(Ac)counting Days
I used to be a CPA. I picked accounting as my major in college because Dad was one and I really didn't have any idea what I truly wanted to do with my life. It seemed to make sense that if that asshole could make a good living crunching numbers then I could, too. Did I know what accounting and bookkeeping was? Not in the slightest. The only jobs I had ever had prior to declaring my major were mowing lawns and one summer spent as a fry cook at our local Weathervane, a fried seafood joint about three miles from the family home in Amherst, New Hampshire. No, I didn't know that working as an accountant was like trying to get a 100% on an eight hour math test, each and every day after mind numbing day. I was to find out that fall.
My first experience with having a real job in the field was telling. I had received a letter in the spring of my senior year at Miami University from the firm that hired me, congratulating me on being selected and telling me the date I was to start, which was, I read quickly, in the late summer. Since I knew that working for a living sounded like a bad idea, and doubly so for me since I had begun to hear the rumors of how "dorky" and "nerdy" accountants were from classmates, I quickly filed away the letter, hoping that that first day would never come.
The summer spent living at my parents home was a slow one, hot and humid in the strange way New England summers are in contrast to the brutal winter months. I read, played a little basketball (badly) at Hampshire Hills (the health club in Milford my family had belonged to for many years), and hoped that the day I would have to wear a suit and tie could possibly be less painful that my imaginings.
The weeks flew by. My father did not believe in air conditioning, so the house on Thistle Drive in Amherst was sweltering when the temperature rose above 85 outside, as it did for much of the summer of '88. I felt the walls of my room, in which I spent much of my free time reading, closing in on me. Somehow (and this remains unbelievable to me even today) I mentally transposed the date of my first day at Newton and DiBenedetto from September 15th to August 15th. Almost as punishment for what I knew was going to be a failure, I had shorted myself a month of summer vacation. The day before I believed I was to start I called the office up and asked what time they wanted me in the next day. The receptionist seemed bewildered. "Who is this?" I told her of my hire and that I was to start the next day. She put me on hold and went off in search of answers. Minutes passed. Maybe I had been fired before I even started.
She returned to the line. "Joe? You're starting next month. Not this month. Thirty days from now." I had misread the letter, shortening my time of leisure unknowingly by a month. What a fool. I quickly regained my senses and tried, badly, to fool the secretary in to another conversation so that she, as she surely would, would NOT hang up the phone and burst out laughing at my stupidity and immaturity. It was a hell of a way to start a career.
My first experience with having a real job in the field was telling. I had received a letter in the spring of my senior year at Miami University from the firm that hired me, congratulating me on being selected and telling me the date I was to start, which was, I read quickly, in the late summer. Since I knew that working for a living sounded like a bad idea, and doubly so for me since I had begun to hear the rumors of how "dorky" and "nerdy" accountants were from classmates, I quickly filed away the letter, hoping that that first day would never come.
The summer spent living at my parents home was a slow one, hot and humid in the strange way New England summers are in contrast to the brutal winter months. I read, played a little basketball (badly) at Hampshire Hills (the health club in Milford my family had belonged to for many years), and hoped that the day I would have to wear a suit and tie could possibly be less painful that my imaginings.
The weeks flew by. My father did not believe in air conditioning, so the house on Thistle Drive in Amherst was sweltering when the temperature rose above 85 outside, as it did for much of the summer of '88. I felt the walls of my room, in which I spent much of my free time reading, closing in on me. Somehow (and this remains unbelievable to me even today) I mentally transposed the date of my first day at Newton and DiBenedetto from September 15th to August 15th. Almost as punishment for what I knew was going to be a failure, I had shorted myself a month of summer vacation. The day before I believed I was to start I called the office up and asked what time they wanted me in the next day. The receptionist seemed bewildered. "Who is this?" I told her of my hire and that I was to start the next day. She put me on hold and went off in search of answers. Minutes passed. Maybe I had been fired before I even started.
She returned to the line. "Joe? You're starting next month. Not this month. Thirty days from now." I had misread the letter, shortening my time of leisure unknowingly by a month. What a fool. I quickly regained my senses and tried, badly, to fool the secretary in to another conversation so that she, as she surely would, would NOT hang up the phone and burst out laughing at my stupidity and immaturity. It was a hell of a way to start a career.
posted by joe sweeney at 4:21 PM
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