Debrief

Cat, meet bag.
Bag, meet cat.
Cat, find way out of bag.
I GOT A NEW JOB CAREER.

Of course, if you're reading this, you probably already know that. Maybe because I told you ahead of time, but maybe also because it was the fourth sentence of this post.

I'm still kind of in shock that I actually set out to find a new position at the place that I wanted in the field that I wanted, and that everything worked out. You may recall from this post that I did interview with them before.

I called it my dream job then, but in just a few weeks it will be a reality.

The whole career change thing started as an innocent little mentoring meeting where I wanted to talk about how to advance in the area of small business and move away from estates & trusts.

The situation was that the mentoring partner is 61. All partners must leave the firm at age 65.
When it's five years away, they have to have a secession plan.

I'm not really sure how this works in a limited partnership. Some partners are "sweat equity" which means you buy-in to a partner position by working there so many years. Other partners are capital partners which means they purchased an interest with some sweet cash.

Enter me: the green CPA with two years of experience and an interest in small business.
Manager/partner in five years?

I'm not sure if I would be expected to work until I'm 65 or buy-in with sweet cash, or some hybrid of the two, but the whole "being a partner" thing has a whole kind of permanence feel to it.

"That's an option for you...if you want it."

I guess that's what all or most CPAs aspire to.

Not me.
I've always said, "I never want to be partner" to friends and family, but in a professional setting, when I get asked where I wanted to be 10 years from now, I'd innocently say, "I don't know" while thinking, "Retired?"

But with the opportunity staring me straight in the face, I'd be a fool not to jump on it, right?
And if it didn't work out, then I could just leave whenever I wanted to, right?

I did the scary thing and looked long-term at where I actually wanted to be in 10 years.
Turns out, it had absolutely nothing to do with public accounting.

Because with all the prestige and money and community and posterity, there is of course a down side.

That being the mere stress of it all.

Busy season aside- do you know that good and happy things can equally cause as much stress as bad things?
Try wedding planning. It'll make you never want to get married again. (And if all goes right, you won't have to!)

So mulling over this "opportunity" in my head a week after the mentor meeting made me realize why I was hesitant to jump on it at first go.

I am not cut out for busy season. I'm just not.
It encroaches on to your weekends. Even if you don't go into work, you're still thinking about clients and their needs and dreading the impending e-mail storm that hits every day.
It infects your mind. In infects your dreams. It infects your life.

Some people thrive during busy season. Busy is good, but too busy where you become sick 3 times in a 3 month period? Not good.

I worked my fanny off in college, and it definitely paid off, but when a semester was over, I felt like I could LIVE again. My goal after college was just to find an accounting job. I didn't care what it is. As long as it paid $40k or more and I got to play with numbers, I was game.

Of course, public accounting was the solution since turnover there is so high anyway. I wanted to get my license too, so that worked out.

But I think that's all public accounting was going to be for me. A job.
I was always hesitant to call it a career because it didn't feel like one. Taxes never lit my soul on fire with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns.
Granted, I don't think any career will ever do that, but it'd be nice to come to a job that didn't make me want to stuff my face in a blender (tangible tax returns).

One day a couple months ago, I was so bored that I started weeping at my desk.
I think I was working on a trust tax return at the time. It literally bored me to tears.

I thought that if I got away from the boring stuff into small business, I'd be fine. But the more I said that, the more I felt like a foamy, phony piece of baloney. Small business seemed interesting and all, but I'd be responsible for more than a dozen clients and marketing to get new ones and it all seemed very overwhelming.

So then I took a step back.
Took a big step back.

What do I actually enjoy doing?

Bookkeeping stuff.
Details, baby, details.
Reconciliations. Schedules. Transactions. Journal entries.
I liked when I got to help out with that review over the summer with that one company.

That was the key. Doing all of the detailed fun stuff for one company.

It suddenly all made sense. Financial and managerial accounting were my favorite classes in college. Not tax. Not auditing. Just doing the behind-the-scenes puzzle-solving number-crunching.
There were reasons I still liked parts of my job, but the things I did like couldn't outweigh the things I didn't.

For instance, a lot of people like public accounting for the client interaction. I actually don't like this as much as I thought I would. I think it's because I'm a big, fat introvert, and I don't enjoy small talk.

*phone rings*
"This is Allie."
"Hi, Allie. This is _____ from ________."
"Oh, hi! How are you?"
"Fine. How are you?"
"Fine."
__________________________________<--- this is the part where normal people carry on the conversation but instead I just hold the phone waiting for things to happen. I mean, after all, you called me.

No man is an island, but I am definitely a peninsula. Hanging on by an isthmus.

Also, I am so afraid of being wrong. I always feel like I'm on a stage when I'm talking with a client. I get all nervous, and they ask me questions because I'm the professional. And I do know a lot of things off the top of my head, but I always like to double double triple double super check things before I say them or send them in an e-mail because people will probably go with whatever I say because that's what they pay for, right?

Right.
And that's kind of terrifying.

I'd hate to be wrong because it involves people's money. And people get really angry when their pecuniary expectations are not met.
I would know. I did work in student accounts for two years.

So even though I was good at what I was doing, and I had the opportunity to advance, I didn't inherently enjoy what makes public accounting public. After realizing all of this back in February, I got kind of sad. I really didn't want to start all over at a new job because I had worked so hard in this one. But after some long runs after long days, it became clear that it was exactly what I needed to do.

Then God posted the perfect position in a prestigious company within even closer biking distance to my house.

It had to have been God. It was too perfect not to have been. When everything worked out, I realized that it was so, so far above me, and so completely out of my hands.

I am where I'm supposed to be.

TWS

Quixotic

Certain events have transpired since we last spoke.

Or since you were last lazily scrolling through your newsfeed and saw this update.

Being done with busy season has opened up some opportunities to get back to things I think I remember I liked doing:
1. Sewing
2. Blogging
3. Drawing comics
4. Watercolor paintings (oh yes. OH YES.)
5. Sleeping in

I didn't get to do that last one on my day off because Sam came in screaming with a feathery toy in his mouth and would not leave me alone. So then I got up, got coffee, and he laid down beside me and napped. What the heck, cat.

Did I tell you Mike and I are going to start roasting and grinding our own coffee now?
"Omg Allie. That is so, like, hipster."

But it's not for any of the hipster reasons other than we like coffee.
We're not getting organic coffee, we're not doing it to save money, we're not starting our own business. We're just doing it because it sounds like a cool thing to do.
And we really really, like, like coffee.

One crack, light roast.
Two cracks, burnt toast.
Life hacks, gulf coast.
Black axe, white ghost.

That's not really anything. I was just saying words.

I had a delightful day off. After being woken up by the previous mentioned kitty alarms, I had my coffee, bought some stock, and  read all my happy birthday messages from Facebook, which were just absolutely wonderful.

The rest of my day happened as follows:

I cleaned the entire house. Except for kitty's room. That's kitty's responsibility.

I had a grilled cheese and organic tomato bisque for lunch. Don't worry - I found it for half off in the bargain bin at Kroger. I am fancy, but I'm not that fancy.

I had a long conversation with the air conditioner guy about cats. It was less of a conversation and more of just me listening to him talk about his cats.

I made my own ramen noodles. We'll see how this works out. During the last week of busy season, I found a cup o' noodles on the bargain bin for 30% off, which was hilarious, because I got it for 19 cents, where it was normally 29 cents. I SAVED A WHOLE DIME. WHAT.

Anyway, it tasted way better than it should have, so I kind of bought some more just to get me through the week without having to make lunch because having to make your lunch is one of the worst things. But now, I can concentrate on how to make a similar tasty product without committing nutritional suicide. I boiled some noodles and shocked them in cold water and now I have par-cooked noodles and chicken base to play with. I'm probably even throw some cooked shrimp into one.

Then, I ate popcorn and researched random things on the internet for a while, like sirenomelia.

I fixed two dresses and a top while singing Taylor Swift VERY loudly. And then I did some sketches of some cool pants I plan to make.

It was a surprisingly productive day. I don't know why I'm always so surprised when I accomplish so much in my days off. I guess it's because it's just so unlike most of my other days.
Hahaha
Haha
Ha

I'm afraid I'm becoming like Wal-Mart.
To quote Mike, "Wal-Mart does a lot of things, but it does none of them well."

Sometimes I feel like I have too many hobbies, and I want to do and learn to do so much in the world, but there is just not enough time or talent to do them all, so I do as much as I can, and I try to do it well, but everything I create is not really phenomenal or great. It's just all kind of mediocre and a diluted version of what-could-have-been.

I sew, but things are still flawed.

I run, but I'm not even fast. I mean, I'm faster than I once was, but I'm as fast once as I ever was.
Toby Keith, what have you done to my language?

I try to learn German, but I'm still not fluent. Although, I did get really excited about this time that I interpreted a paragraph and only didn't know like 5 words.

I write songs, but none of them are paramount. Or even coffee-shop performance material.

"And everything I made is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time."
-Bright Eyes

Yes, I DID just quote Bright Eyes because there is nothing that explains this feeling better.

I guess the only thing that keeps me from being totally depressed about this is that I have fun with these things. I mean, I'm not doing them to make money or to make any sort of living. I'm just messing around, but I'm having a blast.

I wonder if Wal-Mart has fun sucking at all that it does.
Probably not.

And that's the difference.

My how the years have flown,
TWS

Just So Happens

Only one more month of being une mademoiselle.
Then I'll be a Mrs.
How weird will that be?

AND YET HOW EXCITING.

In approximately one month around this time, we will be making berth in the port, some of us a little more married than others.

And since we're doing countdown sorts of things: only two more Saturdays to sacrifice to the tax gods. I haven't gone running since Tuesday.
*shriek from audience*
I know, I know.
Shriek is a weird word. It's like Shrek, but not.
Still, I'll have a good two weeks between my birfday and my wayden to become more beach-bum-surfer-girl looking-ish.

Starting with... THE MALL opens the day after my birthday. Which, for the past 3 years, I have celebrated as my birthday. I also started the tradition of watching a Disney movie on my birthday last year. I think this year's movie shall be... the Little Mermaid.
Because she gets married on a boat in the end.
DISNEY IS JUST LIKE REAL LIFE YOU GUYS.

I kind of have to brag on my fiance a bit here.

So you know that new mower I was gushing about last post? It came on Tuesday. Mike had to put it together since I was still at work, and then he wanted to see how it worked, so he started mowing a bit in the back yard. And then suddenly, he was half way done and thought he might as well finish, so he did.

When I came home, I wanted to see how it worked, too. It's a little bit louder than I expected- so scratch the mowing at midnight idea. It sounds like a bike with metal cans tied to the tires. Also, I tried to mow with all the outside lights on, and it was still too dark to see, so scratch the mow at midnight idea AGAIN. I only got one of the side yards done.

The next day, I was still working crazy hours. So not only does Mike go pick up food for us to eat, but he also finished mowing the front lawn.

And he got off early from work today to take my sister to the airport.

I have typed and deleted so many sentences just now because I cannot explain in words how much this means to me.
I caint essplane it.
He has been such a rock the past few months.
Like a really good rock.
Like a rock that is so good you wish it was a person.
And he is.

Mike: Sleep is just a thing invented by people who wanted to sell mattresses.

Days are good and that's the way it should be,
TWS

Bright; Echosmith