No, it doesn't.
Well, let me share with you what's going on. Last week, my friend said her accountant, Vince, was looking for someone who can assist with him with some accounting work. So I sent off my resume and a few days later, he asks me to call to him. So I did. The conversation started like this:
"Do you like accounting Ling?"
"No, I don't =)" (hehe, I said it with a smile on the phone)
"Why? What don't you like about it?"
"It's boring, I have to account for every 6 minutes of the day, I mean like every 6 minutes and then sometimes I get interrupted then I forget what I'm doing and then it looks like I wasn't doing anything in that time because I didn't record anything on my timesheet and then I don't meet the billable hours and then that makes it look like I was being unproductive and then....." *Rant continues for another half an hour*
"What if I told you accounting doesn't have to be that way?"
That captured my interest. At this point, I actually was curious but had to be upfront about my situation.
"I'm actually going back to Australia in a few weeks and I'm not sure when I'll be back"
So Vince went away to think and called me back the next day.
"You know what? It doesn't make sense at all why I would hire you. You are going back to Australia, you don't know when you will return, in fact you may never return, you are not familiar with Canadian tax laws but for some reason I feel like I have to hire you."
"Well, as much as I hate accounting, I'm willing to give it a shot"
That was last week. Since then I have been super busy meeting with clients, learning Canadian tax law, preparing financial reports etc etc. And for the first time ever, I can't actually stop working. Like I think I enjoy it. Enjoy it until 1:30am in the morning. Now that's a worry.
It's been a steep learning curve and I was basically thrown in the deep end.
"Here, this is your client" *Hands me a file*
"This is their number, its all yours"
From start to finish, I have full control of how I want to do the work, when I want to do the work, and where I want to do the work. Yes, even where I want to do the work. Basically I can work from anywhere in the world, all I need is a computer or laptop.
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| Working from the beautiful beaches of Perth |
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| To the gorgeous mountains of Whistler... |
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| OK, I probably won't get any work done in Vegas. |
It's been awesome learning new things every single day but one thing that Vince mentioned which really spoke to me was his philosophy: Serve your clients first, then success will come and money will follow. The world has it backwards, their mentality is "I want money, and when I have money then I'll be successful then maybe I'll serve the clients." That's where greed comes into play and people start compromising their values, that's why collapses like Enron take place.
Anyway, my view of perception of accounting has done a full 360. Vince doesn't call himself an accountant but a business person with accounting skills. Someone who just wants to help and when people realise they're not getting billed for every six minutes of your time, they want to pay you. I've seen many examples of that from this week alone.
So now my issue is, I am spending wayyyyy too much time working because I love it. Seriously, who doesn't love getting a trial balance to balance?! However, I need to set my boundaries and work within a certain time and outside those hours, no more work! As awesome as it is to have full control over my work, I have to be careful that it doesn't have control over me. I don't want to end up working until I am old and realise half my life is over, all my kids have grown up and moved out and I don't even know who my husband is anymore. OK, fine maybe I'm being a little dramatic here but it all came from this movie called Click:
Wow...my post really went on a tangent huh.
Well, who knows where this work thing will go. Maybe it'll be temporary or maybe it'll be long term. Who knows. All I can do is enjoy the ride and see where it takes me =)
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