Workin' Man - Part XXX - State Deep State

Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

 My blizzard of job applications included four, if I remember correctly, positions in Nebraska State government. I received an email back from one of them, informing me that I was being considered, and was called in for an interview for a "Fiscal Compliance Analyst". The description was somewhat vague, but the requirements listed were all things that I had, including post-secondary coursework in accounting. One of the benefits that I took advantage of at B&R Stores was their tuition reimbursement program. They paid for a good portion of the two-year Associate Degree in Business with an Accounting Focus. I completed my degree during my first year as a store director at Russ's. This degree got me in the door at the Department of Revenue. When Revenue Human Resources called to schedule an interview I had completely forgotten even the vague job description, so I went into that interview unclear about what I was actually applying for. The interviewers, who I later found out were the Manager of the Incentives Group of the Audit Division and the Senior Auditor in that group, went through a list of generic questions, most of which I had asked people myself during the many job interviews I conducted in my management roles. I was asked how this position fit into my long range career plan. At fifty-seven years old, my career plan was anything but long term. I honestly told them that it didn't, but that I had read the job description (I had, even though I couldn't remember what was in it!) and I thought the requirements fit with my skill set. I then asked if the next question was going to be "Where do you see yourself in five years?" -- which it was! I told them that I hoped that I'd be in a job where I was valued and where I enjoyed going to work every day. I later found out that my age was a plus, since many younger people right out of college left after getting enough experience to move to a private accounting firm for a much higher salary. They figured at age fifty-seven I wasn't a job hopper. 

A week or so later I received a job offer and began my new career in early January 2016. 

The work group to which I was assigned handled tax incentives. Nebraska is one of many states that offer tax incentives to encourage businesses to locate in our state. In general, a company would agree to increase their employment and investment by a set amount and in return receive credits that could be used to offset income tax liability or receive refunds on sales taxes or state withholding tax. To utilize their credits a claim was submitted listing eligible sales tax transactions and claiming a refund on the amount of sales tax. Our group was made up of examiners and auditors. Examiner was the entry level position. An examiner did all the initial reviews of refund claims which were then checked over by auditors. Auditors also audited the businesses who applied to be on an incentive program. An auditor needed to have a Bachelors Degree in Accounting, so for an examiner to be promoted to an auditor position, they would need to receive a a degree; there were many examiners who remained in that position for 30 or 40 years. I often referred to the Audit Division separation between examiners and auditors as a caste system. (more on my perception of Revenue caste later).

When a taxpayer in an incentive program applied for a refund of sales tax, the examiners were the first to review the claims. The taxpayer would submit a listing of all the invoices for which they were claiming a refund of sales taxes, as well as pdf images of a percentages of those invoices. The examiner's job was to confirm several items on each invoice:

1. The invoice was for a transaction that took place at the taxpayer's business address ("at the project")
2. The tax on the invoice matched what was claimed
3. The vendor who charged the sales tax was licensed for sales tax in Nebraska
4. The transaction was properly paid tax, i.e. not an exempt transaction
5. Not previously paid on an earlier claim

There were other, more arcane things, to look for, but those were the basics. In retrospect, it should have been fairly simple to train a new examiner to review a sales tax refund claim. But for some reason new examiner training was designed to be as complicated as possible, with little information on how to actually review a claim. Training started out with a few days of generic training -- first with instruction on things like benefits, and moving on to audit-specific training. The problem was that the audit-specific training was very specific...it applied to auditors, not to examiners. I tried to absorb as much as I could but I'm glad I didn't try too hard, since it had nothing to do with me! 

The next phase of my training involved sitting in a conference room listening to a senior auditor go through a Power Point presentation. There was so much information that I was having trouble keeping up, or even understanding what the point of much of it was. It certainly gave me virtually no information on how to review a refund claim. Years later, when I became responsible for training, I referred to it as long on theory, but short on practice. It didn't help that the person who was supposed to be training us (another examiner started on the same day as I did) started out the training by admitting that she wasn't very good at training. After our completely useless training Jessica (my coworker who started when I did) and I attempted to review the claim that we were assigned. Since we had received no practical instruction regarding what we should be looking for, we agonized over every invoice. Attempts to get clarification elicited curt answers that were only partially helpful. Jessica was convinced that we were going to get fired because we didn't know what we were doing. I knew better. While a trainee is responsible to learn the job, the greater responsibility is on the shoulders of the trainer, who is tasked with ensuring that the new employee has the tools needed to do their assigned job. We were not given those tools. 

My own learning style is hands-on. I learn best by doing the work and learning from my mistakes and from feedback from my supervisors and trainers. Part of my process is paring away the information that I don't need and concentrating on what is important to get the job done. For example, the main incentive program consisted of six tiers. Each tier had different requirements and different benefits for meeting those requirements. With one minor exception a review of a refund claim could be completed without understanding the difference among the tiers, or even knowing what tier the taxpayer's project was. So I ignored this information. In fact, over nine years later, as I approached retirement, I still didn't know the details of the different tiers without looking them up and it didn't affect my ability to work claims, or eventually to approve and sign off on them. 

One challenge of working for the state didn't directly involve the work that I was doing, but the fact that it was extremely difficult to find a parking spot. There were two state owned garages, and several surface parking lots, but there was a waiting list for all of them. Most of the streets around the State Office Building had metered parking. When I started work parking was $2.00 an hour, soon to go up to $2.50 and eventually $3.00. For an 8½ hour day, a $17.00 per day expense ($340 for the month!) was not reasonable (private garages were $10.00 for the whole day) so while on the parking spot waiting list I had to scout around in the morning for a street without meters. After trying different spot at varying distances from the office I finally settled on a couple of streets that were pretty close. There was a couple of streets two blocks long running east-west, crossed by another street running a block north and a block south. At its closest it was two blocks from the office. I found if I arrived after 6:15 and before 6:45 there was plenty of available spots to park. The streets were full of apartments and apparently most of the residents left for work between 6:15 and 6:45! I parked there every day until I finally got a garage spot the week before we were all sent home in April 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.