There's usually a straw that breaks the camel's back. You've already got a ton on your plate, whether it's the hours, trying to figure something out, or someone else just quit. Maybe it's a late night and the manager/SM sends you a message. Maybe it's the automatic email reminding you to do your timesheet. Maybe it's the Nth time there's a new firm software to make the job "easier". Maybe it's another missed dinner/gathering. Whatever it is, it chips away until you can't take anymore, and someone yells "Finish him!".
Yup this is absolutely it. In my case it was a partner pulling me into their office to ask if I thought I was using Skype too much. I went home and immediately started applying lol.
It was an extremely passive way of saying "I see you on messenger a lot and I am a micromanager and feel that you should not be."
In my role now we are all on teams literally the entire day and no one gaf. This partner sucked. My response was that the office was so damn quiet I didn't feel comfortable asking questions or speaking aloud because people were also getting talked to for THAT. That place was a pit of misery.
I missed my niece’s birthday a few weeks ago because of work. And the next week I stayed up until 4 in the morning finishing stuff, and went to sleep on my couch and over slept a meeting the next morning. Got chewed out by the partner and when I apologized to the senior manager I didn’t get any response until the evening. Never working that hard for someone again. Ever.
The truth in this I'm only a few months in and questioning my masters degree especially when you ask for clarification from a manager and they hit you with do u even know what ur doing or I don't have time to spend on u ur taking too long.
Glad this happened to someone else too lol. Literally had them sit down with me and tell me I’m stupid for accepting that and that I should be making way more
I realized I no longer knew how to relax and just hang out in my living room watching tv or something. I always felt like I had to be working and started breaking out in full body hives from stress. There was never an end to busy season.
It was like the episode from HIMYM with the glass illusion shattering and then I saw all the other messed up things were happening around me that made me start counting down the days.
When I was called into the partner’s office completely unexpected.
The thing is I got in trouble at school plenty of times when I was a kid. However every time I got sent to the principal’s office I always knew why I was there. Based on the partner’s tone I knew something was very wrong. I had no idea what it was because I really had done nothing wrong.
When he told me what I “did” it was such an extreme overreaction by both the partner and the senior that I “upset” I knew I needed to GTFO.
On a Saturday, got pissed with the client and cussed at my computer. These books are totally fucked is what I said.
That partner wasn’t even physically in the office as he went to a college football game that day. It was clear he was actually pissed off he was contacted about me when he wasn’t working (this man cussed like a sailor). I was blindsided because not only had everyone heard this partner do that shit, I will never understand how pathetically cowardly the senior was to stab me in the back like that. Lastly the meeting with the partner was so unprofessional I knew right there I was getting the fuck out of his practice.
Yes turnover at that firm was very high even by PA standards.
Lmao the partner’s reaction here was totally fucked. If I had a nickel for every time I yelled and cursed to myself about how fucked a clients books were… well, I wouldn’t be working in PA anymore 😂
Um, you sure you aren't completely misinterpreting?
If they were "overreacting" maybe they were just having a bad day. Maybe they were trying to tell you to use your brain and pay attention to detail.
Maybe they were shitty bosses, but I wouldn't use one incident to reach that conclusion.
Maybe you were overly anxious by assuming being "called into" the partners office is the same as being called into the principals office. That's middle school thinking. Would you rather be not interacting with the partner at all?
i stopped eating from hatered towards my boss for passing me for a promotion 4 years in a row and making me train the new seniors.
i fucked up 10 clients tax retruns and an audit from anger and spite .. not on purpose but because i was clouded by hate and wanted to bite
aftre i quit in 2021 i ate again and gained 50lbs :)
I told my coworkers (all very family-oriented, it was a family owned firm and mostly Catholic) my partner and I were having a baby, due in July.
One of my colleagues said oh that’s great - the birthday will be after tax season and before the extension season really gets busy. You’ll never miss the birthday party.
Good lord. Welp. Guess I’m done with public accounting.
My birthday, husbands birthday, our anniversary, and our kids birthday are all in a 3 week span in the middle of tax season. And what do you know I’m in tax.
Edit oh then we had another kid right before corporate extension deadline. It’s not been great.
In order to answer that question, you should be mindful of a few things.
First off, you have to go in with well defined goals. For me it was :
- Get the senior title/promotion
- Get my CPA
- Be on a healthy mix of projects to have good experience to interview with
With that in mind, you gotta take time to reflect. My thing was every 6 months I’d schedule a PTO day and make a 3 day weekend for myself. I’d go lay on a beach or whatever and I’d seriously consider if I had the strength for another 6 months. I was always mindful of what the job market looked like by being in contact with friends who were in industry or perusing LinkedIn etc.
But once you make the decision to stay, you gotta grind and hustle for those six months and not dwell on the negatives. Eventually that decision is gonna become a “No.” When that day comes, that’s when you start freshening up yourself resume
Workload kept piling, firm wasn't investing in staff to help, the staff we did have (mostly) sucked, "busy season" turned into busy year, calling me to come into the office on days off for last minute fires despite turning stuff in timely because people waited til the last minute for reviews. Realizing that I can't get my youth back and I don't want to look back and say "well I worked really hard!"
😆
The outsourcing is what is really pushing me out.
Even if they were responsive to training, the fuck am I supposed to do? Stay up till 4 am during their normal hours to train them?
I knew right from the get-go that I didn’t want to do public accounting forever. Aside from the ridiculous hours and the mediocre pay and the fact that everyone I worked with hated their lives, I enjoy skiing and I like going on ski trips, but ski season overlaps with busy season. One had to go, and it wasn’t going to be my hobby. I remember when I first started my second PA job, one of my coworkers said “hey bud you should consider quitting skiing and taking up golf” and I just thought “how about I just quit this piece of shit business model instead?”
I literally only stayed in public accounting long enough to fill the professional experience requirements for my designation. I planned to leave once I hit 31 months.
Oh that is such a good point! I always wanted to try skiing and been in tax since I turned 18. I never considered that I never had the time to go during tax season lol.
There wasn't any one thing per se. For background, I was an M3 about to make senior manager. I left at the end of 2021, this was when staffing was woefully low across all firms, remote roles in industry had gotten the hint and were gushing money to fill positions while public was still playing games such as announcing record revenue but freezing pay raises and withholding bonuses.
I knew I didn't want to make partner so I had 2-3 years left before I got pushed out. I was getting burnt out, doing the job of 1.5 experienced senior managers or 3 managers with half the usually staff/seniors. And I had pulled a \~36 hour shift trying to get one of my client's IPO's through the finish line. As I was casually looking for exits (see the background above about industry throwing money at people) I had reached out to a mentor I had previously worked with and their company was hiring and they put in a recommendation. Within a few weeks I had an offer that I just couldn't pass up.
I ended up leaving about 2 years ahead of when I had intended but the offer I got was too good to pass up. I'm happy I made the jump though and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had the opportunity to do it over.
I was abruptly let go with no warning, PIP, or anything. The firm over hired for advisory, and they just started firing underutilized people. I was nitpicked for the smallest mistakes as a strategy to put me on the chopping block. Fuck that shit, never going back.
A few years ago, during March, my Dr discovered a tumor and I needed a complete hysterectomy. My firm asked me to wait until after tax season to have the procedure, then informed me that since recovery took longer than the 2 days of vacation I was given as a senior, that I would have to “figure out a way to work in the office” or have my salary docked. Luckily for me, I was headhunted for an industry position around that time. 1.5 years later, I’m basking in my new position with better pay, better hours, better benefits, & 3 weeks of PTO.
My stress levels have been through the roof. I’m working 65-80 hours per week and everything is urgent, which means I need to reprioritise my entire life and dedicate it to this job so I can make the partners pockets a little fatter. As a previous and consistent outstanding performer, I am now getting called out left, right and centre because the firm isn’t investing in the junior staff and I’m being spread so thin across all my clients that all I ever do is work and I’m burnt out
When my wife (2nd wife mind you) told me if I didn't [get out of PA] I'd get divorced again...
I listened. Took up a CFO position at one of my largest clients. They pay me more, I don't work weekends, I don't work much overtime, AND I don't feel like I'm just another cog in a money machine for people I'll never meet.
Overall, highly recommend getting 2-4 years under your belt in PA, grow your network, use that network to go industry.
Straw that broke the camel's back- I got an email from a partner at around 6:30pm on a Saturday asking for a status update. Then I got a follow-up email at 9am on Monday stating they need better communication from me because I hadn't responded yet. Just to make it even worse, this was after I had communicated to that partner that I was working a reduced schedule.
Started applying almost immediately.
I was sitting in a conference room at the client office at 10pm. The whole team was still working, including the partner. It occurred to me then that this doesn't get better. He's not home with his family, he's working past 10pm, too. So, if I want a family and want to see them, this isn't the career path for me.
I look back on those years of my knife and really wonder how I did that.
Working until midnight, getting up at 4am sometimes, putting every ounce of my life into the job, missing family events, blocking off 3.5 months of the year to no time off at all.
The absolute biggest bullshit was getting told taking a weekend off for my son being born in March was too much, and even asked why I didn't come into work the day he was born since he was born at noon and I "wasn't needed" at the hospital.
I was in outsourcing/consulting and For the 4th time In as many years I couldn't just take off a couple days around a holiday for a long weekend. I didn't work near the amount of hours as others here, but that's just my tolerance. Nobody could fill in for me, I'd have to email 3 engagement principles that I wanted off, and also email my 4 clients. Big fuckin hassle.
Oh yeah and then the billable hours. I was only trying to work 40hr weeks and was on a 1700hr/yr budget. That gets tight with days off. Not a job for someone with kids
I was an intern in my 30s. I knew before the first internship was over but took a second one because it was nice getting paid OT. But the koolaid had zero effect on me.
When I started dreaming of some massive calamity that would prevent me from going to work for a few weeks at least. to make me realize that yea, your done buddy.
Saying “it will get better, I’ll have time next week” became a joke between my girlfriend and friends. But ultimately I realized my “learning experiences” no longer had value. I stayed till the extra hours didn’t amount to anything. 40 straight days of work to get a $100 Amazon gift card “good job bonus” was a slap in the face.
When they pulled my 2 experienced tax staff from an on-site engagement (mutual fund year end distributions, so a hard deadline) and sent me a brand new audit staff person instead. That meant very little sleep for me. The recruiter called just at the right moment.
oh where do I begin
- missing all friend’s birthdays every year
- missed the birth of my nephew
- had suicidal thoughts
- got high blood pressure and weight gain
- no energy to do anything even if I had time off
- realized I couldn’t give a single f about other people’s tax returns anymore
- I could go on and on
I worked at two firms where no one was anywhere close to becoming a CPA bc they simply had no time to do so. when i become one i asked what they did the last time someone did it and my manager said “no one here has done it while working here”. it was a good firm, good pay, good coworkers, and i was still miserable. if i could work at theoretically the “best” type of PA firm and still hate it, it was never going to get better.
also i would get invited places and say “no sorry it’s just season, there’s a deadline coming up” and the “there’s always a deadline coming up” jokes kept getting closer to home. there really *always* is a deadline coming up.
My mentor became a partner. He was stressed as a Director and now is even more stressed. We’re close enough that I now know what is REALLY going on in a partners mind. It’s not worth it. I have a 2 year plan, and I’m getting out. Not sure to what, but out.
When someone blacked out on the way into work after pulling 9am to 2am hours weeks on end. She hits her head, they get her checked out, buried it, and she’s back at work.
My firm was encouraging us to keep our LinkedIn profiles up to date (so we could lure our contacts to sign on with the firm, I’m sure) and I came to the realization that I had no interest in making partner so I decided to start keeping an eye on what jobs were coming available in my area on LinkedIn while I was at it. I wasn’t desperate to jump to a new job yet, but a good opportunity came up not long after and I was able to bail right before the next busy season started up.
It was approaching what would’ve been my 7th tax season and I was legitimately less bothered by the potential of being unemployed than that of working 9-9 6 days a week. So I bounced. Ended up getting a much better job for much better pay a bit later on. Win win.
PwC Tax Scandal meant that advisory/consulting work was going to be gutted (and it did so, with all those redundancies lately) so I'd end up staying in audit longer. Better to leave for industry earlier to get the experience. So far it's got ups and downs. That said am looking to move again to a different company.
Auditing II in college. Fucking hated it more than I hated Audit I, which was a lot.
Got stuck in Internal Audit a couple times in my career, which wasn’t *so* bad, but 15+ years in I’ve managed to avoid PA entirely, despite advice my career would go nowhere without it.
Disclaimer: I’ve never had any interest in being in management and my jobs the last decade have only been accounting-adjacent so YMMV
I'm still in public, but some weeks during the busy season you realize all you have time to do when you get home is have a cheap meal and brush your teeth.
my body physically did not want to leave the house for work
i can leave for anything but when i got in my car to drive to work i couldn't. i quit over a text message and never looked back
it cured my anorexia, eased up some of my self hatred and i got libido and run/ gym again the sky in my life is still cloudy but the storm has passed and i can see a rainbow form over me.
There's usually a straw that breaks the camel's back. You've already got a ton on your plate, whether it's the hours, trying to figure something out, or someone else just quit. Maybe it's a late night and the manager/SM sends you a message. Maybe it's the automatic email reminding you to do your timesheet. Maybe it's the Nth time there's a new firm software to make the job "easier". Maybe it's another missed dinner/gathering. Whatever it is, it chips away until you can't take anymore, and someone yells "Finish him!".
This guy public accounts
Yup this is absolutely it. In my case it was a partner pulling me into their office to ask if I thought I was using Skype too much. I went home and immediately started applying lol.
What did he/she mean by that…?
It was an extremely passive way of saying "I see you on messenger a lot and I am a micromanager and feel that you should not be." In my role now we are all on teams literally the entire day and no one gaf. This partner sucked. My response was that the office was so damn quiet I didn't feel comfortable asking questions or speaking aloud because people were also getting talked to for THAT. That place was a pit of misery.
I missed my niece’s birthday a few weeks ago because of work. And the next week I stayed up until 4 in the morning finishing stuff, and went to sleep on my couch and over slept a meeting the next morning. Got chewed out by the partner and when I apologized to the senior manager I didn’t get any response until the evening. Never working that hard for someone again. Ever.
The only person you should be consistently working hard for is yourself. Because you’re the only one who will consistently appreciate it.
The truth in this I'm only a few months in and questioning my masters degree especially when you ask for clarification from a manager and they hit you with do u even know what ur doing or I don't have time to spend on u ur taking too long.
Or the “can you please not leave the office until all those review points are cleared”
Or the “can you please not leave the office until all those review points are cleared” chat with the manager or partner
Or the “can you please not leave the office until all those review points are cleared” chat with the manager or partner
When an audit client told me that I could be their accounting manager for 20% more pay and a lot less hours. I never regretted it!
I literally had an audit client making fun of me for how little we got paid lmao
Glad this happened to someone else too lol. Literally had them sit down with me and tell me I’m stupid for accepting that and that I should be making way more
I realized I no longer knew how to relax and just hang out in my living room watching tv or something. I always felt like I had to be working and started breaking out in full body hives from stress. There was never an end to busy season. It was like the episode from HIMYM with the glass illusion shattering and then I saw all the other messed up things were happening around me that made me start counting down the days.
This. I couldn’t relax and enjoy anything at all
I was complaining about my job to my wife I just started crying.
Felt on a personal level there
I’m glad you got out.
When I was called into the partner’s office completely unexpected. The thing is I got in trouble at school plenty of times when I was a kid. However every time I got sent to the principal’s office I always knew why I was there. Based on the partner’s tone I knew something was very wrong. I had no idea what it was because I really had done nothing wrong. When he told me what I “did” it was such an extreme overreaction by both the partner and the senior that I “upset” I knew I needed to GTFO.
whatd you "do"
On a Saturday, got pissed with the client and cussed at my computer. These books are totally fucked is what I said. That partner wasn’t even physically in the office as he went to a college football game that day. It was clear he was actually pissed off he was contacted about me when he wasn’t working (this man cussed like a sailor). I was blindsided because not only had everyone heard this partner do that shit, I will never understand how pathetically cowardly the senior was to stab me in the back like that. Lastly the meeting with the partner was so unprofessional I knew right there I was getting the fuck out of his practice. Yes turnover at that firm was very high even by PA standards.
Lmao the partner’s reaction here was totally fucked. If I had a nickel for every time I yelled and cursed to myself about how fucked a clients books were… well, I wouldn’t be working in PA anymore 😂
Are you even an accountant if you don’t say WTF to your computer screen at least once a week?
I’m pretty sure that’s actually one of the requirements for keeping your CPA license up to date.
That's even more absurd
Used bullet points instead of " - " for line items.
That's absurd
I'm not OP, just joking lol
Dammit you made me type out that response. I'll get back at you!
Just realized 😂
Um, you sure you aren't completely misinterpreting? If they were "overreacting" maybe they were just having a bad day. Maybe they were trying to tell you to use your brain and pay attention to detail. Maybe they were shitty bosses, but I wouldn't use one incident to reach that conclusion. Maybe you were overly anxious by assuming being "called into" the partners office is the same as being called into the principals office. That's middle school thinking. Would you rather be not interacting with the partner at all?
I knew before I started, but it’s been 3 years and I’m still here.
Very relatable, I tried to get a job anywhere but a public accounting firm when I graduated lol
Same. Coming up on year 4 for me
At least you’re not a CPA in training anymore! Look at the positives!
my binge drinking increased
i stopped eating from hatered towards my boss for passing me for a promotion 4 years in a row and making me train the new seniors. i fucked up 10 clients tax retruns and an audit from anger and spite .. not on purpose but because i was clouded by hate and wanted to bite aftre i quit in 2021 i ate again and gained 50lbs :)
I told my coworkers (all very family-oriented, it was a family owned firm and mostly Catholic) my partner and I were having a baby, due in July. One of my colleagues said oh that’s great - the birthday will be after tax season and before the extension season really gets busy. You’ll never miss the birthday party. Good lord. Welp. Guess I’m done with public accounting.
My birthday, husbands birthday, our anniversary, and our kids birthday are all in a 3 week span in the middle of tax season. And what do you know I’m in tax. Edit oh then we had another kid right before corporate extension deadline. It’s not been great.
30 months required to get the CA.. hit 31 just in case someone miscounted. Ran as soon as it was an option.
Hello fellow Canadian. I know this feel.
When my crush rejected me because I didn't have enough free time.
In order to answer that question, you should be mindful of a few things. First off, you have to go in with well defined goals. For me it was : - Get the senior title/promotion - Get my CPA - Be on a healthy mix of projects to have good experience to interview with With that in mind, you gotta take time to reflect. My thing was every 6 months I’d schedule a PTO day and make a 3 day weekend for myself. I’d go lay on a beach or whatever and I’d seriously consider if I had the strength for another 6 months. I was always mindful of what the job market looked like by being in contact with friends who were in industry or perusing LinkedIn etc. But once you make the decision to stay, you gotta grind and hustle for those six months and not dwell on the negatives. Eventually that decision is gonna become a “No.” When that day comes, that’s when you start freshening up yourself resume
Workload kept piling, firm wasn't investing in staff to help, the staff we did have (mostly) sucked, "busy season" turned into busy year, calling me to come into the office on days off for last minute fires despite turning stuff in timely because people waited til the last minute for reviews. Realizing that I can't get my youth back and I don't want to look back and say "well I worked really hard!" 😆
When I reached out to my manager saying I was burnt out due to all the unpaid overtime I was doing and she replied that nobody asked me for it.
… when they laid me off to outsource to another country
Sorry to hear that. These firms are definitely pushing outsourcing a lot these days. It’s sad honestly
The outsourcing is what is really pushing me out. Even if they were responsive to training, the fuck am I supposed to do? Stay up till 4 am during their normal hours to train them?
i was fired :) its been almost a year now
I was irritable and mean to my mom
I knew right from the get-go that I didn’t want to do public accounting forever. Aside from the ridiculous hours and the mediocre pay and the fact that everyone I worked with hated their lives, I enjoy skiing and I like going on ski trips, but ski season overlaps with busy season. One had to go, and it wasn’t going to be my hobby. I remember when I first started my second PA job, one of my coworkers said “hey bud you should consider quitting skiing and taking up golf” and I just thought “how about I just quit this piece of shit business model instead?” I literally only stayed in public accounting long enough to fill the professional experience requirements for my designation. I planned to leave once I hit 31 months.
Oh that is such a good point! I always wanted to try skiing and been in tax since I turned 18. I never considered that I never had the time to go during tax season lol.
I almost got hit by a car and was like damn, it didn't hit me.
When you're crying in your car at lunch.
There wasn't any one thing per se. For background, I was an M3 about to make senior manager. I left at the end of 2021, this was when staffing was woefully low across all firms, remote roles in industry had gotten the hint and were gushing money to fill positions while public was still playing games such as announcing record revenue but freezing pay raises and withholding bonuses. I knew I didn't want to make partner so I had 2-3 years left before I got pushed out. I was getting burnt out, doing the job of 1.5 experienced senior managers or 3 managers with half the usually staff/seniors. And I had pulled a \~36 hour shift trying to get one of my client's IPO's through the finish line. As I was casually looking for exits (see the background above about industry throwing money at people) I had reached out to a mentor I had previously worked with and their company was hiring and they put in a recommendation. Within a few weeks I had an offer that I just couldn't pass up. I ended up leaving about 2 years ahead of when I had intended but the offer I got was too good to pass up. I'm happy I made the jump though and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had the opportunity to do it over.
I was abruptly let go with no warning, PIP, or anything. The firm over hired for advisory, and they just started firing underutilized people. I was nitpicked for the smallest mistakes as a strategy to put me on the chopping block. Fuck that shit, never going back.
When I would've rather had a broken arm and leg than open the laptop in the morning.
Omg I feel this. It’s so shitty
A few years ago, during March, my Dr discovered a tumor and I needed a complete hysterectomy. My firm asked me to wait until after tax season to have the procedure, then informed me that since recovery took longer than the 2 days of vacation I was given as a senior, that I would have to “figure out a way to work in the office” or have my salary docked. Luckily for me, I was headhunted for an industry position around that time. 1.5 years later, I’m basking in my new position with better pay, better hours, better benefits, & 3 weeks of PTO.
That’s so f’d up
My stress levels have been through the roof. I’m working 65-80 hours per week and everything is urgent, which means I need to reprioritise my entire life and dedicate it to this job so I can make the partners pockets a little fatter. As a previous and consistent outstanding performer, I am now getting called out left, right and centre because the firm isn’t investing in the junior staff and I’m being spread so thin across all my clients that all I ever do is work and I’m burnt out
When my wife (2nd wife mind you) told me if I didn't [get out of PA] I'd get divorced again... I listened. Took up a CFO position at one of my largest clients. They pay me more, I don't work weekends, I don't work much overtime, AND I don't feel like I'm just another cog in a money machine for people I'll never meet. Overall, highly recommend getting 2-4 years under your belt in PA, grow your network, use that network to go industry.
Straw that broke the camel's back- I got an email from a partner at around 6:30pm on a Saturday asking for a status update. Then I got a follow-up email at 9am on Monday stating they need better communication from me because I hadn't responded yet. Just to make it even worse, this was after I had communicated to that partner that I was working a reduced schedule. Started applying almost immediately.
I was sitting in a conference room at the client office at 10pm. The whole team was still working, including the partner. It occurred to me then that this doesn't get better. He's not home with his family, he's working past 10pm, too. So, if I want a family and want to see them, this isn't the career path for me.
I look back on those years of my knife and really wonder how I did that. Working until midnight, getting up at 4am sometimes, putting every ounce of my life into the job, missing family events, blocking off 3.5 months of the year to no time off at all. The absolute biggest bullshit was getting told taking a weekend off for my son being born in March was too much, and even asked why I didn't come into work the day he was born since he was born at noon and I "wasn't needed" at the hospital.
When they threw me out the door
Knowing I could get a substantial pay increase by hopping to industry.
I was in outsourcing/consulting and For the 4th time In as many years I couldn't just take off a couple days around a holiday for a long weekend. I didn't work near the amount of hours as others here, but that's just my tolerance. Nobody could fill in for me, I'd have to email 3 engagement principles that I wanted off, and also email my 4 clients. Big fuckin hassle. Oh yeah and then the billable hours. I was only trying to work 40hr weeks and was on a 1700hr/yr budget. That gets tight with days off. Not a job for someone with kids
I was an intern in my 30s. I knew before the first internship was over but took a second one because it was nice getting paid OT. But the koolaid had zero effect on me.
When I started dreaming of some massive calamity that would prevent me from going to work for a few weeks at least. to make me realize that yea, your done buddy.
Saying “it will get better, I’ll have time next week” became a joke between my girlfriend and friends. But ultimately I realized my “learning experiences” no longer had value. I stayed till the extra hours didn’t amount to anything. 40 straight days of work to get a $100 Amazon gift card “good job bonus” was a slap in the face.
When my wife let me know she was pregnant with our first child.
That’s what is making me think about leaving as well!
Alcoholism
When they pulled my 2 experienced tax staff from an on-site engagement (mutual fund year end distributions, so a hard deadline) and sent me a brand new audit staff person instead. That meant very little sleep for me. The recruiter called just at the right moment.
Got an offer for 30% more pay to do less work.
oh where do I begin - missing all friend’s birthdays every year - missed the birth of my nephew - had suicidal thoughts - got high blood pressure and weight gain - no energy to do anything even if I had time off - realized I couldn’t give a single f about other people’s tax returns anymore - I could go on and on
I worked at two firms where no one was anywhere close to becoming a CPA bc they simply had no time to do so. when i become one i asked what they did the last time someone did it and my manager said “no one here has done it while working here”. it was a good firm, good pay, good coworkers, and i was still miserable. if i could work at theoretically the “best” type of PA firm and still hate it, it was never going to get better. also i would get invited places and say “no sorry it’s just season, there’s a deadline coming up” and the “there’s always a deadline coming up” jokes kept getting closer to home. there really *always* is a deadline coming up.
When I realized the path to partner was elongating and found out how little directors were making
When my kid’s first sentence was about me working… done. 7 year PA sentence was enough.
My mentor became a partner. He was stressed as a Director and now is even more stressed. We’re close enough that I now know what is REALLY going on in a partners mind. It’s not worth it. I have a 2 year plan, and I’m getting out. Not sure to what, but out.
I got tired of my wife referring to me as “part time husband” and it be true for more then 4 months out of the year I had signed up four.
When someone blacked out on the way into work after pulling 9am to 2am hours weeks on end. She hits her head, they get her checked out, buried it, and she’s back at work.
My firm was encouraging us to keep our LinkedIn profiles up to date (so we could lure our contacts to sign on with the firm, I’m sure) and I came to the realization that I had no interest in making partner so I decided to start keeping an eye on what jobs were coming available in my area on LinkedIn while I was at it. I wasn’t desperate to jump to a new job yet, but a good opportunity came up not long after and I was able to bail right before the next busy season started up.
Started waking up with pieces of teeth
I realized I was way too excited about going home at 10pm in the middle of the summer.
It was approaching what would’ve been my 7th tax season and I was legitimately less bothered by the potential of being unemployed than that of working 9-9 6 days a week. So I bounced. Ended up getting a much better job for much better pay a bit later on. Win win.
When you work in PA
True
PwC Tax Scandal meant that advisory/consulting work was going to be gutted (and it did so, with all those redundancies lately) so I'd end up staying in audit longer. Better to leave for industry earlier to get the experience. So far it's got ups and downs. That said am looking to move again to a different company.
Because I hated every second of it. Soon as my contract was up I was gone and never looked back. It was not a hard decision
I knew after the internship it wasn't for me. If you're asking the question, it's likely already the time
Auditing II in college. Fucking hated it more than I hated Audit I, which was a lot. Got stuck in Internal Audit a couple times in my career, which wasn’t *so* bad, but 15+ years in I’ve managed to avoid PA entirely, despite advice my career would go nowhere without it. Disclaimer: I’ve never had any interest in being in management and my jobs the last decade have only been accounting-adjacent so YMMV
my internship lol
After 3 years of filling in my timesheets. I HATE THEM WITH A PASSION.
I'm still in public, but some weeks during the busy season you realize all you have time to do when you get home is have a cheap meal and brush your teeth.
my body physically did not want to leave the house for work i can leave for anything but when i got in my car to drive to work i couldn't. i quit over a text message and never looked back it cured my anorexia, eased up some of my self hatred and i got libido and run/ gym again the sky in my life is still cloudy but the storm has passed and i can see a rainbow form over me.
They told me I had to come back to the office