In response: I suppose I could just tell them to go online (I believe militaryonesource.com directs servicemembers to free versions of the commercially available products, like TurboTax), but it defeats the purpose of this class pretty well. I did comment to my supervisor this morning that I would probably just use TurboTax for my own again this year... and she said that it doesn't really instill confidence when the guy tagged for Tax Assistant isn't going to do his own. Which is fine, since if no one is confident in my ability then no one will bother me about helping them.
Also: The IRS.gov site does have several handy tools that I could use to finish the take-home test ahead of time. Apparently, searching there for "volunteer training" will give most/all of the information that I'm getting in class, anyway. But on the off chance that I could fail the test (which I was thoroughly convinced of until about half-way through today), I didn't want to have to explain to my commander that I had failed and hadn't attended the training, so I'm only doing some of the work at home. Right after I finish writing this article, in fact.
Today's class went better. Yesterday, another instructor showed up and started changing things around a bit. The way they had been presenting things was loose, confused, unstructured, and far too slow. He's managed to enstate a schedule for what we'll be going over for the remaining two days and has also done stand-up teaching on some of the topics (and is much less dry when teaching, and doesn't read directly out of the book either). The guy's pretty impressive and confident; he's partially disabled and uses a motorized chair to get around (not entirely out of necessity, he can still walk just not well) and has a cool German Shepherd with him all the time. But he carries himself very comfortably, so it's clear he's not defined by his handicap... well, this was supposed to be a rant about the tax class, but I'll finish this part by saying he's going to get a few good feedback comments on our sheets.
I'm still not happy about having this class, but I'm more resigned to it now. I'm definitely not looking forward to some Air Force guy trying to assign me a shift at the base library to help retirees with their tax paperwork. Honestly, I'll be trying to get out of that as often as I can. Hey, it's soccer season now so I'm going to be traveling to FT Hood just about every weekend for a couple games anyway... can't really sit there when I'm not even in town.
Less of a rant, I guess. I'm beat. And sick, still. Maybe when I have more energy, I'll be angrier...