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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2499 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 27, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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At US accounting firms in entry-level roles the challenging part isn't the technical competence. Many people could reasonably succeed at the entry-level jobs with just the knowledge from the Intro to Intermediate Accounting courses (or the self-study equivalent).

The real challenges (in the US) are:

  • Managing the workload during busy season - Many people work very long hours for extended stretches of time.
  • Not getting bored with the repetitive nature of accounting - Most accounting work involves doing the similar tasks over and over. It is like an assembly line for office workers - the actual things you are doing is easy, but it is struggle to stay motivated.
  • People Skills - accountants have a reputation for not being good with people skills and they can often skate by with poor social skills if they stay in lower-level positions.

When someone says you are doing good at an accounting firm it usually means something more like: You are reliable and pleasant to work with. The main things that will get you negative feedback in accounting are: not putting in long hours like your peers, missing deadlines, or blatantly not following procedures.

Furthermore, accountants frequently burn out from the accounting firm lifestyle and end up in private industry or government. The busy season gets to be a bit much as you get older and have different priorities like family. Your coworkers want you to stick around because it makes their life easier when things get busy.

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