J-Shore + auditing

As Jeff and I submitted to the Company's internal employee newsletter Top 10 Ways to incorporate the lessons learned from the past 3 years of watching Jersey Shore into your professional growth at the Firm.

1. Training your staff - Much like Snooki took Deana under her wing and integrated her into the crew, you should take care of your new teammates and make sure they feel comfortable on the engagement.


2. Practicing work life balance – Gym, Tan, Laundry (GTL) isn’t just for TV superstars. It actually is an effective way to be productive on the weekends, freeing you up for more club time / reviewing workpapers at night.


3. Put friends and family first – Thursday night spaghetti and chicken cutlet dinners with your teammates


4. Respecting your significant other/spouse – Treat them with the same compassion and kindness that Sammy and Ronnie treat each other with (as a word of caution, steer clear of Fred Flinstone Toe jokes when coming home late from work)


5. Motivation and Serenity - Treat everyday like you're living at the beach


6. Work Attire - Dress and groom yourself like you are getting ready to pile in a cab and hit up the club (It’s Dress Shirt Timmmmmmmme!!!!!!!!!)


7. Communicating with management – When discussing status, speak as if you were pouring your emotions out to the camera for a heartfelt monologue. It’s our opinion that it looks much better when you have a cool beach background. We suggest using the web camera on your Deloitte computer while utilizing a green screen for all future meetings with the partners.


8. Handling criticism when receiving workpapers back - Don't let the haters get you down. So you got metaphorically punched in the face by your senior. Big deal. Take a tip from Snooki and pick yourself up and finish wau-ing your file.


9. Team Communication – It’s important to have team meetings. If you feel uncomfortable meeting with teammates in a hot tub like out J-Shore crew, try reserving a conference room for weekly status updates.


10. Work efficiency – Beat the beat up. Have you ever tried to listen to hardcore techno while doing workpapers, it’s the equivalent of an athlete taking steroids. Glow sticks and hair gel are reimbused by the company.


11. Communication – Using self-given nicknames around the office boosts team morale and really builds relationships. (Here are some suggestions - “Tommy Tickmarks,” “The Explanation,” DJ CTT”


12. Confidence – The “situation” didn’t get to where he is today (winning) by keeping to himself. Be proud of who you are and what you add to the team and don’t hesitate to let everyone know how good you are at auditing.


13. Just like how a Top Ten List only has 10 items, we took a cue from the J Shore crew and we didn’t limit ourselves to standard norms. That and we didn’t know which one to delete; they’re all pretty key suggestions.

Corporate University

As submitted to the Company's Internal Employee Newsletter I have a significant other of sorts. The term sounds a bit too serious, so I typically call him my manpanion. My manpanion used to work at a company that Deloitte audits. At dinner one night, he chuckles to himself. I inquire about what is so funny. He says, “We had an audit kickoff meeting today, and your Deloitte guy introduces himself as a senior.” He is waiting for me to laugh with him, but I don’t understand the punch line. Manpanion explains, “We were like - Senior? Senior what? Like you used to be a junior, but now you’re a senior?” Manpanion continues, “What like you have a campus (1) and your soccer team (2) is playing against KPMG for the state title? No, you guys probably have like Math competitions or chess tournaments with them. You race to look up accounting references (3). Beat PWC in the semifinals. Haha, you sign each others’ yearbooks (4)? You write ‘Freshmen suck. Class of ’06 rules. Keep in touch’?” I didn’t really know how to respond to this exaggerated imagination my manpanion had of Deloitte, but then the more I thought about it, when I diagrammed his diatribe, I realized,

1. They were building a Deloitte University campus.


2. One year, I did play on a volleyball team against other accounting firms. Also, I once knew a guy who played on an international Deloitte soccer team.


3. In college, I participated in the Deloitte tax case competition, where you do a mock tax case and research the Internal Revenue Code.


4. When I left one engagement, I received a yearbook of sorts made out of the 10-K for the client, filled with pictures and yearbook-like personal notes. So for all his fanciful imaginations and jokes, his perception may have been more accurate than he realized. Well, I am off to finish up the rest of my finals projects… er um… audit workpapers for my busy season clients.

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.

New Year’s Resolutions – your last ones

What are your New Year’s resolutions? They’d better be good. These are your last ones. That’s right. 2012, the world is ending per the Hopi and the Mayans and Nicolas Cage. So I took the time to put together some resolutions to prepare yourself for the end of the world and to make the most of the last year that Earth will be the cool place to live.

1. Join a militia. Better yet start one. That way, you’ll be the leader and the other militiamen have to protect you and your domain.
2. Sell fake goods. Some sects out there are going to start stocking up on power generators and canned goods and other survival supplies. There is a market for this. Exploit it. So I put together a flashlight glued to a tank of lighter fluid and sold it online for $200 as a power generator. If the world doesn’t collapse in 2012, the buyer will never need it and never notice it’s worthless.
3. Remember how cool Y2K was!?!? Remember how on office space, the main character said he helped businesses prepare for Y2K? Totally start a consulting business telling companies you’ll help them prepare their computer systems for the 2012 end of the world. When it passes, you’ll look like a success.
4. Write a cool song for 2012. Prince knew was business savvy when he wrote “Party Like it’s 1999.” It was a commercial success and the theme song of 1999. Follow his lead and write a ditty for ’11. Rhymes with heaven, seven, Kevin. Should make for a promising mix.
5. Tell your staff to get all the audit workpapers done early. Tell them they have to wrap up the audit by 12/31/2011. When they tell you, they can't audit the books when they haven’t yet closed, tell them it’s only going to get harder to audit the books after the world slips into anarchy.
6. Start acclimating yourself to the taste of canned foods.
7. USD will become meaningless in an anarchist society. Therefore you need to project what will be the new currency and start stocking up on it. Probably snowglobes and abaci (the plural of abacus). The snowglobes to remind humans of how pretty the world was and abaci because you still want to be a respectable accountant in a world without currency and calculators.

Divestitures and Such

Submitted to Company Newsletter March 2010

As I prepare to roll off my busy season client and out of audit, I decided to express my appreciation, exasperation, and/or unending love for various teammates by designing and ordering the below magnets.

I plan to customize them with the below examples.

• Remember the time we worked together? It was like petting puppies and eating ice cream daily because you were always writing the most concise yet thoughtful tickmarks.


• Remember the time we worked together? It was like working with Santa Claus because you were bringing me presents in the form of GAAS compliant audit procedures.


• Remember the time we worked together? It was like working with the lead singer of a Tears for Fears cover band because you were always listening to your earphones and rocking out to “Shout” like you weren’t an auditor in a janitorial closet at 11:00 p.m. on a Thursday night.


• Remember the time we worked together? It was like the Commitments and Contingencies footnote because you were always a “guaranteed” good time.


• Remember the time we worked together? It was like being at a three-month long LAN party because you were sleep deprived, unkempt, really into your computer and always aiming to conquer the virtual world that is SEC compliance.


• Remember the time we worked together? It was like the new Auditing Standards Codification, because you were confusing, demanding, and elusive yet well-intentioned.

I ordered 200 magnets, so let me know if you want one.

On a serious note, I am turning in my red pencil and GAAP Checklist log-in and transferring out of audit. It’s been real, and so to anyone who is reading this - Remember the time we worked together? It was like being a moon in a waxing gibbous phase because you let me have a good time once a month even if it was awkward. Gibbous phases are weird. Accounting jokes are weird. And we all let them happen once a month. Thanks.

Open Letter to the Managing Partner

I found this in my email this week. I guess I wrote it for the Company Newsletter a year ago, but maybe they wouldn't let me include it or something.

An Open Letter to the Managing Partner:

It's Monday afternoon. Between catching up on all the work I intended to complete over the weekend yet never touched and counting down the hours until the next weekend, I receive an email. Has Jake Gyllenhaal finally replied to my fan emails? Or will it just be another notification of the restraining order Mr. Gyllenhaal has issued against me? Will it be an email from kids at the high school down the block apologizing for mugging me for my KFC bucket of wings? Or will it be a message from the KFC agreeing to lace the coleslaw order with Crayolas and burnt cat hair the next time the punk kids order?

No, it's a message from Mr. Morrissey notifying me, yet again, of a tardy timesheet.

Hi, Ed. You seem like a nice enough guy, and I'm a somewhat earnest employee. You seem to care about time sheets, so I can care about time sheets. I have done some thinking and have some ideas on increasing time sheet submissions:

Time sheets remind me of when I worked at the blackberry orchard when I was thirteen. We always submitted them on time. When you're making $2.50/hour, you want every penny of it. There's something about physically punching a time clock. Maybe if someone could physically bring me a time clock and card, I'd stamp it on time. We also got a commission of sorts at the orchard - fifty cents for every quart of blackberries picked.

Maybe you could sweeten the deal with a quarter for every time I WAU on time.You know what makes time sheets tough - figuring out the most appropriate charge code. I have some ideas of new charge codes I could really use. If I could allocate some time to scrapbooking, rehearsing magic tricks, or aerophilately (the collecting airmail stamps), I'd definitely submit more timely time sheets.

My mom used to give us sticker charts growing up. Every time I did the dishes, Bonnie gave me a ladybug sticker. When I am home for the holidays, I can ask her if she has any more stickers if you want to dole them out as incentives. Anyway, just some thoughts. Maybe I will make timely time sheets my New Year's Resolution, right after getting Jake Gyllenhaal to reverse that cease and desist order. 2009 is going to be huge.

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)

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!

Holiday cards for the client

As submitted to the company newsletter for December 2009

Season’s greetings, Happy Hanukkah. Retailers seem to carry an abundance of holiday cards, but alas, I couldn’t quite find the appropriate sentiment for my client, so I resorted to making my own.

My love affair with knowing your birthday

As submitted to the company newsletter in November 2009

The Water Cooler, huh? To the new hires, I still recall when I first received the Water Cooler. As a recent college grad eager to usher in a new era of freedom from material misstatement to the wild world of financial reporting, I pretended to read the OneVoice and Technically Speaking, but let’s face it, I didn’t get as riled up about consolidating Variable Interest Entities as my senior did.

As a new hire, the Water Cooler was something I could really get into. Pictures, restaurant recommendations, wedding announcements. Over the years, I have come to understand and appreciate the other Deloitte email newsletters and have even gotten excited about updates to the New Audit Methodology.

Over the years, I have also learned what truly makes a great newsletter here at Deloitte.

1. It helps if you can get a mascot, a face and voice to the newsletter, kinda like Oprah is to O magazine. AERS Weekly has Tommasino; One Voice boasts Jeff Kottkamp as its cover model; we have Ed; and Barry Salzberg is always sending out his own newsletters.
2. Colors are crucial. It’s Deloitte; the tasteful use of a palette of colors is encouraged, as long as the only colors used are blue and bright green.
3. Links, tons of links are always encouraged. They make your publication look researched and important. That’s why each month, when we compile the Water Cooler, we insert at least 15 fake links. Just bold a few words and people will think there are tons of data and additional information for whatever you just sent.

Setting Goals

As submitted to company newsletter in September 2009

I am a goal-setter, and more importantly, a goal-attainer. Like my other colleagues, my counselor and I got together and outlined some professional goals for the next year.

My counselor recommended these goals.

1. 100% utilization
2. Get involved in a BRG
3. Pass my CPA exam
4. Learn the new audit approach

I agreed to these goals.

1. 100% utilization
2. Get involved in a BRG
3. Get a CPA certification
4. Learn the new audit approach

This is how I will accomplish said goals.

1. Lobby to make time spent polishing Where’s Waldo figurines a work-related activity
2. Start a BRG focusing on speed-eating Nacho Cheese Doritos with chopsticks
3. Did you know you can be certified by the Composite Panel Association (CPA), which represents the composite panel and decorative surfacing industries? (http://www.pbmdf.com/)
4. Have you seen the new audit approach? It caps selections at 75. Of course, I am going to learn this.
   

Television for Auditors

Submitted to Company Newsletter in September 2009

The other day, as I was settling down on the sofa about to dig in to my hearty home-cooked dinner of microwavable oatmeal from Trader Joe’s, I noticed this black square with a silver frame across the room from me. My television seemed so foreign at the time. As I was staring at it, I started to wonder how long it’d been since I’d turned it on – weeks, months? I honestly could not recall the last time I’d watched the television. This troubled me.

I had to figure out what happened to my affinity for the tele, and then I realized the reason I don’t watch the television anymore is because there are no accounting-related programs. For real. Who wants to watch Dancing with the Stars or 30 Rock? Dancing, comedy? Sounds lame, which is why I have created an idea for a new accounting-related program.

The obvious choice is Real World. “This is the true story... of seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World.” Um, pretty sure this is every day in the audit room. We just need cameras and confession rooms.

I am sure you already some interesting characters on your team. The senior who carries her full-size rabbit with her to client meetings and has the furry creature conduct SOX interviews. The tourettes-afflicted second year with multiple personality disorder, who sometimes fills out SAS documents signing off as Jimi Hendrix and sometimes as Samuel L. Jackson. The senior with joint problems of a senior citizen, who makes your massage his ankles and crack his knuckles and soak his feet.

No, these are just people on my team?

Conquering the Wild West One Wikipedia Page at a Time

Submitted to Company Newsletter in August 2009

So my new hobby is updating Wikipedia pages. Unfortunately all the topics I find fascinating are either not Wiki material or already covered.

• How to live in a West Village apartment with six foot ceilings with a shower in the kitchen and a ladder to get to your catacomb-like bed space – a topic I know well but not Wiki material.
• The pilot episode of 30 Rock – already covered.
• Islamic calligraphy certificates, Diocletianic Persecution, Certified Public Accountants – respectively, fascinating and covered, fascinating and covered, no clue what this is but apparently covered.

So what topics are left? What topics are truly riveting but obscure enough to still be unclaimed in the Wiki-sphere? Accounting pronouncements.

Apparently, if Wikipedia were a land-run, with settlers in their Conestoga wagons scrambling about the virtual plots of potential topics and laying stake to their choices of prime real estate, topics like Lance Armstrong would be like verdant land next to the sparkling, fish-bearing river. And yet, accounting pronouncements would be the equivalent of the dried up, infertile clay plot with annoying neighbors, which is why I was able to secure some forsaken Wiki space for my latest contribution. Ah yes, I wrote this Wiki page – SFAS 157. So if you’d like to add citations, pictures, discussion, etc, we could really fix her up and have a “homestead” we could really be proud of. Figuratively speaking, in keeping with the settler theme.

Other tidbits I learned while writing this article.

• Gopinath Muthukad founded the first magic academy of Asia in Thiruvananthapuram, present-day Trivandrum and the capital of the Indian state Kerala.
• The design of the Conestoga wagon, with its boat-like shape and sturdy frame, explains why I was able to successfully ford the river in the game Oregon Trail numerous times.
• Oregon Trail was actually a television series in the late 70’s; it was cancelled after six episodes.
• Apparently there is a Tasmanian politician named Lance Armstrong. I’d probably vote for him just for the name.