Category: career

the job as identity

Here comes the sun...


I’ve known a number of retired and unemployed people in my life, and each one of them has said that after the initial euphoria of sleeping late and avoiding surly bosses that they’ve struggled with a number of issues. These include the obvious financial impact, but also finding a schedule or a pace to daily life, dealing with reduced interaction with others and - most importantly - a sudden realization that they’ve lost part of their identity.

I’ve read the observation in more than one blog/book/newspaper that a reasonable and common conversation starter in America is “what are you?” meaning “what is your profession?” In many Western cultures, but particularly in America, what you DO is a large part of your identity. Other people can form instant judgments and like to categorize you by your profession. Professors are tweedy, calm lecturers. Wall Street bankers are high-powered, intense and stressed. Construction workers are sexist, self-reliant and tough. The problem is, of course, that the construction worker might be a fan of Shakespeare and the professor might enjoy watching an occasional boxing match. A person’s profession doesn’t define them to themselves, but it does define them to others.

Yet your profession does define you. I wrote about feeling liberated when I said I was a writer back in 2008. That changed a lot of what I thought about myself. But then we moved to a new city, and I immediately began working as a consultant and returned to my previous life, a corporate 9-to-5er. That redefined me as a certain type of person. What type? I’m not sure, but certainly not a writer - a free spirit, a person unregulated by schedules. I do not create in the way I imagine I could. So once again, my job is shaping me.

I know some people are crushed by the lack of identity when they lose their job. It (the job) meant a lot, far past the monetary gain. My neighbor back in New Jersey seemed crushed by losing his marketing job. The job represented HIM. He was a marketing guy. I know plenty of people who search for identity and realize that outside of the context of a job, it’s hard to find. I’ve found it difficult when I’ve been between clients. I flinched the first time I had to say that I was unemployed after the financial crisis in 2008. I even flinched the first time I said I was self-employed. It’s not part of my mindset; I have never thought of myself as a self-employed person. I was a senior manager, a manager, a supervisor, a Wall Street consultant - a professional.

But the reconstruction of identity, separate from a job, is a critical part of the unemployment process, or the retirement years. I know that for me to become a writer (or whatever else I want to become) I would have to think of myself in those terms. I can’t think of myself as a consultant; I would have to think of myself as a gainfully self-employed writer. I like to think that would make me much happier. But at least for the time being my identity is still caught up in my job rather than in my aspirations.

Whether or not your career should mean something about your identity, it is a critical part of who we are and what we strive for. For many people, what they “do” - their job - is not enough. We want to be defined by what we hope to achieve in this life. Determining what - if anything - we can achieve is the first step to understanding whether our job is a part of that achievement, or merely a sideshow.

photo credit: chantrybee

Corporate coffee cost cutting

Over the course of my audit and consulting careers I have worked in a number of different office environments. I have worked in polished-steel and black marble floored high rises in Manhattan. I have worked in banks, in suburban office parks and in drab skyscraper cubicle farms. I have worked in hotels, in family-owned businesses and even once in a closet which had been converted to an office.

Most of these offices spaces shared one characteristic, which seems to be dying away: a coffee maker. I am not a huge coffee drinker, although I like coffee. I have a cup at home and maybe one more when I arrive at the office. However, I have recently cut back on my one cup at work and drink tea I buy at the supermarket instead. Why? Because in the last 4-5 years I have noticed that coffee makers are disappearing.

There may be a number of reasons, first among them safety hazards. But I think the root problem might be a horribly misguided corporate cost-cutting effort. I think most corporations look at a coffee machine and think:

  1. We must be spending a fortune on Maxwell House!
  2. How much does all of that filtered water cost?
  3. Think of how much it costs to replace a coffee machine once every decade - it might be $25 or more!
  4. Think of how much time we lose when employees meet at the coffee machine and chit chat while pouring milk, adding sugar and stirring!!

Three of the last four corporate offices I’ve worked in did not offer coffee. One had a horrific machine that dribbled out some instant powder and then some hot water to make some swill. One served Starbucks coffee, brewed with filtered water and changed out by the office staff once per hour to keep it from getting burnt or stale. And two simply had no coffee available except in the company cafeteria on a different floor.

So how much is keeping a coffee machine on each floor costing the company? At the company where Starbucks was provided, I would linger occassionally talking to someone at the machine, sure, but usually I walked over, got a cup, and was back at my desk in 2 minutes holding a nice, pleasant cup of coffee. It made me more enthusiastic about the work and the company (stupid, I know).

However, at the two companies offering nothing I had to go downstairs to the cafeteria, get some coffee that’s been sitting in one of these giant brew-pots for hours (so it’s too harsh) and pay approximately $1.50 for a small cup. I have to wait in line to pay, and the whole process probably takes 15 minutes or more. I am irritated at paying the money. I am irritated because if I want a splash of hot coffee to perk up my cup after it’s cold, I can’t. You don’t get the friendly hanging-around-the-coffee-pot chatter that’s one of the few bearable moments in most cube farms. And the company loses far more productive time from me.

I understand there may be safety concerns, but I doubt it. I see microwaves and hot water dispensers in break rooms. The technology is there to buy safety or timed coffeemakers, or work with an office coffee vendor to ensure equipment is cleaned and working properly without any effort on your part.

Going outside the office isn’t an option - the nearest coffee shop is a 5 minute walk away so by the time you go out, wait, come back you’ve wasted even more time. Plus, I just don’t like going “off campus” because then I really feel obligated to go off the clock on my hourly rate. I know I should just switch to drinking tea (hot water is free, still) or water, but I really enjoy that morning cup of coffee.

So what do you think? Am I being unreasonable and whiny or are these corporations being penny wise, pound foolish?

giving gifts in the office

dunder A pet peeve of mine, for a long time, has been the corporate office “pitch in for a gift” routine. If you aren’t a corporate employee, what happens is that there’s usually one perky busybody in every department who decides to buy a flower basket when co-workers gets sick, or a teddy bear when they have a baby, or an item from the registry when someone gets married, or even a little gift for everyone’s birthday. This busybody goes around and asks everyone for a “donation,” knowing full well that for most people refusing is an embarrassing proposition.

I have never liked this business of pitching in.

  • 1. I don’t always like the person for whom the present is being purchased.
  • 2. Sometimes the reason for the gift is trivial - someone is having a birthday? What, are we 12?
  • 3. There is a subtle discrimination - someone who has been around longer, or has a better position, or is simply more popular gets bigger or better gifts.
  • 4. If the busybody is encouraged, soon you are shelling out $10-$20 a week for “voluntary” gifts.

I am also very uncomfortable accepting such gifts, and have often said point-blank that I don’t want any gifts. Maybe I have a distorted view, but to me if I receive a gift I feel an obligation to return it the next time I’m asked to contribute. Then I’m “stuck” as a regular contributor.

Now that I’m a consultant - and technically not “part” of the department - I find it easier to refuse. I am stingy enough with gift-giving for my family and friends (and myself) that I resent any “required” gifts for my co-workers. I know, in a sense, that this just reflects the realities of most people’s lives - that they spend more time with their co-workers than with their friends and families and therefore want to contribute to the morale of their workplace. Yet every time I’m asked to pitch in $10 for a co-worker’s cheese-and-sausage gift basket I see $10 that could buy my son some books, or $10 to add to my nieces’ and nephew’s custodial accounts, or even $10 that Bubelah and I could put towards an occasional evening out. I am selfish that way.

So am I crazy? Do you have people asking you to contribute to “departmental” gifts at the office? Do you participate? Am I just being a jerk?

(photo credit by makelessnoise)

12 steps to a cleaner and more productive workspace

If you work in an office, chances are good that you work on a desk that is covered in a mess. Twenty-five years ago when most people still used their desks for writing, papers were a big problem. With the arrival of the desktop computer, most people added a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and a host of accessories (printers, external drives, etc.) to their desk - and didn’t get rid of the paper! Keeping a clean desk is a challenge for even the most disciplined corporate soldier. I manage to leave every night with a completely organized desk. I did not come by this easily. I had a large corner office in my last full-time job, and it was completely full of papers and binders and computer equipment. When I changed departments, though, I had to move everything and realized I didn’t want all of this junk to follow me to my new office. Even more, when I became a consultant I lost my office altogether and went back to the cubicle warren. Here is what I learned:

1. Death by a thousand paper cuts is the number one killer of desk cleanliness. If I have an electronic copy of something, I don’t print it out. If I have to print it out, I only keep it if there are notes on it I need to save - but I quickly add those notes to the electronic document. Try to keep everything you can paperless.

2. You’ve got old-fashioned mail! Take a look at the mail you are getting. At work, you may be getting some professional publications, interoffice mail or credit card bills. At home you are probably getting a different mail order catalog every day and a million pieces of junk mail. Try to stop them. All of them. Try the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Opt Out service.

3. File almost nothing. There are many people who swear by various methods like Getting Things Done regarding filing. I say file as close to nothing as possible. If you need to take an action on it, take it and discard. If you need it for future reference, put an ‘expire’ date on it and stack it up on your desk. Go through the stack once in a while and discard. If you have a legal reason to keep a document, do so. Otherwise I am willing to bet you that you will probably never refer to it again.

4. Never keep binders. This one is simple. Someone else has the binder. Unless it’s something you refer to several times a day, recylce the paper and give the binder back. In the unlikely event you refer to it, borrow someone else’s.

5. Use the common printer. If you have a printer next to your workspace, chances are good that you print a lot of junk you don’t need. Set up your computer to print to the department’s common copier/printer. If you have to get up and walk around the office you’ll think twice about printing something - but if you do, at least you’ll get a little bonus exercise.

6. Don’t put anything on the walls. I know you think you need some reference material there - phone numbers, calendars, org charts - but you don’t. All of that information is far more accessible and searchable on your computer. Get it all down, it’s just visual clutter. If there’s anything you must have in front of you, move it as far out of your direct line of sight as possible.

7. No pictures. I know you think everyone wants to see Junior, but they don’t. Make your desktop into your picture. If your company doesn’t let you do that, just keep a few image files in your Documents folder and flip through them once in a while. If you really need one - the spouse and kids - then do it, but no-one needs to see pictures of you with a fish, or you at last year’s holiday party at Chez Mayonnaise.

8. Pick a date for purging. Everything on your desk and on your PC should have a ‘purge’ date. My trick was this: once a year I would throw out every single document in my office and delete every single file on my PC older than one year. I had to keep a few documents for legal/tax reasons but everything else went. I didn’t even do much critical assessment. I never missed anything more than a year old.

9. Before you leave every day, stack up loose papers. Put a date on every piece of paper if there isn’t one, and keep it in a stack. Put newer stuff on top. You’ll be amazed how often you do NOT hunt through the stack to find something.

10. Bring nothing, take nothing. Don’t bring junk from home (bills, newspapers, etc.) Don’t take work documents home. If you MUST work at home, bring your files on a memory stick or CD, but don’t haul papers back and forth. Inevitably you’ll end up with junk at home, too.

11. Be pushy about being paperless. Tell everyone you are paperless. Tell them you are saving the company money. Tell them too much white paper makes you snowblind. But just tell everyone you prefer electronic documents, at a minimum.

12. Don’t be embarrassed about being disciplined. This tip is one of the strangest. Many people are afraid that they look unproductive with a clean desk. A particularly sloppy client of mine used to give me a hard time about my clean desk, because he equated a clean desk with laziness. Don’t worry - no-one evers gets fired for having a clean desk. People get fired for doing a bad job (or for being an unfortunate statistic in a massive layoff).

So if you’re interested in staying organized - which means a more productive and happier work life - pay attention to a few simple little rules about keeping your workspace clean. It will pay off.

don’t be milton

milton

Does this describe your dream job? Boring work, a long commute to an uninteresting box building located in a bland office park, pay that’s not competitive, poor benefits, long hours and uncomfortable, privacy-obliterating cubicles. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Piling on further, though, let’s throw in a few broken promises for promotions and raises. Top it all off with a boss who dislikes you. He doesn’t invite you in his office, he doesn’t ask you to meetings and routinely complains about your work to you and your co-workers. I can’t imagine a scenario that would be much more dehumanizing, but what’s truly depressing about it is how so many people endure this office-of-horrors for weeks, months or years without trying to change it.

I’m not talking about leaving corporate life for a blissful career as a social media guru or cheerful organic tomato farmer. I’m not talking about stalking through the cube farm with an AK as a solution, either. I see people lower their heads and return glumly to work after being dismissed, humiliated and almost broken every day. I tend to get a lot of miserable employees complaining to me about their situations (since I’m not an employee - I’m a consultant - I’m “safe” to talk to). When the picture gets as grim as described above, the conversation almost always plays out like one of those dream sequences in which you watch the monster running towards you, but your feet remain planted in concrete - something terrible is coming, but it’s inescapable:

Droopy: “I hate my job, I hate everything about it.”
Me: “Too bad. You can’t transfer or anything like that?”
Droopy: “No, I’d need help from my boss.”
Me: “Well, life is short and it’s not worth putting up with a situation like this forever. Maybe you should think about quitting.”
Droopy: “No! The economy is terrible! Plus I have a mortgage/2.3 kids/credit card debt/a new car payment/etc.”
Me: “Yeah, but since you’ve been looking for a new job for a while, you’re bound to have some leads…”
Droopy: “I’ve been MEANING to start looking, but I’m just so busy - plus it’s hard to interview, my resume is outdated, I have this big project here…”
Me: “You hate your job, your boss hates you, you have no future and in all likelihood you’ll be the first head on a platter when the layoffs come… and you aren’t actively looking for a new job?”
Droopy: “But nobody’s hiring!”
Me: “Nobody’s breaking into your home at night while you’re watching American Idol and offering you a job, if that’s what you mean.”

Why is it that people wait for a good time to look for new work? Why, if you were in a terrible job like the one I’ve described above, would you worry about how “difficult” it might be to sneak away for an interview? Why would you give a second’s thought to trying to stick it out?

I suppose an optimistic person might hope for their boss to quit and Sandra Bullock to swoop in and become the chirpy, best-buddy boss in a romantic comedy. Yep. That happens almost everyday, according to the movies. When I see employees stuck in a dead end job, I feel badly. I try to help by offering advice or encouragement. When I see the same employee sit on their hands month after month without looking for a new job - but talking on the phone about last night’s episode of CSI - I want to knock the stupid out of them.

If you aren’t keeping a What-I-Done-Did file, start now. Update your resume. Sign up for LinkedIn. Get on Twitter (and yes, I’m getting as tired as everyone else of Twitter but hey, if you can’t beat ’em…). And most importantly, start looking! One of the worst feelings you can have related to your career is a sense of powerlessness - a lack of choice. If nothing else, a job search gives you back a tiny bit of control and forcefeeds a drop of hope into your system.

We all know Milton from Office Space. We all laughed at him, but sit back and look in the mirror. If you skip washing your hair for a few days, dress like a doofus and mumble a bit, could you fit the part? If so, go grab that red stapler and flee for the hills as soon as you can.

is it better to be busy or have nothing to do?

Being busy or taking it easy at work. It’s a tough choice sometimes. I know that many people think it would be easier to sit in one place all day and do nothing. But it’s not. Another question is whether it would be better to be busy in short spurts, or better to be busy almost all the time. I’ve had my experience doing both as a consultant, and the answer is clear to me.

There’s nothing worse than having nothing to do. Nothing. I didn’t think that when I was younger, but doing anything was always better than having a full day with nothing to do. Doing nothing all day isn’t fun, even if you are still getting paid for it. I have learned, through sad experience, doing nothing – no matter what the pay – is not worth it. Much of a professional life is made up of boredom and ennui. In fact, the main goal, at least in my opinion, of a professional life is to avoid such boredom and ennui.

If you are busy at your job count yourself lucky. If you are busy at your job, and enjoy your job, then count yourself doubly lucky. It’s everything to both enjoy your job and be busy doing it. Most Americans are one, or the other…or neither. The worst, of course, is to be neither busy nor to enjoy your job. This is, sadly, the fate of most corporate workers.

I’m lucky. I’ve done enough consulting work that I am able to select the types of projects that I want to do. Not everyone is like this. Many people have to accept jobs that either do not engage them, or do not keep them busy enough. I was like this earlier in my career, of course. But now I value this ability to stay busy more than almost any other aspect of a job. If the client can keep me busy for the better part of the day, I can absorb myself in my work and do a good job. But if a client tells me, well, we’ll have something to do for you next week, but for now just wait - well, it’s hard to stay motivated, and in fact I’ll likely end up reading the newspaper. And since hippies don’t like the news, I don’t want to end up doing that, either.

I know it’s popular in blogger circles to talk about finding your passion. I know it’s a good idea, and I have like to think I can do the same. But the simple truth is that sometimes busyness can substitute for passion. Sometimes simply staying busy for the best part of the work day can be an adequate substitute for enjoying what you do. Of course if you’re making widgets, and you have to spend eight hours a day twisting a widget head on to a widget body, it’s not fun. But if you have a job that is marginally satisfying, and you can work hard at it all day long, that job is probably more satisfying than the more interesting job which does not keep you busy.

It’s counterintuitive … I know. You’d like to think that you need passion to continue working with fervor. But you don’t. Often, it’s enough to simply be working hard at something you tolerate. I can’t say that I love my client work. But when they keep me busy, it’s enough. The work’s moderately interesting, and frankly I don’t have enough time to sit around and think about what I’d rather be doing. Maybe I’d rather be building sand castles, or working on the next Great American novel, but the simple fact is I’m doing a good job and staying focused on the task and… getting paid.

So tried thinking about that the next time that you are looking for a new job. Focus on jobs that allow you to stay busy. Obviously, you should focus on jobs that utilize your skills and your abilities to the best possible advantage. But past that, you also need to find a job that allows you to stay busy. Trust me, in the long run you will be much happier.

making overseas experience count

Erevan city street

(A reposting of what is - in my opinion, at least - an interesting post from 2007, including the original comments)

A reader asked me an interesting question a while back: “I lived for 2 years in northern Peru as a missionary. Although this wasn’t with a corporation, I still gained tremendous experience and now speak Spanish fluently. How can I make this overseas experience look valuable to future employers?” As I mentioned once in 8 steps to a six-figure career, I think an ‘weird’ assignment like an overseas posting for your company is a great career move. However, just because you spent time overseas in a non-business role doesn’t mean you have to gloss over it on your resume. These can still be powerful resume-boosters if you present them in the right way.

  1. First of all, don’t sell YOURSELF short. Many people in the business world will be convinced that analyzing a spreadsheet is “better business experience” than leading a team of people building a house. They are wrong. When you come across people like this, don’t let them discourage you. Managing a team is managing a team. Analyzing problems and developing solutions are the same skills whether you’re talking about building a house OR building a brand.
  2. Keep “on message”. If your missionary work involved building homes for poor people or organizing a new congregation or similar types of projects, make sure you sell the activity, not the description. What does that mean? Say “organized and led a team of 18 in repairing structural damage to an 1800 square foot building” instead of “helped rebuild a church.” Stay specific. Even people who are IN business make this mistake: telling someone you “participated in a project to reengineer a corporate reporting process” is not as impressive as saying “saved the company $2.3 million per year by making 13 reports paperless.” Participating in big projects may sound grand, but leading a small project with definite, measurable results is far more impressive.

  3. Write it down. Related to the point above, write down everything you did while you were overseas. Try to write a bullet point list, and keep descriptions down to one or two lines per activity. Imagine you are writing instructions to your successor: relay basic information and bare details. Don’t add any extra information. This list is important because it allows you to focus on what looks impressive on paper. Your first, best and often only chance to impress is in a resume; don’t assume that the stories you can tell in an interview will translate well to paper.
  4. Use the experience to show you are independent and a risk-taker. In the reader’s example, northern Peru missionary work is something most people would be afraid to do. Go ahead and play up the independent/risky aspect of it. They don’t need to hear about how the trip had been undertaken by 15 missionaries before you - they need to hear how you spent 3 days in a small village with no phones and nobody who spoke English. Emphasize how risk affected your work.
  5. Language skills, especially Spanish, are staggeringly important - in the right company. They can be pointless in the wrong company. Spanish is often incredibly useful, but I worked with one company that had a minimal presence in the Latin American market and didn’t really care about having Spanish language skills. Identify companies that need Spanish speakers. If the company doesn’t need Spanish speakers, one of your key selling points is worthless, and you should really consider whether it’s worth pursuing work with that company.
  6. Be careful claiming fluency. If you are fluent in a language, say you are fluent. Offer casually to conduct interviews in Spanish or English - hiring managers will be impressed. However, there is a BIG caveat. I can’t tell you how many times I have tripped up people with this question in an interview: if you claim you are fluent in a language, tell me how to say “balance sheet”. Make sure you brush up on common terms. If you’re going to interview with a publishing company, make sure you know how to say “publishing industry” or “royalties.” Don’t assume fluency means native speaker. When I was working in Russia I knew how to say “limited stock share equity” in Russian, but didn’t know the word for “pillow.” The context for fluency can be tricky!

It’s not impossible whatsoever to translate non-business experiences into selling points, but it does require thinking in a different way than you may be used to. Finding a job also requires identifying good opportunities and being realistic. If you think that missionary work is a good first step to being an Oracle database administrator, you’re probably wrong. If you think that management, risk-taking and teamwork are skills that are universally needed, you’re right!

how to take time off from work

I remember about two years ago when a fellow consultant expressed amazement that I was planning to take a Thursday off - after having taken Monday off. He couldn’t understand how I was able to afford to take two days off in an average week - let alone two weeks before I planned on going on vacation.

The simple truth is that I have certain rules that, if anyone follows them, makes taking time off a snap. I have five, off the top of my head:

1. Pay yourself first. I save money every month before it hits our bank account. It’s gone and saved before I even realize it exists. That makes digging into savings tricky. It also means that I’m not worried about grubbing for a dollar at the end of the year.

2. Consider whether you need it. Bubelah and I make dopey purchases - we are not ultra frugal. At the same time, we do not buy useless things on a regular basis. It doesn’t take much - try not buying overpromoted fashion and consumer electronics for a while and voila, savings. A little time off is worth passing on the XBox, isn’t it?

3. Pay in cash. I use a credit card, for the sake of cash back bonuses, but for all intents and purposes I pay cash; we wait until we have cash in hand to buy anything. I mean anything. I paid cash for a new Honda minivan two years ago. I paid cash for new rechargeable batteries last week. We don’t buy anything without the means to pay for it. We never have to worry about the upcoming credit card bill.

4. Diversify your income. I blog, and I work on a couple of other income streams. My “other” streams make up maybe 5% of my income, but at the same time that means I’m making 105% of what I would be making on consulting income alone. Better than nothing, I think. But that 5% away from work means I can take 5% off my normal work and still come out even, right?

5. Pick your battles. I have never understood people who won’t take off a beautiful day in summer. Listen, 20 years from now that extra $100 for a day’s work won’t make a difference. A day in the sun making a stab at accomplishing that wee bitty thing called life will be worth it. Maybe it’s better to stay late in the office in February and ditch in summer.

I feel sorry for so many of the employees and consultants I see around me who will complain about “needing” to work one minute and then about their new plasma TV the next minute. Not because I think they made a bad choice - because it’s not my place to judge - but because they seem unhappy with their choices. Nobody is ever happy trading their time for crap. Put yourself in a position where you can forgo money for time and you’ll be a happier person.

should I get an accounting degree?

This question came up on a forum I visit, and I thought my answer was detailed enough to turn into a post. Should you get an accounting degree? I know once you’re within a field it seems obvious that everyone should understand the various specialties and their pros and cons, but if you’re outside a field you might not be aware of the possible variations at all. I don’t know much about the marketing field, for example, but I’m sure you can specialize in many ways. It’s hard to say exactly, since “accounting” is a rather broad field with a number of career paths and specializations. Off the top of my head:

1. Accounting within a large company’s accounting department: intense hours at month, quarter and year end; generally low pay and non-portable skills (each company’s systems and procedures can be quite different) and usually high stress to achieve 100% accuracy.
2. Accounting as a bookkeeper, independently or for small companies: Don’t need to be a CPA, probably don’t even need a 4-year accounting degree. This, however, is a much more portable skill; you can learn one of the two or three ‘big’ small business accounting systems (QuickBooks, for example) and you have the possibility of self-employment, while corporate accounting skills don’t really transfer.
3. Auditing: This is my specialty. Generally auditing is broken down into two broad subcategories:
a. External audit: This is when you work for a firm (there are 4 big ones that make up most of the market - Deloitte, E&Y, PwC and KPMG) and audit other companies’ financials. Horrendous hours, high pay on an annual basis but horrible on a per-hour basis, extreme “up or out” pressure to get promoted, and stress, stress, stress. On the positive side: early in your career you’ll get access to high-level people at clients, so you’ll get experience dealing with very successful types, you probably can travel widely on the company dime (I had business trips to places as far-flung as Indonesia, Russia, Malta and Armenia, as well as domestic travel in the US), and if you can grit your teeth and make partner you’ll be well compensated. Getting a CPA is a must; you will not be promoted far without one. A great site to read about the profession is Re: The Auditors.
b. Internal audit: Currently I am an independent consultant doing internal audit work. This means you work for a company and audit them, from the inside so to speak. Generally easier hours, slightly better pay and lower pressure; travel can still be quite exotic (I’ve done internal work in Argentina, England, Germany, France, Portugal, Turkey, etc. plus again tons of domestic travel). But the “end game” is less clear - generally it’s a quite specialized field, and similar to a corporate accountant you can become an expert in your company’s system, management, etc. and that skill is not very transferable to other jobs. The CPA is helpful although the industry has a less-well known “Certified Internal Auditor” or CIA designation that’s helpful. I’m an active member of the Institute of Internal Auditors – ask me if you have questions about that.
4. Tax: Obviously you can also go down the tax route as a corporate tax type or a tax/bookkeeper type, similar to 1 and 2 above. I have avoided taxes like a house on fire my whole career, but it’s probably the best route if you dream of having your own profitable CPA practice someday; and yes, if you are a tax specialist the CPA is a must.
5. Finance: It’s a bit tougher to get on this path, but with an accounting degree you could probably ease yourself over to finance with some effort in a corporate environment. The difference, simply, is that accounting records the transactions and finance decides HOW to record the transactions - i.e. finance does the high-level work and accounting records the results.

I’m sure there are dozens or hundreds of other career paths within accounting, but those are the four biggest and the four I’m most familiar with, having spent half my career in external audit and internal audit and working daily with corporate accountants, finance and tax people as clients now that I consult. Is an accounting degree for you? If you’re not sure, send me an email and I’ll be happy to give you my cynical opinion.

I don’t want to leave this job in a coffin

This post was inspired by a great post over at Money Smart Life called Life’s Too Short for a Crappy Job; I left a comment there, but I felt like I should repost and expand what I talked about there. I’ve been a victim of the keep-your-job-at-any-cost mentality. This is what happened to me.

I vividly remember about 12 years ago working at a consulting firm I hated. The hours were ridiculous. During the busiest part of the year 80-90 per week was standard. I broke the magic 100 one time; I’ll save you the math and point out that’s 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. In at 8 or 9 am, out at 11 pm or so.. The pay was pathetic (on an hourly basis less than minimum wage, since I didn’t get overtime). I worked so much that my girlfriend at the time dumped me after one too many cancelled dates. And worst of all, my hatred for the job and exhaustion started to cause me to make mistakes, which made me work even longer hours to fix them. But worse problems loomed.

In the story at Money Smart Life, a few of the people sticking out their terrible jobs develop tooth-grinding conditions that require dental care and maybe even surgery. And here’s what killed me about that: someone develops a teeth-grinding condition and doesn’t realize their job is killing them? They complain about their job, they suffer terrible illnesses, and don’t DO something about it? Like quit, right away?

I thought “that’s ridiculous” and then I remembered that close to the end of my awful consulting job I developed an ulcer and threw up blood a few times…. and didn’t quit. I was throwing up before and after work and thought it was just because I was stressed. Think about that and wonder why I’m not crazy. Or why I am.

What finally made me quit was this: I was getting ready to go to work one morning. I had a cold and was feeling a bit woozy, but it was a big meeting. As I put on my tie, I fell down on the floor and passed out for a few minutes. When I got up, I STILL went to work (not the hospital). I waited until after the meeting to go to my doctor, who informed me that I didn’t have a cold - I had pneumonia AND bronchitis. And that I would probably be dead in six months if I didn’t address my health.

Really - he said that. Dead in six months. He wasn’t kidding. He said it in a very doctor-ish tone, so I knew he was serious.

It took that to make me quit. And I was single and didn’t have a mortgage or car payments or anything that really tied me to that job, other than the idea that this was MY JOB (in all caps). I had destiny, and the Protestant work ethic, and I would NOT QUIT (again, in all caps). There was no reason I couldn’t quit, though, except that I was career driven. I’m not in that line of work anymore, by the way. What a waste.

I look back on it and wish I could go back and punch myself in the head and tell myself “life’s too short for a crappy job.” Completely true. Well worth remembering here, close to the start of a new year. If you’re having health problems because you hate your job that much – don’t kid yourself. It’s not you… it’s the job. Quit.

Photo is Some rights reserved by longhorndave

it might not be the job…

… it might be YOU.

If you’re like me, you probably complain about your job at least once in a while. It’s too boring. You aren’t paid well enough. You don’t get enough experience, or enough exposure to the Grand High Poobahs of the company. You don’t have enough staff. You get no respect. Your job sucks.

Yet the pattern continues. Even after you change companies, or departments, you find that you have a boring job, or you’re underpaid, or you sit in a cubicle far distant from the Lords of the Company. You sit there surreptitiously surfing amazon and gawker, hoping that something new is about to happen.

Every job can’t be that terrible. A simple minute of reflection will tell you that. There is almost no way that every single job you hold could be so bad that it’s worth complaining about, constantly. You have to consider a terrible possibility: the common element in all of the bad, boring, terrible, underpaid jobs you’ve held is YOU. YOU are the problem, not the corporate job, not the dead-end retail job, not the failing entrepreneurial effort. Each job is different in so many ways that you can only point to one common element. YOU are the common thread.

So what do you do? Change your mindset, or change your career. If you find that one job after another is painful and dull and annoying, it may be that YOU aren’t suited to that career. You may need to consider a change, and not just a minor one. Don’t assume that if you’re working for Bank XYZ that a shift to a new, exciting position working for Bank JKL will suddenly fulfil you. If you weren’t happy in one position, you probably won’t be happy in the next unless there was something about that last job that was uniquely bad (a horrible individual who worked in the cube next to you, for example). Make a big shift: try something completely different. Don’t let yourself be the stumbling block to your own career success and happiness.

interview question: what were your job responsibilities?

This is a guest post from Ron Haynes, editor of The Wisdom Journal.

Have you actually prepared for your next job interview? Interview preparation is a matter of researching the company, the open position for which you’re applying, and even researching yourself. How do your skills, experience, and education match with the open position’s demands? How do you “fit” with the company culture? Those two questions are the ones you have to embed into every answer you give to any interview question.

What were your three most important responsibilities on your last job?

This appears to be a simple information gathering question, but many times it’s followed up with “What special skills or knowledge did you need to perform those duties?” These two questions combine to give the interviewer a larger view of your functional background as well as an insight into your depth of understanding. If you’ve had any specialized training, this is a perfect time to mention it. It tells your interviewer that your previous employer felt you were a good investment of the time and money spent on training (this is an endorsement in and of itself). It also tells the interviewer that such an investment won’t have to be made on his dime!

WORST ANSWER: Make certain your answer contains the responsibilities that match the job to which you’re applying. It doesn’t do any good to answer “ringing up customers, ordering product, and controlling inventory” if you’re applying for an accounting job.

BEST ANSWER: Responsibilities that match your interviewer’s greatest wants or needs will raise your value in the interviewer’s eyes most. Since you’ve done your homework and know what those needs are, you’re already ahead of the game. If you’ve recently graduated college with an accounting degree but your only experience was in working at Old Navy as a cashier, think about how your experience applies:

 

Example: “My top three responsibilities were to account for all cash, checks, and credit card receipts at the end of my shift and balance those with what our management information system calculated. I was responsible to audit the cycle counts of all merchandise in my area, and I also trained newcomers to the company.”

See how those responsibilities match what an accounting firm might like to see? Always, always, always tailor your responses to match what your interviewer is looking for. Yes, he probably knows what you’re doing, but the fact that you’re already thinking like an employee and matching your former responsibilities to the ones demanded of the open position proves you’re the best candidate … and the best candidate usually gets the job offer!

 

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