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This month not only marks the one-year anniversary of Accountant by Day (join in the giveaway fun - win prizes all month!), but it has also been one year since I started working in public accounting. Actually this is also the sixth anniversary of my US citizenship too. (Which reminds me, I need to change my voting address...)

Thank you everyone for reading, and I hope to continue to provide more and better content for you this year!

This year was the first year I hadn't attended school as a full-time student since I was five. I learned as much, and probably retained more, than in college, but it felt like the hardest lessons were not about how to do the work. Rather, the tough lessons were about how to get the work done when you have 3 managers wanting you to get their project finished first. They were about knowing when to ask questions, and how to really try to figure it out on your own first.

I can't help but look ahead to the year that lies before me, thinking of how much there is to do, and hoping to do it so much better this year. However, I think a moment of reflection is in order now, before jumping ahead to the next thing. It is too easy to move ahead without appreciating the path left behind.

In the past year: I moved to the biggest city I've ever lived in; I flew to another state and back in one day (inventory counts); I worked on 7 audit clients, and several other reviews and compilations; I completed an uncounted number of tax returns (it felt like hundreds, I think it was 20 - 30?); I wrote 91 blog posts; my net worth changed from negative to almost $10,000 positive.

Here are some points I'd like to remember, and maybe you'll find them useful, even if you don't work in public accounting, but are just starting out after college.

• Money doesn't go as far as I thought it would. I have been very focused on money this year, which I don't think is a good thing, but I feel like I need to build saving and budgeting skills, and really get comfortable with using what I am making. I'm making plenty, I just need to get comfortable with the best way to manage it and put it to the right things in my life.
• Impressing your direct managers on a day to day basis is much more important than impressing the partners. Maybe you have a "big boss" and then you have the bosses in between you and the big boss. Sure, if you make witty banter when you get a chance to chat with zir at a company outing, that's all good. But if you consistently turn good work into your direct managers, they will be eager to give you more work, get you on their jobs, and this is what the partner will notice.
• Being polite and friendly to people will always serve you well. When a manager gets fed up with you for making the same mistake twice, being condescending and angry about it is not going to make the mistake-maker any better at their job. This is a point I really want to retain and carry forward as I get more reponsibility and work with new staff. If you're scary, staff won't want to come with you with questions and issues until the little issues turn into big problems.
• Making time for my own life is up to me. I had a lot of days where I think I could have left earlier, but since everyone around me was working late, I didn't work as efficiently as I could, and would end up staying as late as everyone else to complete stuff. I think it's okay to leave at 6:00 even if some other people are staying 'til 8:00, as long as I'm working efficiently in the time I am there, and still getting lots done.
• Stay away from comparing yourself to other people. If you work hard and turn in good work, there's not much benefit to get from comparing yourself to your coworker equivalents who are leaving 2 hours before you each day. You will just get upset when you see that they are pretty much being rewarded (financially) the same as you. It takes a few years of hard work to really distinguish yourself from these people, so just forget about them, and work in a way you need to to turn in work that you know you put your best effort into.
• Don't tell people at work anything you don't want repeated. It will be repeated.
• If you're out of work to do, be flexible about offering out your services. If your direct boss/manager doesn't have any work for you, see if you can make yourself useful to another team or department. I've met a lot of great partners over the last year, and have more people who will think to offer me work to do now.

What did you learn from your first job after college? What did you learn this year? Are you starting your first year of work now? What are your concerns?

That's what makes high school reunions so stressful - they are one of the closest peer groups you can compare yourself to, and let see how you line up 10 years down the road with people who grew up in the same town as you, with the same basic education. (I read this in a book, but I'll need to get back to you with some real citations.) I imagine that, depending on the structure of your work environment, co-workers might be a pretty important comparison group too. If you work in an environment where you have an advanced degree, but most people you work with don't (like manufacturing) this probably isn't much of a problem for you.

Before bed last night, I was reading through the "Work" chapters of bell hooks's book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. The chapter talks about how the feminist movement promoted the idea that women needed to be "allowed" to work, and that work would be liberating. Of course, for poor American women, which included many African American women, this idea didn't mean much because they had been working for decades, and the type of work they did was not at all "liberating." What the white women meant, of course, what that a well-paying career would be liberating, but they did not specify that when they referred to "work." They made the mistake of only comparing their situation to the men at their same class level - and ignoring the plight of the larger population of women.

Hooks also talks about how many middle class women began to work part time to be able to pay for their kids to go to college, or other "luxuries" that were becoming standard for the middle class.

It's now standard for women to go to college and plan on careers, although here in the South I still know several young women who have worked hard in college and at their current jobs, but think that they will drop it all to be a mom and housewife once they meet the right man. I'm sure none of us know what we want until we get there, but the idea of putting so much time, effort and money into a career and then just abandoning it drives me crazy.

For me, it would be nice not to have to work - but only if that was because I earned enough to retire early. Work is empowering, because it gives me the ability to pay my own rent, buy the things I want, have goals that I know I can accomplish. But some days the fact that I have to spend 10 - 12 hours of my day at work (and commuting to and from work) to be counter productive - like power couples who earn enough to hire the best nannies but never see their children themselves. Why have children in the first place? (Of course, they do get to enjoy their children sometimes and that's why they have them, but a lot of these couples seem stretched really thin and constantly stressed out.)

There seem to be two ways to approach work - well two ways that seem "good" to me. The first is to get a 9 to 5 (well, 8:30 to 5:30) job, and show up to work every day, do your thing, and then live your "real life" at home. Or, if your job is going to be your life, your job needs to be a place where you can accomplish things, have goals, and enjoy a good portion of the work.

I'm still deciding if I really like my job enough to commit to it and give up on having much time to do other things. I do enjoy the work, and the constant challenge, but I also find it stressful to feel like I never quite know what I'm doing, and also to have to work with so many different personalities overseeing me. I think it's something that will just take time for me to get comfortable with, and only then can I really see how I feel about this job.

What is your philosophy towards your job? Is it something you do because you need to work to do the stuff you really like, or is your job something you really like to do? What would your ideal job be? Or how would you ideally spend your days if you didn't "need" to work to pay your rent, food, medical bills, etc?

This post is a good example of why I should write posts all at once, instead of in bits and pieces over several days! My original point of this post is that we start wanting different things depending on our sphere of reference - depending on what the people we compare ourselves to have. It seems that the key to getting away from keeping up with the joneses is to really evaluate what you want and what it will take to get there. If all you want is a tiny little house in the middle of nowhere, you maybe could quit your city job and go for it now. If you want to use your freetime better, maybe quit the demanding career and find a 9-5 job. But first you need to really know what YOU want.

Okay, so maybe that's not a secret, but just something you don't realize 'til you work in an office.

I always thought that I was "too busy" to add other activities in college. It was hard to find time to socialize with friends, with so much studying to do. Now, I realize how much time I really had back then. And I wonder if I'll look back on this time some day, and realize how much time I really had now. I still have time to write and read blog posts, after all, so there must be room to get busier at work .

I thought that after "busy season" it would be tough to find work to do. I was WRONG, but that is a GOOD THING because of billable hours targets, etc. I'm looking forward to taking the bulk of my PTO after September 15th, where it should be much more difficult to have "too much" work to do. And thanks to being busy now, I should be able to hit my billable hours target this year.

So... next week, I may be even busier, as we get closer to September 15th, or I may have a bit more time to post and comment again, as I'm currently working on a special project (in addition to regular work) that will be done by next week.

But as far as I know, none of the other people who started working here at the same time as me are putting any money to their 401(k), and I find myself not being able to afford to keep up with their eating out, buying new cars, and purchasing new outfits to wear each month.

But while I think of saving as a responsible thing to do, I wonder if my employer would really prefer it if I just racked up some credit card debt and started living paycheck to paycheck. Why? Because in a high-turnover industry, it's good to have employees that are super reliant on having their jobs - they won't be able to pack up and leave quite so easily.

I was speaking with a friend about someone they work with who wants to switch jobs. This woman gets paid in advance, so if she turned in her two weeks notice, she wouldn't get another paycheck from her current employer. And then if her new job pays her every two weeks, she probably won't get her first paycheck for 2-3 weeks after starting there. Because of this gap of 4 - 5 weeks between paychecks, she apparently cannot afford to switch to the other job. I'm sure her employer did not sit down and plan this out, but they are reaping the benefit of her extreme lack of financial independence.

One of the bosses here has joked that he wants the male employees to get married and have babies so that they'll "be more stable." But really, having a family to support means that you can't as easily leave your job if you don't like it, nor can you move to a new city with better opportunities quite as easily.

I assume that no one is really paying attention, but some of the coworkers my own age see that I bring my lunch, know that I have cheap rent, and they assume that I'm saving a ton (actually, I'm probably saving less than they think.) Sometimes I wonder if I should try to hide this "responsible" side of me a bit, because it allows me quite a lot of freedom to stop and think "Hey, I don't need THIS job."

Of course, I do need this job, especially since no matter how much of an emergency fund I have, if I could not find a new job quickly, I could be facing a long and difficult road to finding more work. (Since being unemployed already makes it harder to find a new job, and then the longer it takes to find one the harder it gets.)

But I can see myself in 3 or 4 years time with good experience to put on my resume, and plenty of savings to help me transition to a new city. Since I'm not planning on having kids for quite some time, I expect I'll be able to be quite flexible about where I can live. I'll be a terrible thing for my employer to have - an employee with experience who can just walk off to a new job if they try to give out low raises, bonuses, or benefits. Hopefully by that time, competitors will be back to offering some better benefit plans themselves, of course!

(Then again, I may look back on this post in 4 years time and laugh at my own arrogance/foolish expectations!)

Unfortunately, there are so many more factors - like getting along with everyone.

In my job, I do work for several partners, PLUS the people under them also assign me work. Some days it feels like I have 15 bosses, and need to remember how each one likes to have things done.

Some people are easy to please - they like it when you ask intelligent questions, and do a clean job, with clear notes. Others are a little trickier, and tend to see any question asked as a result of me not using my own brain to figure it out.

With some people, a little flattery, telling them that they're the best at explaining things and what a great teacher they are! is essential for being able to have a pleasant conversation with them. People like this tend to lose my respect fastest, because they are difficult to deal with if you don't approach them just right, but they also suddenly become so nice to you if you manage to make them feel superior somehow.

Luckily, the majority of my bosses are pretty straightforward people, who don't like to waste time on trivialities. However, these bosses can be kind of tricky to figure out, because it's hard to tell what makes them prefer working with one person over another, since simple flattery is probably just going to make them think you're a suck up. It could just be that they like the people they can talk sports with when out on a job, or someone who is more similar to them - but it's hard to adjust yourself to be that person.

In general, I think the way to go, at least at a public accounting firm, is just to be polite, quiet, and get your work done. Sometimes I wonder if I'm wrong though - when quiet can be interpreted as unfriendly, and instead of polite, a boss may prefer someone who has the chuztpah to argue back with them when they make unreasonable or illogical requests.

What are your experiences with bosses that are hard/easy to please? How do you reconcile the ideal of being a "go getter" with also being pleasant and not stepping on toes? Are the two concepts mutually exclusive? What have you found is the best way to make your mark at a new job, while still getting along with everyone?

Humans use body language to communicate a lot of things, but sometimes I wonder why our 4-month old puppy is better at reading human body language than many adult humans are. I suppose because we have spoken language, our ability to interpret body language has taken a back seat. However, it seems like it should still be important for us to be able to see when we're annoying someone, or scaring them, without them having to use words to tell us.

I work with a couple of people who are especially outstanding at reading other people, but many others that don't seem to realize how uncomfortable they are making others. When you wear glasses for the first time, you suddenly realize how blurry and impaired your vision was without them. When you see people who are really good at reading body language, it suddenly becomes apparent how little everyone else around them is using that skill.

Can it be learned? Probably. You can learn much more about dog body language through observation and someone pointing out to you what different movements mean. However, I think with other humans the even trickier part is knowing how to adjust your own actions to change someone else's reaction. The ability to see how they're feeling and the insight to know why they're feeling that, and how to change that to a more positive feeling.

Has anyone had any experiences working for or with people who were especially good or bad at reading body language? If they were very good, were they too observant sometimes? (i.e. they could see that you were upset when you would prefer that they didn't notice?)

My friend was salutatorian of our high school - the student who excelled academically, excelled at sports, and was everyone's frind. She went to an Ivy League school and majored in environmental studies. Following graduation, she accepted a job at the Department of Energy - which she quickly figured out was not the ideal place for her. She worked there for several months, I suppose trying to see if she'd adapt to the work and begin to enjoy it more. Eventually she made the decision to leave, and has been working various part-time jobs while trying to answer the big question: What do I want to do?

We all know that you're supposed to find a job that you love - but how do you find out what you love to do? The tricky part seems to be figuring out what you're really passionate about, enough so that work doesn't feel like work.

When I was a freshman, I declared accounting as my major and never switched. I graduated, and got a job in a public accounting firm, and I'm on track to get my CPA. It's not surprising that my friend has the impression that I know exactly what I want.

Here's a secret to those of you who don't understand why others seem to have it figured out and you don't: None of us really have it figured out.

My advice/response to my friend was as follows:

If you speak to people who have a job that they love, chances are that their path to get there was not clear to them as they were moving to that point. There's also a good chance that those people will switch jobs or at least shift their focus again in the future. The world is not static, and especially for an extreme high-achiever like my friend, we need change to keep us interested.

So forget about trying to pick one job that will keep you happy for the rest of your life. Try to find something that you are passionate about now, and keep an open mind towards future job opportunities that you may develop a passion for in the future. If you really can't decide what you're passionate about, find something that pays the bills and provides you with valuable experiences - that will help you move on to your ideal career once you figure out what it is.

Your response:

What would you tell my friend, or other college graduates who are struggling with this question? If someone is struggling to decide what motivates them, what they are passionate about, what advice would you give them to help them figure this out?

In a way, working so much is enjoyable, because I'm learning that I can survive while working 10 hour days for 6 days a week (at least). I think a lot of people my age, including myself, don't know what it's like to really have to work. We go to college, are encouraged to socialize and figure out what we're passionate about, and then we graduate and head into the working world expecting to get a job working somewhere where we'll really be appreciated for our expensive degree. (A lot of people my age did learn about working hard with little appreciation at a much earlier age, so that is definitely not a blanket observation of all recent college grads.)

Whatever I do next in life, whether it's getting my PhD, starting my own business, or continuing on at this CPA firm, I think the mindset that working a 10-12 hour day with no weekend is reasonable if that's what you need to get the job done.

It's a bit like the mental state I need when trying to push myself to keep running when I start getting tired (usually a quarter of a mile in! I'm not a great runner, so mybe this is a bad analogy?). Just because you're feeling a little fatigued is no reason to stop - your body has the ability to keep going.

I imagine that will serve me well if I ever start my own business, since entrepreneurship takes so much dedication to get everything going.

Then again, those of you out there who have been working hard for years are probably laughing at me right now since this is just a normal way of being for you!

But cubes just feel wrong.

I have worked in an office with cubes before, but there were only 8 of us, we were all friends, we telecommuted 2 days a week so there were usually no more than 5 of us there at a time.

The clients I have been to recently are a different story. I have decided that you can tell how miserable people are with their cubes based on the volume of knicknacks and postcards they have decorating their space. Especially when they have an over abundance of kitschy objects made especially for cube dwellers, such as signs that read "How can I think outside of the box when I work in a cube?"

The more cubes there are, the less I could ever see myself working in the office.

Do any of you have strong opinions about the cube? Are they a good or bad addition to the workplace?

Are any of you cube-dwellers yourselves?