I was just looking at my W-4 to fine tune my withholding, and I noticed I'm still set to be withheld as a married person. I don't want to ask HR in case they say 'Oh, we need to change that', because I like seeing myself still officially married somewhere. What are the ramifications of being labeled single or married on a W-4, if the withholding numbers themselves don't change?

Yay meara!

That's a great dream, Connie. You're practically Jarvis.

My one-on-ones with my manager are always scheduled for an hour, but we finish in half an hour. We seem to cover everything, so I guess that's okay? I can certainly use the wee bit of "extra" time to wrap things up.

I don't think it matters, Connie, as long as you don't try to file as a married person. The W-4 is more of a worksheet to figure out what should be deducted than anything else. There's no penalties for saying you have a bunch of dependents on your W-4 when you do not, for example, other than your witholding maybe being inaccurate. I used to have a co-worker who worked backwards, figuring out what she wanted withheld and putting in the number of dependents that would give her that result. But it's been a while since I worked in payroll, I may not have that entirely right.

I don't think it matters, Connie

Excellent. Then I'm not going to change it, though I did change the additional amount withheld to avoid owing money.

Resistance is not necessarily futile. Enough resistance will melt something.

I just spent way too much time trying to get my internet connection, which went out about 10 last night, working. On Friday, I kept getting a screen to enter my password. I determined that my password wasn't working and got a new password. Things worked fine until last night. After a discussion with the nice man in India, we realized that I needed to put the new password in my router. I might have realized that if it happened right after I changed my password, but it waited three days. Technology, she is strange. Then he tried to sell me an internet security package.

Nuclear power is, as you might imagine, one giant acronym. Many of them are pronounced, e.g., high-pressure coolant injection system = HPCI, pronounced hip-see. They definitely add to the confusion when nuclear types try to talk to the humans.

That's the only thing you need to be careful of, Connie. Married withholding is at a higher rate, so you could wind up owing the feds or the state a decent chunk of change. I didn't change my withholding from married to single until mid-2013. It made no difference in 2012 because I could still file as married because it was the year he died, but it could have made a big difference in 2013 if I hadn't caught it. The only thing that saved me was being able to deduct my mortgage interest.

I don't even need to click on the link to get the gist of the t-shirt, because (1) I married into a family of electrical engineers, and (2) I know where you work. Also (3) puns.

So your capacitance for implicit understanding is high.

I see what you did there.

Aw, just got a puppy break! Adorable young shar-pei/lab mix. Such a sweetheart. This should be a regular part of the workday.

I like puns the way Ron Swanson likes puzzles. I can't help it.

No impedance in your vision, either, Steph.