From Trash Pick-Up to Tax Certification & Everything in Between

Yesterday completed our first week here in Wichita Falls, Texas, and we had quite a few unique experiences thrown in there.

Work was pretty average for the most part.  We spent our mornings working on our tax training at the office until Friday, when we went to Midwestern State University and took the first two tests to become certified.  Friday morning I missed the review because I had to go to the doctor's office.  Unfortunately I have bronchitis, which I came down with on Wednesday and am still not quite over.  We completed our certification yesterday morning, and are officially allowed to file people's tax returns.  Annie, Josh and I went with our supervisor Susanna this morning and filed 9 returns.  I was surprised by how much easier the returns were to actually file than the scenarios we had practiced with and been tested on.  Why do they always make the tests so much harder than the actual situations?

Outreach was a little less normal than training.  Since we were left to plan a strategy on our own, we were not real familiar with the neighborhoods or the best way to go door to door and hang materials.  We worked pretty slow and only made it through two neighborhoods by the end of the week.  Today, we went to one of the rural areas about twenty minutes outside of the city and covered the main neighborhood that we were hoping to canvas, but we still have to go back and pass materials out to the different target businesses. 

Before we began outreach last week, our supervisors told us to be careful, make sure we walk in pairs, and be mindful of people's dogs.  Well, my team leader and one of my teammates were covering a street that looped into one of the main roads, so they decided to work from opposite ends and meet each other in the middle.  This seemed like an efficient way to cover the street, so off they went.  However, my team leader only made it to two houses before a large dog came bounding from behind one of the houses.  The dog was growling, hair on end trying to corner my team leader, but all she could do was to continue backing down the street.  She ended up calling 911 and having animal control come to get the dog.  Moral of the story; not all dogs are nice, but don't run away from them.

We also tried to experience a few local things during the week.  On Wednesday, we went to the local roller skating rink and skated for our physical training.  It was fun to do something like that since most of us hadn't been since we were in middle school.  We also went to a local BBQ restaurant called The Branding Iron and experienced our first Texas BBQ.  It is a lot different than South Carolina BBQ, and I considered what I ate to be more along the lines of hash, but everyone really enjoyed it and it was a ton of food.  We are all looking forward to trying out a Mexican restaurant this weekend and going to the batting cages on Thursday as a team.