Get It Right the First Time

Here is a story I heard today at a PD session.

The seminar leader’s nephew was a young lad of 3.  It was hair cut time and up to the dad, brother of our speaker, to take him to the barber as directed by mom.  Dad takes son to the local barber.  The local barber had previous cut children’s hair for $5.  But when dad took son to the barber, the price had gone up to $7.    Dad thought this was outrageous, so he went and bought a flowbee.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK7_VSpTyVY 

You put the flowbee on the end of a vacuum hose, you brush the kid’s hair, cut it and it is all sucked in to the vacuum. It’s kind of like the “bowl” cuts my dad used to give us. You of a certain age know what I mean 😉

So dad uses this attachment to cut son’s hair.  Mom comes home.  Mom freaks out! Dad says “Hey, I had to cut it because son got glue in his hair.”  The 3 year old son was appalled.  He looks at dad and says “No, daddy, that’s not what happened.  You cut my hair with the vacuum cleaner, don’t you remember? And don’t I look wonderful?”  Mom agrees that while son may be wonderful, the hair cut is awful and re-directs dad to take son back to the barbershop and get a professional to do it.

Dad and son go back to the barber shop.  Mr. Barber says “Hey, son, that’s a really interesting hair cut.  What happened to your hair?” Dad jumps in with “he had glue in his hair and I cut the glue out of his hair and couldn’t get it quite right”.  Again, the 3 year old looks at dad with that funny look and sighs and says “no, Mr. Barber, that’s not what happened.  Daddy says $7 is too much for a hair cut so he bought a flowbee that goes on the vacuum.  It’s really cool and sucked all my hair. “ 

Mr. Barber smiles, cuts son’s hair in a very professional manner and charge’s dad $27 for the child’s hair cut.  He also got a $3 tip for an even $30.  Mr. Barber turns around and hands son the $3 and says “Always tell the truth”.

And the reason I am repeating this story is because no matter what you think, it takes twice as much time to fix your tax return than it is for me, or any accountant, to do it correctly the first time.   So the next time you are coming for a correction after you’ve attempted to do it yourself and are now getting a reprimand from CRA, remember it won’t be a $7 haircut.