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