It’s been two years since I left one of the Big 4 as an audit senior. But it feels like I left something in that CPA factory that I want to get back.
I left two years ago for a number of reasons. I want a fair manager. I want to have a clear and defined work schedule like 8 to 5 or 9 to 6. I want to experience going to bed as early as 9PM every night. I want to get rid of “sleepcomputing” which means calculating income tax payable in my dreams. Not to mention “sleep meetings” or when I speak while sleeping murmuring something like “Na-post na ba ung mga CAJE? Na-book na ba ung mga adjustments?”. I want the idea of having my own cubicle without a messy desk filled with working papers and drafts of financial statements and audit reports. I want to experience a hassle-free, relaxed and smooth-sailing second week of April - before April 15. I need money to pay my bills. Simply put, I want the so-called “life”.
So I left public accounting and joined the bandwagon of “emancipated ones” and entered a multinational bank as an analyst for its Financial Planning and Analysis team or FP&A. FP&A is a sexy term so I thought it might suit a sexy guy like me (This is my blog! I have authority to say anything lol). And it did but only on the orientation day. The next days suddenly became a hell for me. I find routine accounting and finance works pretty boring. Everything is automated! And all I have to do is to extract or download data and “copy and paste” them into an Excel template where I extend only the formula in each cell after another series of “copy-paste” to generate the journal entries for posting to another application system. I don’t even know what those numbers represent, or even the entries I post. I felt like I dropped my brain somewhere along Paseo de Roxas and I don’t mind of looking for it because I was able to survive for weeks without it anyway. The only best thing that I look forward everyday is having a cup of Bistro Deli’s brewed coffee and choco butternut doughnuts for breakfast (why mind of eating transfat if it’s the only thing that keeps me sane?!).
Then, after experiencing a life-changing retreat at Mt. Banahaw with Frank Regis as our facilitator, I rediscovered the purpose of my life. I am not meant to be an analyst or even an accountant. I still like doing audit and assurance and even consulting. Hence, I resigned after six months and joined a pharmaceutical giant as a risk and internal control professional.
Risk and Compliance is another sexy term. I was involved in a pioneering Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) automation project in the country. The compensation and benefits are really really great! Everything went well as I was able to apply my expertise in risk and control. I introduced best practice tools, I crafted a Control Self-Assessment Program and a Risk Awareness Campaign program. I facilitated trainings and workshops for process owners and I was also able to practice the writer in me via articles posted in the Company intranet and publications, and drafting/co-authoring/reviewing policies and procedures for the Company. If not for my Big 4 experience, I wouldn’t be able to create everything from scratch.
You might be asking why the hell I still want to get out of my current work. Here’s the big picture: My work is superb, benefits are good, gym and boxing classes are free (this is a big opportunity cost for me lol), lots of bonuses and others. But I need to tell you I am three levels below the appropriate position or level in terms of my knowledge and skill set. I am receiving only half of my market value salary. I am the youngest employee there in my 20’s while they are in their late 40’s and 50’s yet I patiently answers their naïve questions like “why do we need to test the design of a control?” and directs them on what to do (and they call themselves managers and directors). Now I understand why external consultants didn’t have a hard time winning an engagement with these kind of companies.
You know, the unpleasant reality in large private companies is there is the limited and snail-paced career growth. Learning stops and trainings comes in a leap year-like manner. You need to patiently wait for years and years until your boss retires, resigns or transfers to another department. But that itself is not an assurance because the trend nowadays is to replace them with outsiders from other companies. In fact, there are employees who are stuck in their staff positions for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years or more. Politics oftentimes serves as a great catalyst for climbing the corporate ladder and if you don’t belong to the so called “fraternity” forget about getting inside the inner circle of VP’s and C-level executives.
If you are a CPA and you learned that the Finance Department (which is composed mostly of CPA’s) is the lowest paid (one reason is because it’s only a support service department), you might feel like you are a victim of your college professor who tortured you in every quiz and departmental exam during college. You didn’t took and passed the notorious CPA exam just to later on learn that those guys who play billiards during office hours at the company gym are the owners of top of the line cars parked outside the building. You dread yourself reconciling the balances, processing their transactions, payroll and month-end reports, while knowing that you can’t even buy a second-hand car in the profit share you received.
When I told these things to my superior he can’t but help to ask “Ang galing mo talaga. Paano mo nalaman agad yang mga yan?” which I answered, “Sir, auditor po ako. I know the control environment component of COSO by heart at malakas ang aking pakiramdam”. Then he gave-up on brainwashing me in order to retract my resignation.
So I tendered my resignation and it shook our Boss’s cranium. Of course that reaction is expected because he will be handicapped after 30 days. It’s the middle of the year and performance evaluation is due at the end of the current month and it might affect his rating. But I promised to exit gracefully by completing all the scheduled deliverables up to the effective date of my resignation. People who attended my training and workshop didn’t even have a clue that I have already tendered my resignation because of my lively performance at the podium two days later.
Last week, as I was looking for copies of the financial reports I produced last 2009 (I am set for a partner interview in a Big 4 firm), I saw one small blue booklet which I used during my college and review school days. I browsed over its brownish pages and one small note caught my attention and made me bit my lips in an attempt to refrain from falling a tear. It read,
“Jay Olos, CPA, CIA, CFE, CMA, MBA,
Chairman, Olos, Olos & Co., CPAs”
I remember writing it while reviewing an Auditing Theory handout at PRTC Library sometime in 2006. It reminded me of my goal and my ambition. It reminded me of the interview question thrown at me by an HR Manager which I confidently answered “I wanna be a partner”. And it reminded me that it’s the right time to get back on track while the potential salary drop in my current compensation won’t hurt so much.
Some might be asking right now if I am out of my mind to go back to a job that demands meter-breaking stress levels. Well, maybe yes, I’m out of my mind and that’s made me distinct. The distinction I have as a CPA is my only weapon to rise above the rest of the working class just like other professionals do. Doctors have patients, teachers have students, lawyers appear on courts, engineers and architects builds buildings and infrastructures and even licensed personal trainers have gym clients. So am I as a CPA, I should have my clients too. I wanna be my own boss with unlimited income potential. I view it not as stereotyping but rather a pure professional calling. Yes, I am one of the 2% who had the calling to stay on one of the world’s toughest yet underpaid jobs.
I’m into a crossroad again, walking slowly as I think about the entirety of my career as of date. I’ve been through all phases of accounting careers – finance, internal audit and risk management, public, and private. Having experienced both worlds gave me a realization of which career path to take.
I have decided. I’m gonna make a U-turn.
