[discouragedinpublic]

I've experienced some form of office politics at every company I have gone to.

The first corporate job I had, it was accounting vs. operations and HR. Accounting had a reputation for being jerks and difficult to work with and I was transferring from HR into Accounting. Yikes! HR director tried to warn me about the department.

He told me not to try to change anything. Don't make suggestions. Stay under the radar. Learn as much as I can.

Did I listen? No, of course not.

My first week in accounting, the VP's favorite launched a campaign to discredit everything about me and even went as far as to accuse me of purposefully withholding copies of A/R documents to make her job more difficult. She was a great communicator and the bosses favorite, but she was so negative and very difficult for me to be around. The other two girls in our department went along with her crap for a while up until the Boss's favorite got promoted to a position above my supervisor. Than all the sudden all the gloves were off.

I went from being the new girl to the one everyone came to talk to when everything got real.

I left that company because it was toxic and there was only so far I could go.

I went to a construction company afterwards and it was amazing. I thankfully got a boss that was very relieved to have talent at a reasonable salary and I was eager to learn and he was happy to teach. For the most part I really loved that job but there was only so far I could advance at that company. I like to think there weren't any office politics because the leaders were secure with their position and did not feel a need to tear me down or anyone down for that matter.

I moved onto a very large company with over 6,000 employees. I worked in central accounting so we had about 80 accountants and there were six on my team. Our supervisor was a little “unpolished” and was great at a lot of things a supervisor should be good at, but also fell trap to many of the pit falls one can fall into when you just don't know any better and haven't gotten in trouble for it yet. She did have a favorite on our team and that person was very intelligent, very communicative and ridiculously toxic. It was a rough feeling when I would get cut down in meetings by this toxic person and I couldn't say anything to my supervisor about it because I was afraid they would take the toxic person's side or think I was blowing it out of proportion.

My saving grace was another teammate that came to me and told me that she felt like she was also being attacked by that person. I started speaking up after that. I had to cause a few waves in the corporate structure but my colleagues respected me and even thanked me for addressing the issue. And after making my supervisor aware of it the blows started to subside a little. If I had stayed I may or may not have become a supervisor. I remember feeling uneasy because I was having to push through those boundaries in order to set up a healthier work environment but at the same time I realized it wasn't an environment I wanted to keep working in.

My current company has a great work culture but I'm not good at playing office politics at this one.

You live and you learn. My advice is to pick the companies you really want to work for and do some research on them before you bother applying. Pay attention to red flags. And if you can't, if you're a victim of circumstance like I am in this round, do everything you can to learn from it so that you do not bring those same problems into your next job.

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[discouragedinpublic]

I planned my exam for the very last day of the testing window. My goal was to get my score back as soon as possible to minimize any downtime in between the exam if I had failed it the first time.

I would recommend scheduling your exam according to the score release date. Like how they say, exams received between September 1 and September 10 have target score release date of September 20th. I purposefully scheduled my exam for September 10th so I didn't have to torture myself longer than I had to in wondering if I passed it or not.

Thank God I passed it. Each one of these exams has made me a nervous wreck.

Good luck to you,

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[discouragedinpublic]

I agree with all of you. I think it’s a mix of poor hiring decisions (after all they hired me after a 10 minute interview) and me not being senior material for a public accounting job. I was so excited to break into public accounting that i completely ignored the red flags. I think they hired me as a senior to justify my pay because I got paid great in industry, but I think it’s irresponsible not to provide basic training to anyone coming in regardless of their position.

I realize now that maybe that’s just the way public accounting is.

Our department doesn’t actually have a busy season, we focus on litigation more than anything and the learning curve is 2 years in our department.

They have told me I have a couple of weeks to figure things out and resign but my husband told me that I’m not allowed to quit and I need to swallow my pride so I can collect unemployment because we have a family to support.

I don’t know what’s worse to be fired or to quit after only a few months. Either way I feel like it makes me look unstable. I’ve gotten several calls from recruiters and they’re all trying to put me in construction companies which I do have a lot of experience in, but I do not like the culture in construction so I’m frustrated.

I do have an interview tomorrow for a smaller firm in their tax department but I’m afraid I will flail and I will have to take a 20k per year pay cut to justify my true lack of experience and I’m not sure it’s worth it. I mean I know it’s worth it but I just feel so mortified after this experience. I wish I could just quit and go home and recharge. Ugh. Thanks for letting me vent. I appreciate all of your advice and love it when I hear from you all.

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[discouragedinpublic]

Yes start looking for another job. I just found out a couple of weeks ago that I am getting axed only a little more than 6 months after leaving industry.

What’s strange to me is why they are giving me professional courtesy to find another job before I get axed. I’m not getting any work, I literally go in and do nothing because I have no more clients and I am looking for a job full time.

But they don’t do that for most people. When your fired you are fired so I am still perplexed by this.

Pay attention to your instincts.

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[discouragedinpublic]

Hi! I worked in local government for a year and the short answer is no, you don’t need the cpa to work in local government but they did want us to have our masters.

Another thing to factor is that government work can be incredibly boring at least where I worked. You literally do the same thing almost every day.

Another thing to factor is that when you are working for the government you are also a civil servant and you don’t get paid like you might in private. Our government did not provide us with simple things like coffee or plastic wear, we had to buy all of that on our own. We also had high turnover, at least once a month someone was leaving.

One other thing… our government still made us work 70 hour weeks some times in order to get the CAFR out on time so it’s not always truly a 40 hour work week.

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[discouragedinpublic]

I actually considered going back to law school as well as it was something successful people in our department had in addition to their cpa. I just found out I am about to lose my job after only a few months and I am not sure if I am going to still consider going to law school. Like you I am about to pass my final cpa exam. I think I may have to go back into industry in which case I don’t see the point in going back to law. But if I had the chance to stay in that department I definitely would have.

AUD - NINJA in Training
BEC - 79
FAR - 80
REG - 81

Can’t fail unless you quit.

[Author]

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