Category Archives: Davin

Downsizing my mattress

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Relative sizes of twin, full (double), queen, and king mattresses.

Relative sizes of twin, full (double), queen, and king mattresses.

My current mattress is a little too soft for my bad back’s liking. And it’s just too big. I’m decidedly single at this point, have never been too tied to possessions in general, and so for me my queen mattress is just a nervous tick on the side of crazy. It’s time to downsize.

So, I wanted a picture of the relative sizes of standard mattresses to help me think through this. Tada, OmniGraffle to the rescue. Picture attached. (I realize they look like sticky notes. Mildly funny to me.)

Mattress type Width (inches) Height (inches)
Twin  39  75
Full (Double)  54  75
Queen  60  80
King  76  80

Looks like a full-size mattress will be in my future.

Make an alternate form to register for nanny taxes and increase state tax revenue

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Ah, the nanny tax. Some quick Google searches show a range of 80 to 95% of people who are obligated to pay the nanny tax, simply don’t. (NYTimes, ParentDish.com) That’s a pretty whopping statistic.

As I’ve been finding out, it would certainly be easier to just skip it. This past summer I hired a nanny for about six weeks. And, wanting to do the right thing, I decided I would deal with the paperwork and expense, and just pay her as a household employee and deal with the taxes. And that’s still the right thing to do.

But, wow, do I hate paperwork, and this stuff is over the top.

Thumbnail panels of form 518

Form 518 from the State of Michigan was a bit over the top. I just wanted to pay taxes for hiring a nanny for a few weeks.

For the State of Michigan, I found out I have to fill out form 518, Registration for Michigan Business Taxes. The title of the form alone caused some trepidation. As I proceeded to fill it out, I found myself frequently scratching my head, thinking things like, “Why are they asking me about acquiring a business in the past four years? I just wanted to pay taxes for hiring a nanny.” Or, “But I’m not a business. I’m not buying or selling anything. This is a money losing scenario for me. I just want to pay what I have to for hiring a nanny!”

So, there was form 518, plus two additional forms I had to fill out, just to jump through some hoops to register for Unemployment Insurance taxes.

It’s pretty obvious that those forms are meant for real businesses, not private individuals who want to pay a household employee. I was so close to hiring a lawyer or accountant, but that just seemed unreasonable to me, so out of proportion with the fact that I just wanted to pay a nanny.

Upon having gone through the paperwork, nearly all of it was completely irrelevant. The relevant pieces were mostly my name and address or oddly specific. For instance, I nearly didn’t find the SIC number that applies to my situation. On the second page of SIC codes, about two thirds of the way down the fourth column of codes I found 881: Private Households – Domestic Employees, Cleaning, Baby-sitting, Private Nursing. I’m glad I found it, because I was really close to just leaving that field on the form blank.

Perhaps to the government, paying a nanny is just like owning a business. But, to me that seems like a dandy of a one-size-fits-all blunder. If instead the only form that a private individual had to fill out in order to register for nanny taxes was a quarter-sheet size form with contact information, perhaps more people would actually fill it out.

Maybe it could be a special edition of the 518, called 518-PH, for Private Households. The rest of the pertinent 518 information could be presumed on that form, simply because people filling it out fit that profile. (For instance, it would imply SIC # 881.)

How many people looked at the paperwork, freaked out for a moment, and then just decided to skip it? The current form is quite simply a roadblock to tax revenue and to people who would like to do the right thing.

Much ado about phone numbers

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Four approaches to styling phone numbers.

Here are four approaches to styling phone numbers. Which looks best to you?

Lately I’ve been thinking about formatting phone numbers. Of course, there are plenty of options in addition to the ones above, but these are some common ones, although the thin spaces option is perhaps not too common. I added it because I’ve been wondering about the value of the separator characters, and if we can just not use them in favor of a little white space.

Here is some of the thinking.

  1. The conventional formatting of (123) 456-7890 will obviously be a phone number to most Americans.
  2. I’m no fan of the dashes.
  3. I’m okay with the periods. However, are they needed?
  4. Which led me to try the version with thin spaces between each set of digits.

I like the thin spaces, but I don’t dislike the conventional version. So, for obviousness, I lean towards the convention. For aesthetic, I lean towards the thin spaces.

But part of the decision of which approach to go with will depend upon the context. For instance, is the phone number labeled with an obvious word like Telephone or Phone? If so, I might opt for the thin spaces version.

However, if the context is unclear, say in the absence of clear cues about what that number is, the conventional approach would be best. Otherwise, the number could be misinterpreted as some other number, or it might simply take the reader too much mental effort to recognize it as a phone number. No need for that sort of rudeness.

Clearly, this is all just my opinion. Do you have a preference for how phone numbers ought to be styled?