STATE OF MIND : DODGING TAXES
If you get a headache just thinking about completing your tax return, imagine having to fill out hundreds of 1040s and 540s and Schedule Cs while anxious clients breathe down your neck, hoping that, somehow, you can dump a little bit of their tax burden onto someone else.
This is tax time, a season in hell for accountants. From late January until April 15, they’re in overdrive, putting in frenzied 60-, 70-, 80-hour workweeks. You might expect them to spend their remaining hours in a blissful coma. Not a chance, as a survey of workers at Duitch, Poteshman, Franklin & Co., one of L.A.’s largest firms, shows.
l Accountant Debra Wilson escapes the tedium and frayed nerves of crunching numbers by enrolling in acting classes. Wilson says she prefers to perform in emotionally wrenching scenes as a “distraction and stress reliever.”
l When he can get away from his computer keyboard, Bryan Brown, the firm’s systems administrator, composes music for saxophone, guitar and piano. “It’s a great escape,” says Brown. “It’s almost like being in a waking dream. You totally forget who you are.”
l With a collection of 50,000 comic books, CPA Jeff Edell is up to his elbows in his main diversion all year long. But during tax season, they become more than a hobby; they become a refuge. “In comics,” says Edell, “there are no taxes.”
After a late night at the office, John Baudhuin goes streaking along trails on his bike in the Santa Monica Mountains--alone. “Being a CPA drove me to this. It’s truly the thing that keeps me sane during tax season.” Every year immediately after April 15, Baudhuin “relaxes” with a 500-mile-plus ride. “Nothing less.”
l Fellow CPA Jeff Schatz waits until after tax time for his escape, and then he turns to “something death-defying” to become “human again.” Every year he tries something different: bungee jumping, sky diving. This year it might be hang-gliding. Why not do it now during his one day off a week? “I think the firm would look down on someone who killed himself during tax season.”
