Looking back, I wish I had spent my time doing something else, like getting a job as an office manager in a Doctor's office or even an office manager in my CPA firm. May be I should have gotten a job in the kitchen or dining room at a restaurant. I would be making a salary not too different from what I am making now, but I would have more time with my family, to pursue my hobbies, and to sleep more, etc, etc.
I had recently found out that the office manager of my firm is paid $77K a year. She is not a CPA, she only has an associate degree. She is therefore incapable of providing any support at all, and if the professional staff aren't watchful, she will mess up their health insurance, 401K contributions, paid vacation and sick days and underpay them, not intentionally but because of errors. The worst part is she has such strong conviction of being correct that she doesn't address the mistake immediately, because she believes the professional staff are wrong! We are all CPAs and she is an uneducated community college grad with no special skills. She can't even write an email that is more than 2 sentences long. Yet, when there is a dispute in any calculation of benefits, she is so confident that she knows the math better than the CPAs. Unbelievable.
I am very resentful, because as an audit manager, I don't make any much more than her. Because of her incompetence, I have to spend extra time fixing complaints from my audit staff about their time, their pay, their software problems and other administrative support issue. Yet she gets to go home sharply at 5:30pm everyday. When she goes home, she literally goes home. When I go home at 7pm or 8pm, I literally am bringing work home to continue to work till midnight. I have to do that because I have so many different engagements on hand and I am short of audit staff and also administrative support. Many people said working in a small firm is less stressful than working in Big 4. I had never worked in a Big 4, I foolishly turned down a senior associate position 3 years ago from one of them because they offered me a salary that was way less than what the office manager is making in my firm. But I believe if I were a senior associate in a Big 4, I would not have to waste time dealing with administrative issues or correcting paid time off for the 1st year associates and I don't have to do anything about the quality control and ARs for the firm like I am doing now.
I can handle huge volume of audit and accounting work fine, but I can't handle administrative work, billing, the firm's AR, computer support and also audit, all at the same time. So before you join a small firm, think twice!!!
Meanwhile, I have been feeling shortness of breath, exhaustion, mood swings with my family, headaches etc... due to the fact that I have a lot of imminent deadlines I have to meet for my clients, and I also have no administrative support. Sometimes I woke up and I literally suffered panic attacks right before I left home for work. Like this memorial day long weekend, my firm's office manager gets to take a trip to San Diego, and I will be working at home because I have a deadline on Tuesday!! I rather take the job of an office manger in my firm because all she does is well, I really don't know what she is doing. But the partners seem to like her. As professional CPAs come and go, she has become the employee with the longest tenure in the firm. No, she is not related to any of the partners. As to why she gets such a well paid position and is able to get away with her little contribution to the firm, I have been too busy to try to figure out.
Yes, I know what you are saying now, why don't I quit? I have been so busy I have no time to even sleep, forget about finding another job. I did manage to send several resumes out for corporate accounting positions, but have not heard anything back. I am very eager to leave my firm and leave public accounting for good. Until then, I can only wish myself to get well soon, physically and mentally:
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