This post was inspired in part by a recent post on AccountingWEB by Bill Kennedy called This Accounting Life. In it, Bill talks about some things we can all probably relate to: working Saturdays, late nights in order to meet regulatory or internal deadlines or creating budgets, month end, year end, and the list goes on and on. Normally, this laundry list culminates with the request for just one more ad hoc report. If Bill’s experience has been anything like mine, the request likely comes in about 2:30pm on a Friday afternoon. Bill laments the lack of prior warning most of us received about the typical “Accountants Life” while in school, but also admits his compulsion to chase down inconsistencies that add to the workload. Word to Kennedy, I can relate.
Anyone else have a “Lumbergh Moment” they would like to share?
So, it’s Friday. Time to swap some war stories! I’ll start:
For me, there was one Finance Director in particular who was famous for ambushing me with these “last minute” requests. Usually though, the request would come down on a Saturday at 2:30pm. I was working in a retail back office. For those of you unfamiliar, the industry favours a 4-week fiscal period. This translates into 13 fiscal periods per year. I can only hope it wasn’t an accountant who created this monster. It feels like you are closing ALL THE TIME. It also means that period end is always on a Friday, and we were always in on the Saturday burning to make the hard close date by Tuesday. Add an aging and crash-prone CMS system, various other disparate back office systems, a vertigo-inducing, excel-based Cost of Product Report (per operating unit), and you’ve got good times. Saturday usually ended for me between 9pm and 11pm. I could catch a few hours sleep and get back at it on Sunday! At which time, I could finish up with those untimely requests… until next time.
The point is, during all of that time and indeed throughout my accounting career, this tempo was never viewed by myself or my colleagues as a burden so much as a Badge of Honour. Think about it. Is there not a certain element of pride and satisfaction that comes with persevering over, under, and through these logistical and technical challenges? I don’t know why. Do your non-accounting colleagues look at you like you’re crazy when describing your weekend in the office? Is it a dopamine issue? OCD? Perhaps.
Maybe there’s more. Maybe there’s fun in the work that offsets the hours. I don’t know many accountants who are interested in punching a timeclock or joining what I refer to as the “4:30 Track Team”. You know the guys. You can visit their cube at 4:31 and their chair is ice-cold, the cube looks museum-like in its stillness.
There are scores of instances I can think of from my past when a monster project became exactly that, a Badge of Honour. How else do you differentiate yourself? I don’t suppose going round and round with the chicken and egg routine (or Abbott and Costello) about why will ever resolve it so I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll open the floor to some of your best and worst tales from the trenches.
What have you got?
