Life of an auditor

Real or fictional, it's still pretty funny - As many of you now know this friday will be my last day with PwC so I wanted to say good bye and thank you for everything. My decision to leave was not a snap decision as it may have seemed but a well thought out process. It started one night in the audit room as I was helplessly attempting to focus on some inane, completely irrelevant task so I could leave when the green card carrying cleaning lady came into my cage to empty my garbage when my decision was made. I realized that I was actually jealous of her job. I would have gladly emptied the garbage cans in the whole building over any of the nonsense I was doing on my computer. See, at the end of her shift she has made a difference, she has added value, be it minimal, of removing the refuse from the employees cubes. At the end of the day she sees the empty garbage cans and knows that she accomplished something. When trying to apply this mindset to my own work I found it to be impossi...

Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Finance has canceled licenses for audit activity on the part of KPMG Ltd. Borat's neighboring country is getting in on it too. I'm sure this will lead to a "big" dent in KPMG's revenue. Link

Client fridges can be downright ridiculous at times. There are the boring ones with names on every lunchbox and soda. There are the nearly empty ones. Few of my clients have fridges stacked with all-you-can-drink beverages. Those are awesome, and save you a soda a day, although you tend to destroy your body because of that. Then there are those fridges stacked with booze. I'm not talking just beer, i'm talking tequila, top shelf vodka, whiskey, the whole nine yards. Magically, they dissapear every thursday or friday evening. I got invited to a few of these boozefests, and I have to tell you, they do not hold back. A fridge can tell us a lot about company culture.

I hate the screens, especially when the associates use them. You are not doing anything useful or working on anything confidential that requires privacy screens, since they mostly prevent other auditors from glancing at your screens. When you're on the move, in the airports, trains,etc...that's when they're useful. No, they're not anti-glare screens, that's such a bad excuse. While auditors are working together, one's glancing above the shoulders, squinting or trying to find the right angle to look at the screen so he can actually see the data through the screen.

Hi x, I'm sure you would agree with the following. Enough is ENOUGH! 2200 billable hours = NO SLEEP Year long busy seasons = Zero quality of life, depression and bad moods 1-3% salary increases with minimal bonus = PRICELESS If you are interested in getting your career and life back on track then give me a call. Respectfully Yours, xxxx This dude's making it look like we work in a prison or something. I guess recruiters might as well throw everything at potential clients, and hope 1 in 15-20 stick? It must be tough for them in this economy.

Looks like PWC's taking the lead in building its consulting arm so it can get generate more revenue given the lack of growth in the audit practice. Might be headed to the pre-Enron days. here's an excerpt: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the UK’s largest professional services firm, plans to treble its fees from management consulting to more than £1.3 billion within the next four years and hire 2,000 staff, including more than 100 partners. Three of the Big Four accounting firms — Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC — sold their consultancy arms at the start of the decade after their growth led to clashes over business strategy. The Enron scandal also aroused concerns over conflicts of interest. Only Deloitte kept its consulting practice. Article link

Didn't know it would take only a few years for a new generation to arrive at work. This new generation is scared, and constantly worried about their jobs. Only 2 years ago, nobody in the audit practice even knew the meaning of layoffs. This new generation is going the extra mile to help out on tasks. They're fighting to get on jobs, and want to be utilized constantly. A few years ago, people loved "being on the bench", i.e. not assigned to any clients so they can essentially relax the whole day and complete errands here and there. People are all over their CPA exams now. In the past, people stayed at the firm for years before they even began studying. Staff associates are shocked when people complain now. The "be happy you have a job" mindset has taken over. The power has shifted from the employees to the firm. There are rumors now that raises will be neglible, if anything. In the past, people complained if the raises were below 10%. Now they'd be really...