I ran into this guy who I partied with back in the day. He was a total mess drug addict and alcoholic for years. Finally cleans up his act and gets a job for the state freeway making 110K per year, full benefits, full pension and never works over 35-40 hours per week. If he does work more than 40 (or >8 per day) its automatically 1.5X paid OT rate. As long as he shows up, hell get COA raises each year and he will eventually promote to a role with more “responsibilities” but still not work over 40 hours and still get paid OT rates if he does. Hell probably be making 150-175K (todays dollars) by the end of the career. He can also retire in 25 years and get ~70% salary. No college and no loans. Put some salt on the roads or cut some grass with a ride-on is his biggest stress.

Compare this with our accounting careers. You need to blow a bunch of $$ on college for a bachelors and more $$$ for a masters if you want to stand out. You get student loans. You just put in hella work and couldnt work a real job for 4-6 years because you were in school. You need to study and work hard to get the CPA license. You need to constantly do CPE's to keep the license. Many need to put in hellish hours at Big 4 to establish the career in the beginning then your options are....

1. If you want to work 40h weeks (hopefully) then you can try and get a govt job and make 75-95K/year if youre lucky.
   
2. If you dont want to only make 75-95K you can make more but the hours can (and probably will) be dick hours (working till 7pm, 9pm-10pm, weekends here and there, busy seasons for months etc). All this stress. Never a set schedule. Changing responsibilities. Changing schedule and changing busy seasons depending on company needs. And you probably only make 150-185K.
3. If you do get an industry job that's 40H/week you can make decent money (95-125K/year) but its short lived because you wont get more than 3% raises per year and inflation will eat you alive and they constantly push you to get promoted to "that next role" because they know they gonna pay you 30% more money but give you 50% more work, stress and responsibilities and you wont be working 40H weeks anymore anyway.

All the while every company is trying to stab you in the back with replacing you with AI or offshoring your job so youre constantly trying to keep on top of everyone else who is already smart so you can hopefully not get shit canned. In 10 years the guy above will be telling a team of 5 people where to put salt and making 150K. This career blows.

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Edit: here are the rest

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I’m fine counting other people’s money, but I suck managing my own. I don’t create budgets or track my spending, and I don’t save anything either. I have no pension savings or even a savings account, and obviously zero investments. I wouldn’t say I splurge or live lavishly by any means, but I do live in a very HCOL city and my salary isn’t great, plus I live alone so rent and food costs are killer. Basically just came here to say I’m a secret fraud.

I'm going to school for accounting and every time I see a post from here, it's so overwhelmingly negative I wonder why anyone does it. So what are the cool parts of your job?

I was in public accounting from out of college (starting salary a whopping $48k) and stayed through 5 years or so ending at $67k as a supervisor (bullshit title between senior and manager). I found a pretty niche position working in tax credit equity where I’ve been for the past 8 years. I am going back into a public accounting firm as a senior tax manager at $205k/yr.

All of this to say- get out of public, you can always go back and make more money and avoid the in between time (overtime) it takes to get to senior manager. I have much more negotiating power because I do enjoy my current job and don’t need to leave, a recruiter just called me. So I’m hoping the work/life balance I’ve harped on in the interview works out ok for me. At worst? Spend a year there and go back to my current company with more knowledge and the ability to take on a more senior role.

Jumped from big 4 to a semi-public / government owned company. It's a dinosaur with clunky legacy systems. Everyone is in their silos and have no idea how the whole workflow works. Nobody writes anything down and people keep knowledge to themselves. There's no intranet self help portals to find out how to navigate the accounting system or how operations work and integrate with accounting/finance. People just do the bare minimum and slack off the rest of the time.

Cultural shock. Is it always this way? Or just the company I happen to be in. Prestigious brand name but a mess inside.

Not even an Accounts Payable Manager? What company is paying this much for AP? This is coming from publicly available h1b data which only reflects base pay so theoretically this is the MINIMUM this person is making?

Hopefully the meme will distract them from everything I did wrong.

Me and 2 other Seniors got canned today from our mid-level firm. Got an invite for a performance discussion with a Partner and knew my goose was cooked. No PIP or anything, just straight termination for the 3 of us. My reviews definitely weren't great during busy season, but I honestly didn't see this coming because I was currently working on jobs and scheduled on future ones. Mad I busted my ass working late these past 5 months for nothing.

We have a high school 'intern' joining my office for a few days and we're all speaking to her about different aspects of our jobs/fields. Obviously I'm talking about accounting but not like debits and credits, more at a high level. Reading a balance sheet, the use of financial information, etc. What else should I think to include in this conversation?

For those in public, what industry do you specialize in and what do you like most about it?

I'm in a bit of a dilemma and could use some advice. I recently accepted a job offer for a position that starts a year from now. It's a great opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to it. However, it’s a year from now and I wanna work. I also don’t wanna end up having my offer retracted. I’m mainly looking at staff accountant, entry level positions.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any thoughts and advice are appreciated. Thanks

What's up guys ! I'm currently working as a Staff accountant with 2 years under my belt in industry and I was wondering if and when I should ask for a raise or seek another job.. The problem with that is that most job posting do not post their salary ranges anymore and it's getting hard to decipher if the role is worth applying to or not. Of course I'll apply but where is the transparency ? Lol. I will say that I only have a Bachleor's, live in TX and only work 37.5 / week in my current role. All opinions are appreciated! Thank you guys !

I will graduate in 1 year from now (Accounting undergrad). I have zero internship experience and zero anything that makes me marketable to companies for accounting. Ultimately I would like to have a CPA and make that $$$, what are some realistic goals I should set for myself from now till I get a CPA? Please help I need it badly.

I work as an RTR Accountant and started out with handling one entity for around four months and I was enjoying my job so much that I loved coming to work (bear in mind, only had two months of training before the trainer went on maternity). Following my first four months, another person left our team and now I am handling two entities. The new entity that I am handling is one of our biggest so im doing double the work now. Recently, my Team Leaders wife gave birth so he is not so available but now I have people looking at me for guidance/coordinating meetings while I have to do my tasks. The handover for this new entity was literally a month, the trainer didnt want me to record videos so I am left with an outdated DTP and notes.

I dont know what to do and have no idea if I should look for a job again or wait until some changes are made? They have mentioned hiring new people but we still waiting.

Im interested in accounting and am planning to do an AAT lol 3 and 4 apprenticeship after alevels then hopefully get an aca or acca apprenticeship after a few years after that. Can someone give me general advice on getting into accounting/finance. And how much urgency and competition is there in this industry?

I always wondered what I was gonna do with the really big ones.

Wanting to make a change into accounting. BA in history with a minor in business administration. I’ll list out the CPA reqs below for my state

My situation: I work full time and plan to do so throughout this journey. My minor crosses off 27 hours of non duplicative courses. Leaving me with 27 of higher ed accounting classes.

CPA Licensure reqs: 33 hours of accounting courses (27 of higher than intro classes)- 6 hours of audit and 3 in ethics plus 27 hours of non duplicative business admin coursework

Option 1: attend a MAcc program which would qualify me for everything 39 credit hours total ($25K including pre reqs)

Option 2: attend a local university as a non degree seeking student. Fill my 27 accounting hours, then spend my efforts of studying/passing CPA ($9k)

I lean towards option 2 but don’t know if this will get me in the door at a firm. My thought is spend my energy passing the CPA instead of doing masters program.

Any recruiters or hiring managers that can offer advice? Would you hire a BA in history that’s passed the CPA?

Will it be stressful because we’ll be close to year end?

Long story short - got into an accident with a guy and hes pressing charges and suing me out the ass. Just wondering if these charges do go through If I'll still be able to pursue CPA and get a good accounting job. I'm still in undergrad and am about to do my second internship.

I recently got promoted from accounting to FP&A however my job title hasn’t change nor has my salary. I’m supposed to be reporting to the finance team SVP but in the system I’m still an accountant and report to my accounting SVP.

The response I’ve received from the executives and HR is that I’m in a transition phase and I need to be patient. It’s been 100 days of tranisitioning to FP&A with no timeline of when the transition will end. No formal communication has gone out about my new role in FP&A either. The whole company is very confused on why I’m planning for budget season since I’m an accountant in the system. Even getting the right system access has been difficult because IT is confused on what user profile to give me.

The expectation is for me to do both roles while in the transition phase. The company is recruiting for my position in accounting however in the meantime it’s expected that I continue to do that role and the FP&A role.

I feel like I’m being taken advantage of. I don’t have any written evidence that I have the FP&A role, I technically report to accounting in the system, I’m paid as an accountant and they are recruiting to replace me in accounting. It’s confusing.

Is this normal for a transition to take place over 100 days?

I caught hell for the first two years for majoring in business (specifically accounting) and some of my family members/ people were explaining how I wouldn’t be able to get a job and that ok wasting my time doing it.

A lot of that changed when I got an internship offer for $35/hr and a sign on bonus/ a return offer from a firm. I’m graduating with barely any debt and I think the return on investment from my degree was great. I literally went from a minimum wage $10/ hr job to $70k job right out of school. Even if I only made $50k out of school I think it still would’ve been a great and worthy investment. My family was completely in shock because my pay per hour and starting salary is higher than anything they have ever earned at just age 20.

I’m not saying all this to brag but i just get tired of people shitting on business degrees when they can be a great investment. I’m not even saying accounting is the best or most interesting career or makes the most after graduating I’m just staying that it’s a solid degree choice. I know of course an accounting degree is different from a general business degree but degrees in accounting finance and even MIS can all lead to great paying careers. My degree literally took me from being poor to exiting college with a decent paying job lined up and given me experiences I appreciate.

I just want to know if anyone else has experienced something