Life of an auditor

Enough negativity...one advantage of being in the audit field is getting the opportunity to go to a variety of clients. I started to observe office cultures, environments and such to see how different they are. One technology company for instance, had a free vending machine, free snacks, magazine racks in the restroom and even a dartboard. Study groups were using the office as a study area in the evenings, harmless blowup dolls everywhere. It was a wonderful environment. Contrast this with a warehouse-turned-office I worked in. You can almost smell the products from inside the office. The company wasn't doing well, the office is half-empty since it went through a spate of layoffs. The kitchen area was another story. One of my team members last year came in to work one day and said..."I get depressed by just driving here and walking in every morning." Talk about day and night. Sure, there are several middle grounds, but if I were to start/work in a company, I would place a...

What a week! Every co-worker I know has had audit dreams, some have a lot of them. An audit dream is when you go back to bed after auditing the whole day...and dream about auditing the very workpapers you worked on. Not good, not good. I rolled around in my bed because that's one of that last things I wanted to dream about. Now, why did I have an audit dream? Try auditing till 10pm and sleeping by 11...your brain gets so wired that you become an audit robot even at night...except you're not really working. This just increases the number of customers going into Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts every morning. You know it's bad when your client admits that the accounting system is inferior and needs to be improved. I ran on fumes most of the week, it isn't fun. As much as I like the rush aspect of work, this just wasn't one of those weeks, it was more like a mental beatdown week.

"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 ...

I was conversing with a co-worker the other day and we realized that the public accounting was a well-oiled machine, a factory of sorts. Our reasoning was this - the firms go out and pick up as many clients as they can, without thinking too much about their resources to handle an abundance of clients. Why? Since they know they can just beat their current resources to death. The seniors and above on these jobs somehow end up feeling morally obligated to stay on at least until the completion of the audit in question. If they leave after that, that's okay, they'll just give the person one level below them additional responsibilities, albeit at the same pay rate. Now, to replenish the bottom of the resource pool, they go out to colleges and woo them with their reputations and with carrots that look good to college students. PWC and Ernst & Young have been hiring around a hundred plus entry-level staffers a year in recent years. Now, 80% of them become disgruntled in their first...

When we first walk into our hallowed offices, we are given an orientation of the office setup and certain relevant areas that might be helpful to us as we proceed along on the partner-track. I remember getting introduced to the supply closet, which is like a Bertie Botts gift shop for auditors. Swipe your badge, and you have access to a vast array of supplies that will enhance your arsenal while you audit a myriad of companies. Red pencils, blue pencils, green pencils, pencils, erasers, post-its, mini post-its, staplers, mini staplers, staple removers, rulers, erasers...and the list goes on. Apparently in other companies, people steal supplies from supply cabinets for their personal use at home. I'd honestly rather not. Dealing with these familiar supplies the whole day is enough, but if i see another colored pencil at home, i'm more likely to break it into half and throw it away. Tell you what though, you know there are some brilliant marketers when they can make auditing attr...