Anyone here an Accountant?

Post Reply New Topic

If so, how hard is the job?

(To anyone else with a good job)
What do you work as, how hard is it, and what do you have to be good at?

I am indeed a diploma qualified accountant. I wouldn't say that the work I do is really hard, but it's very boring and tedious some of the time, and it kinda requires a lot of concentration. I don't have as much variety in my tasks as most other people in the firm do (I'm not a CPA or CA like anyone there). I mostly do tax, GST returns (BAS statements) and a little bit of financial accounting on the side. It is however very hard on the interaction side of things. Having to keep channels of communication open and communicating clearly with the partners, the people delegating me the work, the receptionist and sometimes even the clients themselves in order to get the work done smoothly is a bit too much for me to do all at once.

I am a CPA with one year of experience with a major firm, as well as a graduate degree in accounting. I've been unemployed for the past nine months, had major problems networking at my job and had a really hard time getting people to put me on assignments. They let me go at fiscal year-end. I just couldn't get the hang of the social aspect of working there, they were always after me to schmooze and network in order to find work assignments. I just wasn't able to do it, no matter how much I tried. Not only did I have the Aspie thing working against me, I was also one of the older employees at my staff level.

Looking for an opportunity with a smaller firm or better yet, outside of public accounting altogether so there won't be so much pressure to "market myself." Have an interview this week for an auditing job with my local county government, it would be a great opportunity and I think the environment would be a much better fit for me. I usually interview for jobs once every couple of months.

In my opinion, people on the spectrum should probably avoid public accounting unless it's with a very small firm where they don't have a competitive situation with their co-workers. Larger firms tend to set things up to where they hire a large group of people and then sort of pit them against each other in an attempt to weed people out. Usually not a good deal for people with Asperger's.

The problem is that a lot of other accounting jobs usually want people to have some sort of public accounting experience first. People should probably get an associate's degree and focus on lower level accounting jobs [like accounts payable or basic bookkeeping.] Then, if they're interested and feel like it's a good idea, they can get a bachelor's and go into the higher-level stuff [the kind of work CPAs do.]

I'm studying to become one and I love my studies thus far. My ideal job is to do taxes from home.