This is a long story about a dialogue between an accountant and a blogger. You can imagine that we don’t end up seeing eye to eye, but for the moral of the story in fewer than 1,300 words, stop picking the short-term over the long-term in your life.

People do funny things.

Businesses do too.

We had our taxes prepared recently because we had a tax situation that was definitely beyond my self-preparing pay grade. [footnote]We lived overseas, moved back to Ohio, had to switch which local district we were paying taxes too and went from paying normal taxes to self-employment taxes because of our transition in our ministry. One of those things would have been enough.[/footnote] We had a cacophony of complexity to wrangle.

So we hired an accountant. 

He was professional and helpful, but in preparing our taxes we had a “misunderstanding”[footnote]His words, not mine[/footnote]. That misunderstanding, which in my opinion was what us common folk call a mistake, nearly costed us an extra $350.

I called to let him know, we talked the situation through and he fixed them incredibly quickly.

I thought his mistake was costly [footnote]In the time it took to me review them, find the error explain it to him when he doubted what I said. It was nearly costly in the financial way too[/footnote] enough to warrant a reduction in his fee to prepare our taxes.

Here’s the bulk of what I said to him via email:

Thanks again for preparing our taxes. We received our invoice this week.

You did an excellent job communicating with me over the course of filing, and I appreciated your promptness as well as charging us a fair fee based on our initial agreement.

I wanted to get your opinion on our payment. When we first spoke, you said something along the lines of “We want to make sure your taxes are done correctly, that you pay everything you need to and yet make sure you don’t pay more than you need to.” Of course, that’s the ideal scenario.

However, since you didn’t [the “misunderstanding” noted here] we nearly overpaid our taxes by $350.

I appreciate you taking the time to quickly fix the issues and send our returns back to us corrected. However, I feel I’m at a crossroads.

If I wouldn’t have thoroughly reviewed our returns, I wouldn’t have caught your mistake, and we would have paid an extra $350. I know our taxes were a unique situation, and you’re normally dealing with businesses and not individuals. However, my question is, if you were in my shoes, and you hired someone to perform a service for you, and they did something incorrectly that almost cost you a few hundred dollars, how would you pay them?

I by no means want to stiff you with the bill. My thought was to pay ? of the initial agreed upon cost for preparation, since 2 out of 3 of our returns were initially prepared correctly…

I don’t want this to be messy, I just want to do what we both think is fair, being treated as we would want someone to treat us. I look forward to your response. I will wait on sending in our payment (whether the full amount or the reduced two-thirds amount, as I’ve proposed) based on your feedback. [footnote]I’m pretty proud I worked the golden rule into this email.[/footnote]

It was mostly a social experiment.

How would someone respond to a customer who felt he was wronged? Would they try to keep the customer happy, or would they just want to be paid? Honestly, I was fine with either outcome, but I was shocked at his response.

Here was his reply:

I want you to be a happy client, [footnote] Except everything beyond this phrase will go on to make me unhappy[/footnote] but we are not going to agree on this issue. I probably would not otherwise respond, except you have asked for a reply and I want to be respectful.

I don’t just prepare corporate returns and have prepared over 200 personal returns annually for 27 years.

I spent time assessing [details our specific tax scenario]… You were not billed for that time.

You provided me [information about our situation]…It would not be unreasonable to assume [mistake he made, in my opinion]. I in fact have several clients who [had a similar situation to ours].[footnote]I doubt anyone else had the exact same situation because it’s rare, but sure let’s role with it[/footnote]

The fact that you clarified your stance \ position is a normal interaction between client and a preparer. My cover letter asked you to “carefully review” your returns and discuss any preparation issues with us. I appreciate your diligence.

I recently took my daughters vehicle to an auto mechanic as it was stalling due to fuel line issues. I got it back and it did the same thing. I took it back and he fixed it properly. I was grateful for that.

Regards and enjoy the springtime weather.

I think the jabs he took at me and insinuating my naïveté for even suggesting we shouldn’t pay the full fee was a little off-putting, but maybe I just have thin skin.

“I probably would not otherwise respond, except you have asked for a reply and I want to be respectful”–that part was particularly pungent.

You wouldn’t respond to a customer who already said he is going to pay you whatever you decide is fair?

I appreciate his example of the auto mechanic, but it’s a bit off for me. If the mechanic didn’t fix the problem you brought the car in for, and then something else broke as a result, who would be responsible to pay for the fix? I’d say that’s a more equal scenario.

At any rate, once he shot of that stinging email, he essentially decided that an overall small sum of money in the grand scheme was worth severing our professional relationship.

He must know I won’t go back to someone who made a mistake, refused to admit it was a mistake, and then got indignant when I suggested our agreement wasn’t fully met and the cost should be adjusted.

So how did this all shake out? I called the next day, paid the full amount over the phone and didn’t respond to our accountant’s email. I chose to “enjoy the springtime weather” instead.

Maybe I’m off-base. Maybe what he decided was fair. Honestly, had he written his email in a less offensive way, (perhaps omitting the insinuation that I was a childish fool for even making my suggestion), I would have paid the bill and considered working with him again.

Ultimately, he chose immediate payment over a long-term customer.

And he’s not alone. Businesses make that choice daily. In a world with infinite choices, being a company that treats people like people instead of dollar signs is a company I’m willing to stick with. At 25 years old, he had a shot at being my tax preparer for the rest of his life if he wanted. Instead, he chose chump change.

This diatribe isn’t meant to bash my accountant. It’s more a clear picture into the hearts of humans when we want someone to know how we really feel without thinking through the repercussions (or choosing not to care).

He thought he was in the right and that I was clearly in the wrong. But our approach in showing that matters. I can think of numerous examples when I’ve responded in the same way.

I often choose the immediate over the ultimate. Sin over Jesus. Selfishness over selflessness. Anger over understanding.

What short-term choices are you making that are going to hurt you down the road? What sin are you indulging in that seems worth it for a quick fix?

What choices are your business, church or organization choosing over delighting customers? Are you willing to take a short-term loss for a long-term gain?

Few are willing to give up the immediate for a long-term benefit. Those businesses that do will last, and the people who do are for more likely to succeed.

And instead of writing about my frustration, I’d be celebrating a company with a heart who, although we may disagree, that company has empowered its employees to be more concerned with relationships than a few extra bucks.