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so, what do you do?

"So, what do you for a living?"
I hesitated, struggled to come up with an answer, then said that I worked for a certain Big 4 firm. "Nice, so what exactly do you do?" Damn, looks like that didn't answer the question. "I ummm...I audit." It has been historically proven that there is a 98% chance the person has no idea what auditing really entails. I have to try again. "Accounting..Public Accounting."
"Ahh..",the person goes," taxes and such." What a douche. "Umm...yea..sure, taxes."
Then there are times when I actually feel the need to explain it to them. "No, well, see...you know how companies have financial statements. Now, we have to look over and make sure everything's okay." At this point, I'm spoonfeeding them, hoping that they get the gist. If they don't, I'll just give up and say..yea, taxes.
Seriously, come on people, you have to know what auditing is. If you want US Weekly type scandals to get you to read about it, read about the Enron scandal, maybe that will help.
Just the other day, I was at the dentist's, and I ask for an appointment on saturday six months from now since it hits our "busy season" and it'll be tough to pull off a weekday. And she goes..."tax season." Yeah, I nod, tax season.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
My life. Right there. Sometimes I just start making a different job up because I really do not want to explain it.
August 6, 2007 at 2:27 PM
notfordisplay said…
I guess that's what I have to start doing. Consulting? Bartending? Or Maybe I can say I work for Discovery Channel or something, as a producer of Shark Week.
August 6, 2007 at 3:01 PM
Anonymous said…
I had fun explaining it to 16 year olds and younger when I started.

Doing some heavy SOX stuff at the time, I likened to administering a vaccine.

Since then I've transitioned to defending the capitalist system. If you think about it, that's what you do. A Champion of Capitalism, if you will.
March 3, 2008 at 12:59 AM
Luke David Johnson said…
This is so hilarious - it is amazing how we all go through this!
December 19, 2010 at 7:32 AM
Anonymous said…
Try explaining auditing to a 7 year old and a 4 year old.

"Mommy helps other people find out how much money they have and how much they have spent"
July 22, 2011 at 9:34 AM
Anonymous said…
Dude your blog is so hilarious...very entertaining and really sums up the life of an auditor. Keep it coming!
January 21, 2014 at 12:07 PM
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