[RKDinOKC]

The company I work for over 20 years ago changed my dependents to less than zero. No explination. Owed almost 3000 instead of a refund. And being a young buck into buying computer stuff had zero monies in savings. Went to company HR and Comptroller and Treasurer and complained that they changed my withholding to a negative number, they basically said tough. I was so pissed my W-4 had the correct dependent and somehow someone had changed it to a negative number on the system.

The year before I had made a small mistake adding up the columns and got a letter from the IRS in Sept with 90 days to pay the $100 without penalty. So, conveniently made another mistake adding up the columns so only paid $250, figuring I had from April to Sept plus 90 days to save the rest of the $2700 I owed.

Saved up the $2700 and made sure I had an extra $2700 in savings for the next 10 years just in case I was audited. Never was.

Because of two things that happened during that time, I am highly suspect of the company treasurer.

First, at the time I was did a custom database to do the scheduling for the foundry our company had purchased. Part of my job was to go delete the completed orders to speed up the program. At first I thought it was odd because it was a very simple task. Then found the foundry manager would take me to lunch to tell me about how the treasurer was screwing with the finances making it very difficult to do his job. They were double and triple paying things like the gas station guy that maintained the company cars, and failing to pay the vendors they got their raw metals from. Then told me about the treasurer telling him he worked for him, and he said no he worked for my brother until told different. Told me he just needed to vent and to not tell my brother about it. The treasurer had our parent company do all the foundry's accounting instead of hiring a very small staff at the foundry. So, once a month I got to go hear about how this "upstanding christian man" was screwing over the company foundry because he didn't like the manager my brother hired. Company ended up having to sell the foundry because of it.

In my spare time, at that same time I also did a database program for the USPS and the US Postal Worker's Union to help the track and resolve grievances. This "christian" treasurer made a comment one day that he didn't like me doing that work because it would help that Union, and he did not like Unions. I made the comment how did he know I was helping the Union and not the USPS. Was actually hired by and being paid by the USPS because they felt they were being taken advantage of by the current paper based grievance system. The local union was excited because it would make their job a lot easier. They both reviewed everything I did.

Anyway, that was the year my withholding was messed up. What would you think, coincidence?

Also made a custom database to track and build quotes/sales and logistics for a company that sold new and used coal, gas, and steam powered electrical generator power systems. A couple of years later I put myself out of that job by moving the database to Filemaker and teaching them how to setup and edit things themselves.

Ah, the early 90's