They, [...]]]> Since I’m performing my job whilst outside of Canada for part of two taxation years there are some complications with respect to taxes. To mitigate this complication there the International Executive Services team at KPMG takes care of my taxes. I’m sure that I my taxes are among the simplest that they handle.

They, of course, do everything correct down to the letter, so when I submitted my unclaimed first 60 days RRSP receipt for the previous taxation year they submitted a reassessment of my previous taxation year along with my tax return for the current taxation year. CRA processed these in the reverse-logical order so I ended up being shorted a bit on my return and had an RRSP carry-forward balance for next year.

KPMG prepared a reassessment request letter for me, which I signed, and they delivered to CRA. This was back in May. Nothing happened for a while so I figured that there was some problem with this, or that CRA didn’t get the letter so I just let things be and figured I’d claim the RRSP amount next year.

I logged into my online banking today for some end-of-month banking and noticed that my balance was higher than expected; I looked at my recent transactions and found the refund from government–along with interest(!) for the past however-many months. It was a surprise, but a pleasant one–these weekends to Madrid, London, Berlin, etc. end up costing more than I thought about.

And of course I have to claim the interest on my taxes next year.

1. remove the priority column from your e-mail client. Some people like to send e-mail marked with a high priority. The majority of these people are assholes. My experience is [...]]]> Do you get a lot of e-mail at work? I have some tips to make it a little better to deal with.

1. remove the priority column from your e-mail client. Some people like to send e-mail marked with a high priority. The majority of these people are assholes. My experience is that people use the priority flag as a passive-aggressive way for them to push their interests on you. After you remove this column you don’t even see that the message is of “high priority” so you treat it just the same as every other. It is a very calming way to handle e-mail.

2. move automated e-mails out of your inbox. Set up a filter to automatically move automated e-mails to folders other than your inbox. Messages such as a “spam block summary” or “software build completed” that are generated by a computer should be moved to a folder. If you wouldn’t normally read the message than you can also have the filter mark the message as read, so it doesn’t disrupt you with a new mail notification.

3. move messages that don’t address you specifically to their own folder. At work we are usually on a bunch of e-mail lists: all staff, division list, all Ottawa employees, etc. These lists tend to result in a lot of notification e-mails being sent to you that aren’t particularly important for whatever you are working on at that very moment–or maybe at all. Messages that don’t list you in the “To” or “Cc” fields explicitly can be automatically moved to a filtered inbox and marked read; just remember to check it once or twice a day.

I don’t get a thousand e-mails a day, but I do get enough that the aforementioned techniques make e-mail a lot more manageable for me. I have a few other mail filters but these cover move of the mail that I don’t want to read. And really, I’ll take any opportunity that I can to publicly call high priority e-mail senders out for what they really are.

In the fall I will be taking Social Context of Business (ADM1301); Adam J. is also signed up for this class. “The course situates business within its changing socio-economic, political and technological environments. Managers must learn to both distinguish between and properly utilize [...]]]> I am now registered for three classes for the next school year.

In the fall I will be taking Social Context of Business (ADM1301); Adam J. is also signed up for this class. “The course situates business within its changing socio-economic, political and technological environments. Managers must learn to both distinguish between and properly utilize the more confrontational world of lobbying, as well as the collaborative governance mechanisms that join private, public and civic organizations. Students will address real-world predicaments of ethical management and stategic governance that arise within the social context of business. (Open exclusively to students currently enrolled in a baccalaureate program of the Telfer School of Management and in the M.I.S. option of the Computer Science Program; other students should refer to ADM 1101. Cannot be combined for credits with ADM 1101.)”

And in the Winter I will be spending my Tuesday and Wednesday nights studying Managerial Accounting (ADM2341) and Financial Management (ADM2350). Managerial Accounting, as described, “introduces students to the role of management accounting, as distinct from financial accounting, in the decision-making process. Major topics include: the determination of the costs of products and services, cost behaviour, relevant costs, standard costs, budgeting, responsibility accounting and cost allocation. All topics are approached in a management context in order to give the student an appreciation of the value of the various techniques available for the analysis and solution of problems faced by managers.” Financial Management is simply, “financial environment and markets, concepts of valuation, risk and return, cost of capital, capital budgeting under certainty, long-term financing, working capital management, and short-term financing.”

Unfortunately the second-year classes I will be doing sans-Adam. However, I am hopeful that 1301 will not be our only class together. Overall, I am very excited about resuming my studies.

Imminently, I will leave for a “grillparty” (barbecue). I was asked to bring the Internationally acclaimed Feta Pate. On Friday I went to the [...]]]> Life is full of choices. I think someone said that, but I don’t think there is a famous example to go with it. Here is one such example.

Imminently, I will leave for a “grillparty” (barbecue). I was asked to bring the Internationally acclaimed Feta Pate. On Friday I went to the grocery store and picked up the items for the pate. As you might imagine, feta is a key and crucial ingredient in the pate. My preference is to use feta in a brine, rather than feta that has been vacuum packed.

At the Edeka–the grocery store I went to–there were a few feta choices but only one was in a brine. The choice seems obvious, right? Well, the one in the brine was also a Bio product, which is Europe’s “certified organic”. I was forced to choose between feta in a brine, or a non-certified organic choice.

I won’t tell you which I chose but use it as a practical example for the sort of choices we all make every day, where two values that are important to us collide and we have to choose which is most important to us. It usually isn’t easy, but the difficulty is commensurate with importance. The only thing we can hope for is that we always make the best choice at the time.

Three weeks ago I ventured to the Führerscheinstelle to exchange my Ontario driver’s license for a German one. After entering Germany you are allowed to drive using your home country driver’s license for up to six months. A Canadian license to drive [...]]]> For the past three weeks I have been without a driver’s license.

Three weeks ago I ventured to the Führerscheinstelle to exchange my Ontario driver’s license for a German one. After entering Germany you are allowed to drive using your home country driver’s license for up to six months. A Canadian license to drive the equivalent of an Ontario G-class vehicle can be exchanged directly for a German license of the same class. In my case I also had a license to drive a motorcycle in Ontario and that cannot be exchanged–I would have had to take a test for this.

The process is pretty well documented at various places online: bring your original license, a translation, and a passport photo to the Führerscheinstelle. For a translation I brought the International Driver’s License that I bought in Ontario before I left. I also happened to have a passport photo left from when I got my residence permit.

Originally I went to the Karlsruhe city Führerscheinstelle. I was lucky enough to encounter a few people who spoke enough English to direct me to the right office (they do everything by the first letter of your last name here). When we got to the question “where do you live now?” and I answered I was shuffled out of the office and go to the Landratsamt Karlsruhe, a regional administration office.

I had been to this office building before for my residence permit. I managed to find the Führerscheinstelle all on my own and was helped by a lovely young lady who spoke enough English for us to get by. I am fairly certain that dealing with an English person made her day–she was laughing and telling coworkers in the back as I was left filling out a form.

As part of the process I had to give up my Ontario driver’s license. This meant physically handing it over at the time of my application. What surprised me is that: I got nothing back in return–no temporary license, no letter, no photocopy. I asked “what happens if I get stopped?” The young lady answered “just tell them about this and they’ll call us”. Somehow I doubted someone would answer the call if I was pulled over at 2 a.m. but I didn’t push it.

With my six months rapidly approaching, and a travel schedule that would make it difficult to pick up the license immediately after I returned from France, I was a little nervous. I even started making excuses for myself, like “the six months isn’t from date of landing, but rather date on the residence permit”, or “the six months reset when I was in Canada over Christmas”. And while it is possible that one of those is true it’s not the sort of thing you want to assert to a police officer without knowing for sure.

Luckily the license was made available sometime late last week, and today I went to pick it up. This time I wasn’t lucky enough to be working with anyone who speaks English, but the process was pretty straightforward. I was notified by mail that the license was available via a post card; the post card, my passport (for identification), and 30 Euros was brought to the Führerscheinstelle where the post card and money was exchanged for my new driver’s license.

So I now have an EU driver’s license. It looks pretty similar to the one prominently pictured on Wikipedia’s Driver’s License page. One neat thing, though, is that they misspelled the city of my birth. I guess the “H” I wrote in Halifax looked more like an “M” to them. It doesn’t specify a province or country, though, so I suppose it is possible that there is a Malifax somewhere.