Swan Song (Part 1)

At the moment, I can count the number of wonderful things that have come out of me starting my accidental business on one hand. And, that list is courtesy of Bliz, who helped me compose it. I took her three items and added two more. Now, two weeks later, I am still stuck on five positive points.

One of the biggest blessings from this venture is my friendship with Diamond Jim. For those of you who aren't paying close attention, Diamond Jim is my former accountant. He is roughly my parents' ages. I am his daughter's age. However, unlike my parents, he doesn't consider me to be 11 years old. Or, if he does, he hides it well.

I met him when I first started this venture, courtesy of an unscrupulous bookkeeper. The bookkeeper in question doesn't like me very much, especially since our last encounter had to be mediated by the Arizona Attorney General's office. I won. She didn't.

But, back to Diamond Jim. Diamond Jim has been doing taxes in Mesa for 30+ years. He is well-known in the community. And, more to the point, well-respected.

He grew up in Las Vegas, post depression and has shared many colorful stories of his grandfathers and father building the Hoover Dam. As a young boy, he had extended family who lived in downtown Mesa, AZ at the time, and so he spent many vacations traipsing around Mesa--that little Mormon town thirty miles from Phoenix--visiting landmarks that aren't there any more. At 16, his family spent a summer on the Navajo reservation, just a little bit East of the Grand Canyon. And his college years were in central California (Cal Poly I believe--but I can't remember which school is north of Santa Barbara). He likes baseball, reading and anything related to the Oregon Ducks. About six years ago, he retired from taxes, sold his business and was planning on living happily ever after.

And, this is how we became friends. Long before we met on a regular basis for breakfast, one February, Diamond Jim invited me to a formal breakfast with another investor. He knew I was looking for creative ways to refinance many of my properties. He knew a guy who had gone through something similar. And hence, Diamond Jim thought the two of us should meet and swap ideas. It was a nice gesture from Diamond Jim the accountant and business acquaintance not Diamond Jim I know now who has been known to call me up and ask questions about the Harry Potter series, if you see my point.

So, at breakfast everyone was on their best behavior, until a sticky philosophical point came up and the other gentleman and I ended up just agreeing to disagree, both of us not wanting to embarrass Jim, and me most especially wanting to have Jim walk away from this breakfast not thinking I was a raving lunatic (as this particular random topic we had hit upon happened to be something related to the activities going on next door to my home.). I am a pleaser at heart and I wanted Diamond Jim to think I had the grace and class to let this one go. So, I played a "bless your heart" card to the gentleman and, for Jim's sake, let the other man win the round.--though I was proven right later in life. Too bad I didn't get a chance to gloat.

Also that same morning, unbeknownst to me, Diamond Jim had sold his CPA practice. As part of the merger there was a plan in place for Diamond Jim and the CPA firm to make a pleasant experience for Diamond Jim's clients of 30+ years. Part of Diamond Jim's duties would be to tell his solid client base this was his last tax year, introduce them to the company taking over and make it a good transition for Jim's clients.

The morning of our breakfast, while the other dining companion and I were respectfully debating zoning law for my next door neighbor's home, Diamond Jim said nothing about his current  merging. Later that day, I stopped by to drop off some tax documents, only to find out the company that had merged with Diamond Jim summarily dismissed him 37 seconds after the ink in their contract was dry.

Me, having seen Jim earlier that morning was surprised. What? Diamond Jim wasn't there? I had seen him an hour or two before! The battle axe of a woman who answered my questions was to the point and lacked any bedside manner necessary to make those of us getting our taxes done feel the least bit at ease. ("No, he doesn't work here any more" and "How nice you saw him two hours before now--but that was two hours ago.") The battle ax certainly didn't give me any reassurances Jim was safe, secure and/or happy. I did leave that conversation with that wretched woman with two absolutes I knew that morning: I don't like change. And, I was pretty sure, given how I was treated in the 10 seconds I spent in the lobby of Jim's former office I wasn't getting my taxes done from this new accounting firm. I went home, mulled over my choices and told Marty about the bizarre exchange I had with the woman running the office.

As a rule, people who work on taxes don't tend to be warm and fuzzy, but one would think they might try harder when they are picking up a practice that arguably includes the Who's Who of  what is now the third largest city in Arizona. Marty Sunshine wasn't thrilled either with what I shared with him so, he took over. He marched back over to the office and asked for our tax records.

That's when it got dicey. The battle axe had a title of "office manager" (mind you, this had been a one man show up until about 9 a.m. that morning, now there were six people milling around) and was apparently having a bad day. She greeted Marty Sunshine with the same contempt given to the school cafeteria lunch lady who sticks something green and slimy on a child's food tray. Staring at Marty Sunshine, she stated that my tax records were her property and she would burn in hell before she parted with them.

Marty Sunshine told her if that was the case and she wasn't parting with them, he bid her a safe trip, suggested she bring sun block and left the office. I, in turn, did my homework. I wrote a nice letter demanding my files. Just to make sure everyone knew I wanted my files, I cc'd the Arizona Board of Accountancy, citing what rules she was breaking.

There was a hearing. The day of the hearing, while the hearing was going on, I got a phone call from some muckety-muck at the Board of Accountancy's office suggesting everything would be smoothed over and how sorry he was for the clowns who bought Diamond Jim's practice holding my files (in the middle of the hearing!!!!).

Eventually I got my files and the woman who started this mess lost her job. The other byproducts from this experience was Diamond Jim ended up coming out of retirement three weeks later and managed to get 90 percent of his clientele back. The company still had to pay him for the purchase of his tax practice too.

And of course, our friendship was born.

I have always felt bad that I was the catalyst for Diamond Jim not retiring. He was ready. He earned it. Though, I have to tell you there were a lot of happy people who were more than happy he didn't. Diamond Jim is still ready to retire. Heaven knows he has been trying to do so. There were a couple of years when he commuted from some small obscure town in Eastern Oregon to Mesa for tax season. And, there were a few years where he just gave up the whole "commute thing" and stayed in Mesa for the entirety of tax season.

And then last year, he sold his firm again.

To be continued...