For those of you hoping to retire one day, do you know how you’ll stay busy once you’re not working? Golf? Traveling? Yes, those sound nice and leisurely. Gardening is another nice hobby, however, be sure you stay current on the marijuana laws in your area, should you decide that’s the kind of greenhouse you want to keep. An accountant in Florida has made a bit of a mistake:
According to a Sheriff’s Office news release, Barbara L. Green, 70, a retired accountant, and Michael D. Green, 58, were arrested Thursday morning during a search of their home in the 12000 block of Minot Avenue. The Greens are in the process of divorce, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit members reporting finding 39 pounds of marijuana and several thousand dollars in cash, along with drug paraphernalia and equipment used to grow marijuana.
Barbara Green and Michael Green were charged with trafficking in cannabis, manufacturing cannabis, possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a public nuisance place where controlled substances are illegally kept.
I suppose when you’re approaching the geriatric stage, you can claim it’s for medical use. Still, 39 pounds for personal use is pushing it.
Seems like logical conclusion, right? Okay, it’s not the post office but yeesh, have you noticed the bitter Bob in the cubicle next to you? Is he approaching the breaking point? Busy season sucks after all and who knows when he’ll eventually crack:
Is our suggestion that accountants might be more likely to snap a little overblown? Maybe. But read this description from AccountingWEB before you blow us off:
You are sitting at your desk on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Your company is experiencing some hard times, and there have been layoffs company wide. A co-worker has been part of the layoffs, and is very distraught. The co-worker may have known layoffs were eminent, and thought it would never happen to them. All of a sudden, the co-worker pulls out a gun and starts shooting up the office!
Sound familiar? Of course! We imagine that someone throwing their 10-key at your head is more likely scenario but violence is violence. The article cites OSHA stating that 2 million people are victims of workplace violence every year but what’s even more exciting/troubling is the BLS survey that “70% of workplaces don’t have any type of violence prevention program in place.”
The solution? Training of course! AccountingWEB breaks it down like this:
• “Train managers and supervisors on how to detect the early warning signs of potential violence” – In other words, you know that guy who says ALOUD he’s thinking about punching the next person that asks him a stupid question? You should probably should have a word with him.
• “Tell employees that the firm wants to know about any threats or incidences, and that they are extremely serious about handling these problems.” – Naturally it helps if your company follows through on “serious about handling these problems” part. In other words, the guy swinging the sledge around should be tarred and feathered and then fired in front of the entire company. The proceedings should be broadcast internally for those that can’t attend in person. It’s simply not enough to fire the person. Public humiliation is imperative so people get the picture that this shit won’t be tolerated.
• “Implement a zero tolerance policy in the handbook relating to workplace violence” – And by zero tolerance, we’re talking no noogies, wedgies, open handed slaps, arm slugs, bloody knuckle contests or even berating someone to the point that they develop an eating disorder.
As you may have heard, many states in our union have budget troubles; one of the biggest problems being underfunded pensions. Reuters reports that estimates put the gap in the range of $700 to $3 trillion. Despite the range being akin to saying, “I’m somewhere between Ohio and Nevada” the shortfall has gotten a whole host of people bent out of shape. It’s gotten so bad that Bill Gates has chimed in, evoking Enron for crying out loud (and here we thought that was only for journalists who cover accounting once every decade).
All this has the GASB to going back to the drawing board as David Bean, the GASB’S Director of research and technical activities, announced that the more disclosures will be proposed this summer. There are plenty of areas that up for debate but Mr. Bean mentioned that certain topics get especially contentious, apparently to the point that it comes to blows.
“Where the fistfights occur is with the discount rate,” Bean said about returns on pension funds’ investments, which affect how well a government can cover those liabilities. The board would require governments to disclose their long-term expected rate of return on plan investments as determined by actuaries, Bean said. “This is the actual expected rate of return as recommended by the actuaries,” he said. “We’re going to make very clear this is not a number that is pulled out of the air. This is based on solid science.”
It’s pretty clear that this problem will only get worse. If you were suddenly told that you had to use science rather than a dartboard, wouldn’t you want to punch someone’s lights out?