Public Accounting Is Broken Can We Fix It? 

Don't forget about the fact that you end up "eating time." Your manager gives you a project and says, "Budget is 20 hours." You look at the carryforward file, and you see that the chump who did it last year did it in 20.0 hours exactly. Not 19.7. Not 21.6. 20 point -0- hours exactly. Needless to say, you end up working about 30 hours on it. If fact, my overall experience was pretty much that ratio: for every two billable hours I worked and "reported," I ended up working another hour and not reporting it, i.e. "eating time." Now, I was never dumb enough to log 20.0 hours exactly; I would always use an odd decimal point. I could not help but wonder if, when my predecessors logged "point 0" hours exactly, they were sub silentio telegraphing that they were eating time too or if they were just too dumb to not do exactly what they were told. I don't miss the hell. The bullying. The favoritism. The screaming. The making fun of me because I'm short and "not partner material." I hope the profession gets the comeuppance that is its just deserts!

1:26 Public accounting is such an insane thing and messes you upm doesn't it...I remember I would "reward" myself by "getting" to work alone on some workpaper in the evening if I got all the less-"fun" work like emails and client correspondence done earlier in the day.

2:50 This part triggered me. Could never enjoy the holidays knowing busy season was around the corner.

I’m sorry for the loss of your grandparents. I’m sure they were proud of you. You turned out to be a good person! Thanks for the videos.

This video is brilliant. So many companies focus on the busy season and people are over worked. Change needs to happen. Thanks for this video 😊

2:12 This was my trigger. I lost one grandmother in early September one year and the other one at the beginning of May the next year. And I barely had the time for family and grieving. It has helped me to make many of my choices since then.

Lead the charge Logan!! Let’s fix what’s broke

1:30 I'm actually the opposite, I'm very crepuscular, my peak mental focus is really early/really late, I think it's a part of that is still being in midnight-deadline-student-mode.

Just busy season? The firm I worked at was like that all year round. I learned and grew a lot, but it was definitely took its toll.

Having the mindset like yours can help the new generation of accountants get out of the old unhealthy habits.

hopefully the shortage of accountants will lead to better working conditions for staff accountants

We can rebuild it. We have the technology. We can make it better than it was. Better, stronger, faster.

Don’t forget public accounting firms have two busy seasons, at least in the NY Metro area 🙃