Musings from the back seat of a cab

As included in the Company's monthly internal newsletter

It’s that time of year again, where my only connection to pop culture is Sandy Kenyon’s brash movie reviews (Why does he always pick the worst movies to review? No wonder all his reviews are harsh.) Come Thursday night, the thrill of answering the backseat Jeopardy questions feels cheapened by the fact you have played along with Alex Trebek the past three consecutive days. There are only so many times you can pat yourself on the back for knowing the name of Natalie Portman’s fiancé’s name. If these ramblings mean nothing to you, then you have not taken an NYC cab home every night for the past two months.

Other crazy occurrences when it’s busy season include - you stop having to check your bank account every couple days because you know you haven’t spent any money. You can’t figure out what’s worse – that your pants don’t fit because you get no exercise all day or because you just ate cashew chicken for the third time this week.

People try to give me advice on how to get through busy season. They tell me things like spend Sundays sleeping or plan a fun getaway for the end of busy season, but I’ll tell you what works for me. Hypnosis. I spend the first five minutes of the day dangling a red pencil in front of my face chanting – “the balances will reconcile. The balances will reconcile. The balances will reconcile.” When in this trance like state, nothing gets me down. People yelling at me, clients complaining “I already gave you that support.” I move through it all in a daze. Granted I’m not very productive when in the trance, and I am pretty sure my engagement team is completely creeped out, but that’s when I start chanting “Don’t let the haters get you down.”

Top Ten Pieces of Advice on Surviving Busy Season

As included in the Company's monthly newsletter

Submitted by engagement teams
1. Eat Silly Putty while watching America’s cutest kitty videos on YouTube. After that, you’ll look forward to going back to workpapers. Nicole Luft on Soc Gen.
2. If you are an auditor, pick NFL teams like the Lions, Browns, Panthers, Giants or Jets to root for. That way you won’t miss a thing if you work on Superbowl Sunday. Nick Iosifov on Morgan Stanley.
3. The video chat calling feature on messenger was implemented so you wouldn’t have to leave work and waste time seeing your friends and family during busy season. Nick Iosifov on Morgan Stanley.
4. Purchase ProActiv Acne Solution and apply generously. Chris Cryderman on KKR.
5. Go to the gym. Matt Lorie on Evercore Partners.
6. Get enough sleep. And shower every day. Benjamin Hong on Evercore Partners.
7. Try to make a Friday happy hour – or do some Saturday day time drinking, if possible. Michael Ho on Lehman SIPC engagement – Trade Unwinds Team.
8. Develop a really bad gambling addiction, realize you have no time to actually gamble, and then feel good about conquering your addiction. Jeff Macfarland on Morgan Stanley.
9. Sleep in every Thursday. And by sleep in, I mean, turn your clock back 3 hours and get an extra 2 hours of sleep. This way, you’ll still make it in an hour early on Thursday. Jeff Macfarland on Morgan Stanley.
10. Think about all the fun you’ll have shopping for new clothes, either to replace the ones you got too fat to wear or to replace the ones that were ruined by the nightly tears/greasy dinner orders. Jeff Macfarland on Morgan Stanley.

Top Ten Lessons I Learned This Busy Season

Submitted to company newsletter March 2010

Top Ten Lessons I Learned This Busy Season

1. SIPC Agreed Upon Procedures, huh?
2. No matter how many hours you put in at work, your roommates think you still have time to do all their dishes.
3. No matter how meticulous or organized you are, there will always be an error with your engagement team’s take-out delivery.
4. There are 65,536 lines in an Excel schedule. Because anything larger than that means hours of frustration with an Access database.
5. ASC 820-10 = SFAS 157 = ASC 820-10. I’ll learn the rest of them next year.
6. The data doesn’t mine itself.
7. There is nothing like that wave of anxiety when you import a transfer file in AS/2 and have that 3 second wait period to see how many review notes you will have back.
8. You love the new Audit Methodology…
9. Except for the times you hate the new Audit Methodology.
10. “More than I ever wanted to learn about the Maritime Marine Act of 1920, otherwise known as the Jones Act” (quote from Herb Lohmann on auditing commodities)

January 2010 Email Update

Hey friends, I don't think I have sent out an email update since Africa 2009, so here are the highlights of the past few months.

Allen Boorstein. I received a voicemail at my desk one fall afternoon. An older gent Allen Boorstein called to ask for Charles Goldsmith* because Allen is writing a book. Turns out Allen was the president of Rob Roy, the first company to outsource manufacturing to Japan, Korea, and later China. He held the exclusive licensing rights to Snoopy, Roy Rogers, and Superman. He fought in WWII and graduated from Harvard Business School in 1950. He's insane and hilarious and eccentric. Yadda yadda yadda, he now pays me to help him write this book, which will most likely never come to fruition because he is easily distracted. It's cool. I read the paper with him and his wife on Saturdays in their apartment, which has a larger foyer than my entire three-person apartment, and file the emails he receives and prints out.

*If you know the whereabouts of Charles Goldsmith, let me know because we are still searching for him. He was a Deloitte partner in the 80's, and Allen and I cannot find him on friendster.

This Monday. I will be an extra in a Passion Pit music video. Why not?

Petra. In my quest to see the Seven Wonders of the World before I am thirty, my roommate and I have sought out Petra as our destination of choice in September 2010. This brings me to the whole point of sending out this email.

Sarah Lindenberg, purveyor of good times*, and I would like to visit Jordan and Israel and maybe some other sights in the area, perhaps Turkey, during the first half of September. We are looking for interested companions to join in our search for impromptu dance parties, strange encounters with families and small children, and increasing the love other countries already have for Americans.

Gordon Hua from India 2K7 may join along. Should be insane.

*"Purveyor of Good Times" is a phrase coined by Johnathan George in 2010, memo writer and break dancer extraordinare.

Pens. I have like a hundred ink pens that read "2009 I lost Michael Jackson but I got this pen from Tara Hagan." If you want one, send me a self addressed stamped envelope, and I will mail you one. I ran out of stamps and envelopes after the holiday card mailing. My address is 303 Broome Apt 6, New York, New York 10002.

Busy Season 2010. So it's that time of year again where I disappear into the mounds of data waiting for me to mine it, vlookup it, if(iserror(cell,true,false)) it, goal seek it, and basically just love on it. It's been a pleasure knowing you, but I probably won't see you for a couple months but will more than make it up to you afterwards. Love you.

Mass Emails Suck. Seriously, let me know if you want me to stop sending you generic mass emails. They are lame, but if you write me back, I will write you a personal email and/or stop emailing you if you would prefer that route.

Top Ten Reasons Why I am Okay With Busy Season

Submitted to company newsletter in February 2010 issue

That abusive mistress, busy season. It torments and teases and makes a fool of me, and yet I keep coming back to her. After a few years, I have come to terms with busy season, and thus have compiled my top ten reasons I am okay with busy season.

1. It’s seasonal. Like depression.
2. The data doesn’t mine itself. It needs me to mine it, vlookup it, if(iserror(cell, true,false)) it, goal seek it, basically just love on it.
3. It’s really good practice for the 10-Q. No? The other way around?
4. If you’re single, you get to ignore the whole Valentine’s Day hoopla.
5. If you’re not single, you get to somewhat ignore the whole Valentine’s Day hoopla.
6. It’s paradise for clinical insomniacs and masochists… basically vampires. And vampires are hot these days in the books and on the screen. We were all on the forefront of the trend years ago.
7. Think of all the new excel formulas you’ll learn. Party tricks!
8. After working that first Saturday together where everyone comes in casual clothes, you realize you would never recognize any of your coworkers on the street and they would never be able to recognize you on the street either, and this brings you great comfort.
9. Speaking of casual wear on the weekends, when else do you get to wear your Animaniacs™ t-shirt, tie-dye fanny pack, and black jorts to work? Other than in your dreams.
10. In all seriousness, when I look back over my past few busy seasons, these are the moments I learn the most and appreciate my teammates the most. So why not embrace the challenge and make the most of it. Best of luck!

Busy Season Withdrawal

Submitted to Company Newsletter

Let’s talk about something real. Withdrawal. It happens every year after busy season. The email floods slow down, the alarm clock goes off a little later, you actually see friends and family after work. It’s awkward, right? Before long your fingers start itching, you start checking your email late at night hoping someone sent you a request, and you ask your roommate to create some fictitious spreadsheets for you to audit.

It’s a condition known in the medical community as Busy Season Withdrawal (BSW or BS-dubs), which afflicts up to .04% of left handed accountants who live along the Topic of Cancer. Symptoms include a desire to pass around a menu and ask people for their take-out requests and a tendency call and confirm if people really did send you the fax they just sent you.

After suffering for maybe 5 minutes last year, I wrote a book called Letting Love Go: How to Deal with the End of Busy Season. In it, I outline various ways to deal with the disorder. Below are some key suggestions.

1. Mock audit. Remember when you had moot court in high school where you argued your stances on the juvenile justice system? Same thing. Get some members of your engagement team together and relive your glory days.
2. Carry a dummy 10-key. I had my first year cut off a square from her jacket and outline in white-out the keys of my 10-key. When I am out and start to miss busy season, I pull the rolled up dummy calculator out of my pocket and place it on the bar or restaurant table or subway seat next to me and start entering the data. It’s just a release to keep the fingers nimble during the off-season.
3. Consider switching hemispheres. I am not sure how this works, but I have a theory. Ms. Mathison taught me seasons and how the crazy world works. In her third grade class, I learned when it’s summer here, it’s winter in Zimbabwe. When it’s winter here, it’s summer in Tierra del Fuego. Assuming this holds constant, if it’s not busy season here, would it be busy season in Zimbabwe? Consider me applying for the transfer.

It’s a tough world out there, especially after busy season ends. Please let me know if you have further questions about BSW or if you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book Letting Love Go. I might be able to scrounge up a couple Xeroxed copies in my cousin’s car.