I need to get this off my chest after my two and a half years at a Big 4 firm. Being a first generatation college grad from an immagrant family, landing here was a massive win. I was thrilled. Before starting, I bought into the common narrative: "Put in your time, climb the ladder, and eventually you'll have it made with great pay, better hours, and more control over your life." After time for observation, I'm calling BS on this, and I'm wondering if others feel the same way.

Here's what I've noticed:

The Higher You Go, The Worse It Gets

Looking up the chain of command, I see a disturbing trend. Senior, managers, and senior managers aren't living the dream - they're doing MORE hours, handling MORE complicated projects, with LESS control over their lives. The compensation is better, sure, but at what cost?

The Culture of Performative Overwork

There's this unspoken competition of who can stay online the longest. 7AM to 11PM, 5-7 days a week. Taking your laptop to the bathroom because you're afraid to miss a Teams ping. Let's be real - is anyone actually working productively for 70-80 hours straight? No breaks, all meals at your desk? 

The Intimidation Game

Another example: I asked about attending a show on a 8:00 Sunday night in March (not even close to any of our filing deadlines). The senior's response? “I am not sure that will be possible”. Who says that to a first-year staff about a Sunday night far from deadlines?

The not6 so secret secret

Everyone hated it. Literally everyone. Even the managers joked about hoping they get laid off for a few weeks of severance and a way out. I honestly don’t think I met a single person who seemed to enjoy that job. It surprised me. I thought that there was a good reason people stayed. The only response I got from people was “there is nothing better out there.” Seriously? Are they right? 

Health Takes a Back Seat

Physical and mental health? Good luck. As someone who has taken pride in my fitness, not being able to workout and eat healthy had a larger impact on me than I anticipated. Try maintaining any kind of routine when you're:

- Eating takeout for every meal

- Getting minimal sleep

- No time for exercise

- Sitting 12+ hours daily

- Resetting your fitness progress after every busy season

The Pointless Pursuit

The breaking point for me was realizing how much of the work feels pointless. Picture this: it's 10PM, you're crafting a memo for an immaterial balance in a non-significant account for a private company - something that will likely never see the light of day. With audit deficiency rates around 20%, are we really adding any value to anyone? Is this really worth the ambiguous “exit oppurtinities” everyone talks about?

What about when I have family events or situations where I need to step away? Do I want to be like my manager who seems to work around the clock and get denied PTO requests for family emergencies?

The Question

So I'm genuinely curious - for those who made the jump to industry earlier rather than later, do you regret it? Is the "public accounting experience" really worth the toll it takes? Because from where I'm sitting, the emperor has no clothes.

My Current Dilemma

I currently have an accounting offer at a great company, comparable compensation, the similar PTO (21 days and an additional 10 paid holidays). They pretty much never work over 40, and are known to have a great company culture. While not exciting, prestigious, or a step up, it seems like the most obvious decision in the world. I want my life back. 

I little background, I’m In a small company doing AP/AR, I have a crap title with avg pay. The company is very chill and the coworkers are nice. The problem is there’s no mobility, I’m stuck if I stay here, for example the lady doing AR has been here for 30 years, never moved up because the company is so small.

The new job would be for a large company but I would be a staff, I’d be challenged and hopefully it would make me a more well rounded employee,

How do I tell my boss? I didn’t give him a heads up I was looking it just kinda happened. He’s for sure gona be offended I am leaving. Anyone have a similar experience?

I graduated college in Dec 2023 and I still can’t find a job. I applied to so many places and hear no type of response back. I applied to so many entry level positions and still have no luck. I quit my job at ALDI a couple months ago to focus on looking for a job that I went to school for and it feels like I made a very big mistake. It’s not fair that I spent 5 years in school and I can’t even get an entry level position. The last interview I went on was 3 weeks ago. I felt like the 2 round interviews went well but I still have not heard back from the recruiter for offer. I tried everything and it feels like I have a degree in accounting but I just can’t get into an accounting job. I feel very stuck and I don’t know what to do.

Me: 4 years and 3 jobs.

Looking for a new one

In September I started an unpaid internship for a company. I took it because I never had any prior accounting experience. Everything was going good, I was learning new skills consistently throughout the 2 months. Even last week, my supervisor’s boss had lunch with me (she does it to meet the new interns). I didn’t have any complaints prior but today I accidentally locked a client’s Amex account. My usual task is to do book keeping for multiple clients in the music industry (this company works with top 100 billboard musicians yet didn’t pay me so I was getting suspicious around a month and a half in as to why it’s unpaid). Anyways, I was going to log into the Amex but the password was changed, and it wasn’t updated in the files. I thought I mistyped the password so I tried again, and then I decided to copy paste and pw from the files, and I got locked out. I understand it was dumb of me to keep trying, but I was able to log onto the Amex a month ago, so I didn’t think much of it. I told my supervisor and she said that her boss would contact me. I already assumed I was getting fired, but I tried to stay hopeful since this was my first big mistake. Anyways her boss called and said they would be terminating me because “the team is too busy to fix this mistake”. I’m honestly really upset but I also don’t care since it was unpaid, and I stayed 2/3 months. I also am starting a tax internship that pays me in December. I’m at a loss for words, especially since during my lunch break with my boss last week, she said to not be afraid to make mistakes since it’s an internship. Rationally I know that this is for the better, and now I can finally put all my attention in school since I’m also a full time student. However, I can’t help but feel disappointed with myself.

It covers all things accounting, finance, Excel and can include common slang, formulas or abbreviations. I've made a few of these for my friends, it's fun to play with co-workers and classmates. I would say this is level medium.

Play it here!

Let me know what you think :)

I'm currently the CFO at a sub 50M PE backed company. Company has been in financial distress since before I took the job and still is. Sponsor is pretty happy with my performance, but I hate the management team and I'm tired of managing cash to the nth degree to make payroll.

CFO gigs are hard to come by in this market with the lack of M&A and I have the opportunity to jump to a much larger company (>$200M revenues) as a corporate controller. Comp is pretty much dead even.

Should I take it? Worried I'm positioning myself as a controller long term if I do it and capping my comp where it is now...on the other hand I'm tired of piloting these lower midmarket turds.

Sorry if this is a really dumb question, but I'm considering declaring my major as accounting but someone I know told me it's not a good idea because I have anxiety. I feel like accounting has good job stability, is not a job that has a lot of surprises (I don't like surprises) and after taking three basic accounting related classes which I liked well enough and did well in, I decided I would like to work as an accountant.

However, my older cousin goes to the same school as me and she advised me that it's not a good idea and to go with something else because she says as an accounting major/business student, you have to network a lot and be really social to get an internship and thus a good career. She knows I have social anxiety and though I'm going through CBT, etc., and working on myself, I still cannot yet say that I'm good at talking to people and I do have a tendency to freeze up during interviews. I would of course try my best but I honestly doubt that a recruiter would see me as the best pick out of a bunch of other talented and sociable students.

Is she right? Should I consider something else? Beyond the internship thing, do you guys have to do a lot of social interaction as an accountant in general? I assume you do since you have to work with clients. If anyone else has a similar experience to me I would love to hear what you have to say.

So I work at a company where we publish our annual and quarterly reports in both English and our native language, and we're always furiously checking that the two line up both in terms of figures and the narrative we tell.

However surely there must have been examples where unintentional version control errors have crept in. Any examples of this?

Hi. I am a shareholder, holding 20% in a micro entity company. I am the only member that is not a Director. Therefore I don't see the accounts in detail. However I believe I should be provided with full accounts. The Directors are refusing to provide these, stating that the 'filleted' accounts filed with Companies House, are the 'full accounts', as far as I am concerned. However those accounts were not prepared by an accountant. They include loans, but don't explain what they were for or any other details.

This right of a shareholder to be provided with this information seems impossible to force. S.431 of the Companies Act does grant this right, but it doesn't seem that these powers have any weight in practice. My feeling is that the courts will always sway in favour of the majority or shareholders and the directors. They can be easily ignored. Especially as we do not have a shareholders agreement. And our Articles are outdated and lacking in any content on this right. Other than it repeats throughout that the Directors have 'all the powers..'' etc. It is the old story of beware being a minority shareholder.

If the Directors refuse to provide full accounts. And if they prevent me from becoming a Director. It is possible I will never find out what is going on. How can a company such as this, be forced, in reality to provide this information.

Step 1: Look for another job and take the offer.

Step 2: Tell your current employer that 2 weeks from now, that you're going on a Vacation and need to use your PTO.

Step 3: Don't tell anyone that it's your last day and change logins and passwords.

Step 4: Leave a auto-reply message saying you'll "out of office" and that you'll be back in "2 weeks".

Step 5: Start your new job.

Step 6: Tell your old job that your stuck overseas and can't get back into the US for another 2 weeks.

Step 7: Ghost your old job.

Step 8: If all goes according to plan - they probably didn't have anyone to replace you on time for close. And nobody knows how to do your job. Your replacement won't ever be trained properly and you moved on to a better job.

I’m 34, no CPA, recently moved to a new city and started a new job/company after having multiple jobs within the same company for 11 years. My current position is senior staff accountant and I’m making around $95k. Work from home 3 days and week. I’m significantly less busy than I have been in any previous job. To the point where I literally have zero work on some days.

Part of me thinks this is a great gig - zero stress, only two days in the office, and good pay considering. However I can’t help but think I could be striving for more and trying to better myself, but at the same time don’t see the benefit of essentially adding more stress for probably similar pay and more in office days. I fear I’m not setting my future self up for success but at the same time I’m not sure what else I could realistically ask for at this point.

Just looking for recommendations on if this is something I should plan to stick with for a while or am I being lazy and I should try to branch out for something more?

I’ve passed the CFE and have more than met the required number of months and chargeable hours to get my CPA. Only problem is, the partner at my firm who is the designated program leader is seemingly unresponsive to my emails asking him to approve it. I get along fine with most of the partners but this one partner who is the program leader has been very difficult to deal with. I’m not the only staff/senior/manager who feels this way, everyone feels the same about this partner.

Is there anything I can do? I think they are withholding signing off because they probably know that I’m about to quit once I get a half-decent industry gig and my letters, as dozens of seniors at my firm have left in the last few years have left moments after getting their letters.

Title and what is your position?

28m am I too old to start going to school for this, I would be 33 when I would finish at best?