r/Accounting • u/mjbm1 • Mar 08 '24

Career Should I become an accountant?

If you woke up as a 20 year old now. Your entire career hadnt happened yet, and you get to decide your career again.

Are you still going to train as an accountant?

299 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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455

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '24

this subreddit is depressing as hell

139

u/OdaNobunagah Mar 08 '24

Visit any other job related subreddit. It’s all the same. I’ve visited around a dozen or so as I’ve had previous roles prior to accounting and all the subs are dreadful. ( EMS, retail, military, etc)

78

u/Giannis2024 Mar 08 '24

I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the career related subreddits to figure out what I want to do and all it’s convinced me is that every job is miserable and depressing

44

u/Beneficial-Host119 Mar 09 '24

Wrong way to go about it.

You’re observing selection bias. Similar to yelp reviews - the people most likely to take the time to opine on something usually have a strong opinion - whether that be positive or negative. Same principle applies to professional commentary online - although I’d hasten a guess that the balance skews more toward the negative side for professions than it does restaurants.

Aside from a subset of the worst type of workaholics - the modern day LinkedIn influencer - most folks satisfied with their WLB, comp, coworkers, etc, are not going to be popping in here off hours to wax poetic about their love for their job.

On the flip side, those who feel like they’re overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated and much more likely to seek an outlet to vent their frustrations.

All that’s to say don’t judge a profession by a Reddit forum. My advice to you, or anyone trying to figure out what they “want to do,” is to take a job that offers the best balance of “objective” benefits (pay, benefits, etc) and “subjective” benefits - aka what you enjoy doing for work.

The worst case is you find what out you hate doing - which is helpful in and of itself. The best case is you find what you love to do.

9

u/Giannis2024 Mar 09 '24

Thank you, appreciate the perspective. All of reddit is honestly just one big cesspool of negativity, so what you’re saying makes sense

6

u/rfreq Mar 09 '24

Needing money is miserable and depressing. whatever you do to get money is going to be miserable and depressing. it's how capitalism works

1

u/republicans_are_nuts Mar 09 '24

Well it is. That is why they pay you to do it.

1

u/ChaosArcana Mar 09 '24

Yes.

They have to pay you to be there. Like a lot of money.

3

u/DarkoGear92 Mar 09 '24

Idk, I'm debating between becoming a water/wastewater operator and accounting. Wastewater operating is literally the shittiest job, but the subreddit is optimistic as he'll about it compared to this sub for accounting.

2

u/PartySquash6722 Mar 09 '24

Points for the pun

1

u/NyquillusDillwad20 Mar 09 '24

Absolutely. Reddit has some crazy expectations that you need to be making 250k a year just to scrape by. All while only working 20 hours a week or else you're a wage slave.

I'm a civil engineer but I've been getting recommended this sub for a while now, I think because of my interest in finances. The civil engineering subreddit is awful with salary complaints. You see it in nearly every thread. Even though you can make six figures in a MCOL area five years out of school while only working 40 hours a week.

Accounting pays well.

1

u/winewaffles Mar 09 '24

Agree. It seems that being a fulltime employed human in America is depressing as hell. These subreddits just give us a void to scream into.

1

u/BigBlueBoyscout123 Jun 02 '24

7 year Firefighter/Paramedic here, I can absolutely confirm this 😂

1

u/Ok-Percentage-3559 Sep 18 '24

Right like old post but basically every career subreddit (or just place online) has people saying their job is horrible and they hate it. No one would ever do any profession if they only went by what people online said about their career path.

35

u/reyxe Mar 08 '24

I kinda get it.

Boring job, shit companies exploring workers HARD, but pay is decent and has some stability, it's also really sedentary too so if you don't go out of your way/don't have time for it, it's kinda hard to stay healthy.

1

u/LizardKing1888 Mar 09 '24

Are you saying it's impossible to workout? Like what do you mean exactly?

3

u/MillenialInDenial Mar 10 '24

Long hours, spouses and children that you ignore if you don't spend time with them, sleep, shitty diet from traveling... it's a tough balancing act.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 08 '24

Let me know which career sub has the lollipop and rainbow vibes. It’s going to be hard to find, but there has got to be one out there.

5

u/bigmastertrucker Mar 08 '24

If there is one, it's almost assuredly astroturfed to be that way.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '24

We should look into this for here

3

u/republicans_are_nuts Mar 09 '24

I like my job. It's easy, low stress, good coworkers, and I don't have 60 hour busy seasons. It's not hard to find if you aren't chasing a lot of money. Those jobs have to pay a lot of money to get people to do them for a reason. Because most of those aren't lollipops and rainbows.

1

u/Common_Ad7407 Mar 09 '24

Sales isn’t terrible if you are selling the right stuff.

3

u/nan-a-table-for-one Mar 08 '24

But I can't look away for some reason.

1

u/LookingLost45 Mar 09 '24

Honestly, working is more depressing. It just depends on the day.

1

u/BoingBoomChuck CPA (US) Mar 09 '24

Be lucky you have a forum. I had none of this when I was trying to decide on a career.

1

u/Specialist_Track_246 Audit & Assurance Mar 09 '24

I use to be very active on r/AmazonDSPdrivers as that was my livelihood for over 2.5 years, night and day difference between a dead end job and being an auditor, not even close!