Public Service Annoucement: If you forgot to file your federal income tax return in 2001, just tell them that you put it in the mail.

They just might believe you.

I have been traveling a lot lately (one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much), and last weekend took me to Pittsburgh, PA. More on that later...But I share this tidbit because it was in Pittsburgh that I learned of an unbelivable event.

You know how at the hotel they leave the newspaper (in this case the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) at your doorstep? I don't usually read the local paper when I am traveling, but for some reason, I picked up the paper and started reading. And I was floored by what I read, so I must share it here.

Did you know that in April 2002, over 70,000 2001 New England tax returns were destroyed before they ever got to the IRS? How, do you ask?

It's hard to believe, but this is what happened: The IRS contracts externally to process the returns. In 2001, Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh was one of those processing centers. Every year, Mellon Bank hired temporary workers to help process the returns. Problem was, they were trying to save money, and instead of the usual 200 extra people, they hired about 70. Surprise, surprise--as their late April deadline approached, they still had over 70,000 returns unprocessed.

Did they call the bigwigs at Mellon and tell them what was happening? Noooo. People under stress will do crazy things. The supervisor was afraid he'd lose his job. So what did he do? He told the staff to box up the unprocessed returns and bring them to a storage closet to hide them. When they ran out of room, they started putting the returns in big canvas bags. When they ran out of those, he sent an employee to the supermarket to buy big black trashbags which they filled with the remaining tax returns and sent to the dump!! I'm not kidding. It really happened.

"(Workers) were under pressure to meet the deadline or they would lose their jobs," Picking said. "And that's what ultimately led to the crime, in our eyes."

In the short-term, mission accomplised, they didn't lose their jobs. In the long term? Not so good. They are going to jail. That has got to be the most extreme example of short-sightedness I have ever heard of.

So if you are chastising yourself for doing something stupid today, like locking your keys in your car, or sending out a business letter with a typo on it, just think about these people.

Feel better already, don't you?