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I try to help people, they turn me down. That's about par for the course, I should say - auditors are used to not getting much respect. With the exception that other auditors usually listen to what we have to say. If I offer help to someone, they're usually happy to get it. My UFE mentees are a prime example. They listen carefully to my suggestions, and pass their exams. It's a strong symbiotic relationship - I'm happy to share knowledge. With that in mind, imagine my surprise when, while stationed a day's drive north of the city, I checked my mail in the morning to find an unusual e-mail from another writer. What I received was a polite e-mail from PriceWaterhouseCoopers explaining why my commentary isn't welcome at Nisha's PwC blog , part of the new "PwC Connect" recruiting site that's gradually rolling out. That they don't want to permit my voice to be heard at their site doesn't concern me too greatly as I have - oh, my own little soapbox...
It's easy to say that this post wins the prize for "most descriptive headline ever." It's even better than that one. Oh England. Just as I booted my computer I thought to myself, "gee, it's been a while since someone contacted me here with a question." Boom. Question in my inbox, in reference to a recent post . For a first year, do you actually get to take the entire month of July off after writing the SOA? In the Big 4 firms, do the UFE in-house training classes begin in August, or late July? Scary, no? Anyway, thanks for the questions - the answer to the first one is, yes, unless you want to work - and your company allows you to. This isn't a consistent rule by any means. I got to return to work after the SOA for three weeks. It was an enjoyable return, since I got to travel during that time, one week going to an exotic client site, another week attending an training course for my day job, IT audit. I remember that week well - it only took place a...
My RSS feed didn't send me the news that Neil has taken his blog offline . And, having realized it's offline, I'll twist a classic phrase and tell you that I've come not to bury his site, but to praise it. I've known Neil since a little time before the School of Accountancy, where we got to meet face to face - and we coincidentally ended up sitting a row away from each other during the UFE - and his site has always been a great beacon of professionalism that anyone writing about their job should be keen to emulate. I hope he can bring his archives back up at some point in time. His insights and observations were worth reading, and I think they still will be even if he doesn't talk about the Day Job. This is Krupo engaging in idle speculation, but when you work for industry the rules might understandably be totally different when it comes to how they want you writing publicly, especially when your full name is attached to everything you put out there for public consumption...
I'm not really in the mood to argue. I mean, I've had some excellent food lately, which should really put anyone in a good mood. But I'm still shocked and appalled. And I really should've replied to the news that photography is banned from the station with a chilly, "what for?" You see, according to the best guess of the Montreal train station's security, I apparently must look like a terrorist. Wow, they should've seen me when I was all scruffy and bearded in university. One of my friends from back then thought I was a History, rather than a Commerce student, for that simple fact. This is the second time in two months that I've been witness to an instruction from security to stop taking photos in a government-owned facility. And it's so stupid I wish I got drop the hammer on someone the way America's Henry Waxman does two and a half minutes into this video . Waxman is understandably annoyed with the stonewalling he gets from the EPA about...
Would you like to: go to work and meet people who smile at you and are genuinely pleased to see you, or show up at work and find people ducking and hiding when they hear you approach? Unless you suffer from some odd psychological condition, you'll probably pick #1. Now if you're an auditor, ask yourself - which of those scenarios describes how people treat you? Anonymous Accountant abandoned writing over a year ago, yet there's an incredibly long discussion on how much "audit sucks" and how miserable people feel in the audit profession. Sounds like there's far too many offices where: Staff receive too little guidance; Petty office politics rule the day; Every day feels like agony; Accounting students run away from your company before even applying; and People are either leaving as soon as they can, or have already left. Reading sites like that is eye-opening. Although I hear horror stories from some of my friends, I can't personally vouch for living all those...
Funny, without an audience giving you feedback, you write about what strikes your fancy and will hopefully appeal to people. With people telling you what's on their mind, though, you can apply a laser-like focus on what interests them instead. This assumes you have something intelligent or useful to share about their interests. And so thanks JC , for revealing that at least one person out there finds the things Neil and I write about somewhat useful . JC's question, posted on Neil's blog, was regarding the 'slow season'. Someone new to the profession will think, quite logically, if you have a 'busy season', then perhaps you may have little or nothing to do during the slow season. At the risk of making some broad, sweeping generalizations, I'll tackle this question by drawing upon many years of busy seasons, both from my personal experience and those of others who have shared their stories with me over time. Before jumping into a few myths or scenarios, I'll...
I saw a stream of fresh-faced kids wandering through the office today. They were too young to be summer interns - to highlight that fact, one of my intern friends was actually leading the group along with a manager - I knew what it was, because I was one of them not too long ago. It was a bunch of university students taking summer tours of accounting firms. I only went on two tours in university. Ironically, my firm was one of those two. I never thought I would end up working here at the time - in fact, I didn't even know that my department existed back then. You learn a lot in university. And even more after graduating, really. Anyway, I was bemused to see that group wandering through our offices. They were even younger than I would have been, since I'm a product of Ontario's 5-year high school system, which ended shortly after I graduated. All these kids had 4-year high school programs, so they looked even younger than hardened 20-something veterans like myself. Oh, and don't...
My stint working as a tax preparer is almost done - Monday I check in to see if there's anything else I need to do. Then, I take off on my long-awaited vacation. This short month working in the tax group taught me a lot of things - how CNIL actually works, for example: it's one thing to describe what you get off the CRA's website on an exam - it's another thing altogether to process it on a tax return. After hitting up a series of topics, I feel much more confident in my abilities on the tax side of things - no doubt the reason my CA students in Canada are required to work 100 hours preparing tax returns before they earn the CA designation. In addition to getting practical experience in a broad variety of tax returns, I came to a bit of a realization: the supposed 'difficulty' of tax is overblown, once you sit down and deal with it. The epiphany reminded me of my high school chemistry class, where our teacher proclaimed to us that the technical knowledge he was sharing with us was rather...
I'm watching Spike Lee's Very Important and epic 4-hour documentary When the Levees Broke . In addition to reminding me of many things which went Horribly Wrong in the summer of 2005, the movie plays Barbara Bush's crass and insensitive remark about the victims of Hurricane Katrina being in a position to benefit from the hurricane. Although receiving aid is nice and all, the way she said those words - and the unfeeling boorish sentiment it exposes showcases her to the world as a disgusting harpy. And, the mother of the current U.S. president too. I was curious to see the results of a Google search for the pointed headline I chose for this comment. It turns out this isn't a unique sentiment in the least -unsurprisingly, really. Her exact words - thanks Japan Today - were: "and so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them," Spike Lee's movie is even-handed enough to point out that there are both elements of not...