First Day of Work

Yesterday was my first day of work at the Accounting (Tax) firm. I arrived at 8:30 AM, a bit earlier than expected. There was a gigantic ice storm the night before and everything was running much slower. Not many people had showed up for work yet, but luckily one very nice CPA was able to give me the "grand tour" of my new workplace.

I had always assumed that I would show up to work and be greeted by some excellent employees, and some mediocre employees. However, after one day I've only encountered highly intelligent, well-qualified people. I suppose the benefit of having a small firm with employees that number in the dozens, rather than hundreds or thousands, is that managers can really take the time to hand-select people to join the team. Some times at large corporations it seems that job roles roll over and need filling, and so companies must hire lots of people, regardless of how "perfect" a fit they really are for the company.

It seems to me that a few character traits are essential in any employee: the capacity to perform one's job well, to ability be a team player, and to potential to excel in the previous two combined. It seems that so often companies are nearsighted in their hiring by hiring employees that only fit one or two of the above criteria to meet present corporate demand. However, it's the employee who meets all the above criteria that a company really wants.

After my first day, everyone I've met has fit all three criteria. Everyone is motivated, well qualified, and extremely knowledgeable. Learning tax services is not at all easy. There is so much information to learn, and the US Tax Code now contains more than 5 million pages, to the best of my knowledge. As obnoxious as this is, I can't imagine Accountants being successful without their computers and powerful software. I was showed how to use the program ProSystems fx Tax, amongst others. Let me say that the learning curve on these programs seems to be a bit steep because the target users for them are industry professionals who already have a working familiarity of the US taxation system. This is no TurboTax we're talking about. This is the real deal...hundreds of forms each with hundreds of boxes...and that's just for federal filing. Don't forget the state income tax returns. And let's not delve into Corporate returns yet, either.

I enjoyed my first day of work because I was able to gain a large amount of experience just in my first 8 hours on the job. I didn't have but 20 minutes down time during my entire 8 hour shift, and that was for lunch. I'm really working for my pay, and it's a good feeling. There was plenty of work for me to do, so I don't feel like I wasted a single minute. Speaking of minutes- we keep track of our time in small increments of minutes. I write down all my activities to the nearest minute for accountability purposes. Partly this makes sure that I'm not goofing off, but it also helps to determine how much time has been given to each client.

I am very lucky to be paid for this position, while I earn academic credit at the same time. I'm happy to be studying accounting during a time like this because it seems that accounting is a fairly resilient industry in times of economic hardship. People will always need doctors, lawyers, and accountants.

So far I've worked on individual tax returns. I am entering data into the computer system, and sorting through peoples' documents to get things in order. The office is beginning to go entirely paperless, so even though client folders float around the office, it's wonderful to have some digital freedom.

The epiphany of my day had to have been when somebody was describing corporate tax returns and said, "So in that case you just make an AJE to the AGI to then wrap the NI into the RE and put it here." I realized that I'm in the right profession when I understood exactly what was said. It was actually a sort of special feeling.. because although there are countless moments just like this one that are sure to come, I felt like I was sharing a special bond with the person who said this to me. I spend an hour per day studying Japanese, and yet I felt like I was fluent in a whole other language at that moment.