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"Hello, I want to pring?" Um, hello - sorry strange man, I'm just sitting here with my netbook watching my bags and killing time during the two hour gap between my - "pring?" "I want to prrriiiing." I haven't slept much, having watched two Iraq war movies on the flight over. "Oh, praying!" I respond. "The Meditation Centre is right there." He looks over his shoulder, asks if it's okay to enter the empty room. Wearing my t-shirt for 90s rockers Garbage, I'm clearly the authority figure at Schipol airport . "Sure, go in." Oh, Amsterdam. This is the PG-crop of the video wall. The next vacation adventure is on - well has been for over a week, I've been busy! Relaxing.
My favorite video of the week shows the team here in Costa Rica successfully transferring a bee caught in the field to a specimen jar. It's rather self explanatory so enjoy the clip. Interestingly enough, you can actually take part in one of these adventures . As a corporate expeidtion from a Big Four firm we're doing double duty, handling both the science and a special project to assist the local coffee co-operative. You won't perform the bonus business project which my team is doing, but private individuals can help with the science itself. You need to enjoy the outdoors, and be comfortable with something a little more rustic than a regular tropical vacation. Read the project description on their site to learn more about the adventure. Aside from enjoying the work, you get to essentially live in a community for a week rather than just hover over it like a typical tourist. Two nights left in the mission. It's been great fun so far - we've even toured two coffee mills...
Our professor in the field, Dr. Banks, had kind words for us as we started our week of research in the Tarrazú region of Costa Rica. Armed with a couple of augers, PVC pipes, yellow "party" bowls, bottles of soapy water, insect catching nets, measuring tape, jars, more bags and, of course, several clipboards, we set off into the fields. We were lucky to enjoy a 'soft' introduction to fieldwork: the farm where work started is a relatively easy site for inspecting bee activity and the flowering of coffee plants because it's isolated from patches of rainforest. At sites adjacent to rainforests we'll be conducting more tests - here, on the other hand, we only had to dig for half as many soil samples. This didn't mean the work was a cakewalk - catching bees is not easy for accounting firm staff, and the banana trees' leaves made patches of ground wickedly slippery - tomorrow's sure to be more intense. We completed the adventure without any incidents, even...
My team in Costa Rica is writing an internal group blog about the scientific expedition we've joined - and that blog is a great way to share our experiences with my firm's audience. No one on the "outside" can see it, though so I'll follow along with my own posts and hopefully manage to squeak out some photos and videos over the limited internet connection at our humble site in the process. Posts will be short since my wifi connection may cut out at any time, and the I don't want to spend all night on my colleague's computer either. Highlights today included consumption of lots of high quality Costa Rican coffee after a hike through the Cloud Forest. And then came the rain, which conveniently enough started falling only after the end of our hike. Hopefully the new Youtube account I've created will process our welcome video quickly. It's shaping up to be a ridiculosly fun week.
I get to say goodbye to my polished shoes for two weeks while I'm assignment in Costa Rica, where a team of co-workers from around the world will join together to support an Earthwatch project involving a coffee farrming cooperative. "Getting ready" meant finishing the work I might've otherwise been doing next week, which led to elss posts around here since I had some days with long hours. It's absolutely worth it, though, since my costs for visiting a cloud forest and volunteering to help with a sustainable research project for a week are covered in exchange for me using up a week of vacation days. Fair trade! Freshest possible pineapples perhaps? Yes please Before I can lace up my hiking boots, however, I need to close off Earth Day by updating my self-review. The review may sound like a foreign concept to people who work in companies with haphazard performance review processes, or students who are used to either getting a good or bad mark on tests and essays rather...
This image pretty much summarizes the last two or three weeks. It's been a wild a joyful blur. Between supervising ICAO low-income tax clinics, hitting multiple deadlines with aplomb and celebrating Canada's Gold, there's barely enough time to go skiing. Last chance for me is likely today. The one big downside I have to admit is that it's not exactly easy to just disappear in the middle of the week to go replicate the feats of snow sports excellence we got to enjoy last month. Unless you plan for a winter vacation. Maybe next year. When I see a car perfectly painted the colours of our great land, I wonder, "did they specifically pick those colours knowing one day they'd be parading up and down Yonge St. after a stunningly perfect Canadian hockey victory?"
One of the many fun things about travelling around the world is finding out the rather different way people do common tasks. Surprises abound, even with something as prosaic as saying "Back in 5 Minutes." At least, that's what I assume this meant in a Chinese mall. Similarly, the sales staff embrace different sales tactics, particularly depending on where you find yourself. There were three examples which stood out. Hard ball haggling At most markets and stores were haggling can happen, it's traditional for salespeople to lower their last price if you're walking away after a bit of haggling. How odd to have the staff who will play hardball. You try and get a better price, but they don't want to budge. So you leave - and they call after you twice, each time saying, "no, I'm not lowering the price any lower." Sure, well thanks. Your sales pitch adds nothing to the conversation, bye. You walk away a third time only to get called again. "Ok, fine...
Is triggered by Junior Deputy Accountant, who seemed to enjoy my Bernanke photo - awesome . I've just returned from a three week adventure in Hong Kong, including trips to mainland China and Macau, which explains why I've been so quiet lately. As usual, I took tons of photos which tell the stories better than I could in most cases - I mean, how else can you explain Crispy Whitebait to someone? Perhaps I should've actually bought it but I didn't really feel like eating chips that day. I did write a bit of a micro-journal documenting my observations since I didn't feel like dragging my laptop along with me when I crossed the border. China's ridiculously fast transformation into some sort of capitalist-ish economy under a one-party state is obvious to anyone who sees the construction of high speed rail lines and the rapid development of formerly sleepy towns into bustling cities - I'll share more of that soon. Looking at this through the eyes of a CA which means...
As I mentioned earlier, I was slow in checking results this year as I'm far from home - but Ontario candidates can find the ICAO's UFE 2009 results on this page . [Edit - summary of all Canadian UFE 2009 results is up here. ] Congratulations to all those who passed. The ICAO has stopped disclosing the pass rates since I suppose they don't like the statistic viewed in isolation - but I never minded whether Ontario had a higher or lower rate. It's a tougher program to pass on your first shot because you get to write the exam much faster than in most other provinces - the CASB process may prepare you for a longer period of time, but if you're like me, you just want to go and write as soon as you're done the CKE and SOA. You can read details regarding the ICAO's logic on this page and you'll see that 15% more people passed than last year in Ontario. If you're really clever you can probably deduce the actual pass rate. My company did fairly well yet again...
The summer of road trip adventures and weddings continues - a week ago sending ACS to a wedding in Waterloo, with a stop on the way at Kitchener's Golden Hearth Baking Company . I've been out there many times for audits, but this weekend had nothing to do with auditing anyone, unless witnessing people get married is a form of auditing. Damnit, this work nevers escapes me. Oh well, at least we make it fun. And delicious, as I explain below. Although the wedding was a fun way to fill up on said deliciousness, it only lasted one night, so I loaded up on some of the wonderful baked goods for Sunday by stopping there on the way. Read a little about them, courtesy of their own website : "They have been at it ever since. The bakery makes everything from scratch including the croissants. They use only the finest quality local and organic ingredients. They do not use preservatives or artificial ingredients. They bake the old fashioned way with butter, fresh milled flour, farm eggs...
I'm finally back from vacation while city staff continue to clean up after their labour action . Posting was sporadic lately due to real life intruding, and the next week is going to be quite busy. In AuditLand the current crop of interns are going to be winding down their summer terms and the brave crop of 2009 fall hires will be showing up in an accounting firm office near you in a matter of mere weeks. Enjoy summer while you can, and dodge the spam - last month's count was 437 which tells me that either the filters are getting better, or I wasn't the only person both on holiday and too usy to write .
Hot on the heels of my discussion of when people choose to leave , comes news from LYF - he has resigned from his current firm and has done so with style . Go read all about it . It's a very good breakdown explaining how to pick the timing, how to plan the departure - starting 4 months in advance is advised, and factors to keep in mind, including the potential requirement to pay back exam fees the firm may have paid on your behalf. I like the idea pointed out to get the new employer to cover such fees for you, along with a smart breakdown on how to share the news. And I most of all like how it allows him to enjoy a summer-long vacation. Well played, and good luck at your next job and during the summer adventures!
If you want to avoid paying peak summer prices at popular destinations, May is a great time to travel. And although I thought I was going to follow up by saying, "and yet this year I didn't," that's obviously not true. Couple the well timed vacation with an early start to my busy season - yes, while the personal tax people are ready to take a break, I'm getting busy - and I new posts fell on hold. So thank you to the student who wrote to ask me a few good questions, including the following: If you leave your CA firm to work in industry, when is the best time to jump ship? I've heard people say "as soon as you have your hours and can use your CA," to "as high as stick around until you're a manager." I like questions like this because they're easy to answer and are also popular fodder for discussion. You'll find your dream job, somewhere. Maybe it'll even have an In-N-Out Burger location and will be outside the LAX flightpath...
Somewhere over the Rockies Someone out there must be wishing me luck. And it’s working. Flying to California for a short vacation, I tried to do online check-in only to find that the website declared this sort of thing forbidden. Perhaps due to the fact I was using frequent flier points - or, more likely - it could've been because of my connection on an American partner airline - I would have to check in at the airport. Okay, fair enough. Arriving at the airport the check-in computer reported a rather full plane - the only empty seats were singles, and my row was full with three people. Oh nuts. Well someone must’ve decided they’re scared of H1N1 - or perhaps they just moved to another spot on the plane.Whatever the reason, I found myself enjoying one and a half seats. I can easily fit in one, but it’s nice to stretch your legs laterally. Of course, me being me, I somehow crashed the in-flight entertainment system. I guess the system does a soft reboot while it’s on the ground. Before...
Ah, the American dollar. Speaking ill of it, will, in some circles, earn you a sterner response than outright blasphemy against Jesus. Or maybe it's because the banks arguably own the government . Americans are sensitive about their currency, which should be yet another obvious revelation to anyone paying attention to the ennui gripping the US as the federal deficit climbs to ever-greater levels . The observation arose not while studying a macroeconomic treatise, but while sorting out a pile of coins: I'm taking a short trip to the US today and after my last adventure in March, I'm taking a lesson to heart: you don't mess with their money. In Canada we treat coins from Canada or the US at par. The 10-20% difference in currencies is so minor, in Canada only the greatest scold would care where your penny, dime or nickel came from. The line is often drawn at quarters, as vending machines usually reject the foreign coin, but up to ten cents, it's generally fair game. Not...
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