).

Anyway, I just tell her that I understood what she was saying, but all I needed to do was post a payment from one tax period to the other. Perfectly calm. No alarm in my voice.

Her response: "Ma'am I need to you to settle down and focus on what I'm saying..."

I interject, "I understand, I was just trying to clarify, I think we're on different pages here..."

"Ma'am calm down, I need you to listen to me and try to follow what I'm saying."

I felt like she was diffusing some hostage situation, and I was so confused about what was going on. I know IRS workers probably deal with some hostile people, but I'm surely not one of them.

Our conversation (negotiation) continued for a little bit, and the woman kept getting more and more hyped up. She even started getting snippy with me and mimicked something I said in a mocking voice. She was crazy! With the way she was trying to "calm" me down, you would have thought I had brought a gun to a bank to have this conversation. It was so wierd! She actually started making me very anxious and hostile in the process of "diffusing" the situation. At that point I was pretty sure I was on some sort of radio show or something where people in California were on their drive home for work, laughing at me becaue I thought I was really calling the IRS. Frustrated, I finally just blurted out, "Thank You, I'll take care of this" and hung up.

I'm happy to say everything turned out okay in the end. I simply redialed, waited about 4 minutes this time, got a nice Southern woman, explained what I needed to do, and she took care of it right there. She asked me to identify the company, myself, and the payment, and there were no issues. What the heck? Oh well, at least I got what I needed done. Thank you kind Southern woman. You made my day. :)