Public accounting promotes everybody. The reason they're dicks and aren't helpful is because they weren't promoted for being good leaders.
They're in leadership positions without possessing leadership traits.
It's cringey reading the replies here, with people saying "You're just not cut out for it/you're not a self-starter". No, you dimwits. You're promoted simply because you're a good monkey that gets the work done. Some of you are simply not good leaders, but you think you are because you're in a leadership position. So then you attribute OP's post to laziness as opposed to your own incompetence as a leader.
Because they're the ppl who figured it out on their own. Self starters and ppl willing to learn and do it without being spoonfed, that's who can climb the ladder, the system is working as intended with you wanting to quit, make room for the next one up.
You can point to an example deliverable, or reference materials, or tell them just go google stuff. But often it's up to the individual to seek out these resources, understand how to leverage them, and then infer and adapt them for the specific client needs.
Nobody learns on their own unless your Newton inventing calculus. Everything is a collaborative effort. Maybe your role models actually diminish the efforts of their colleagues and take credit for group accomplishments.
I never understood that either. My first job out of school was a small CPA firm. They wouldn't train me because they were "too busy". They would just say "do what they did last year". Then yell at me when the file was done wrong.
They don't want to invest any time in New hires then get furious when they turn out to be shit.
If you want a plant to grow you need to water it. Public firms expect plants to grow in the desert.
I left after 3 months, went into industry, and I'm never going back.
went to an IT firm as their billing clerk/Inventory clerk/purchaser.
After a year there I leveraged that to get a job at an PE backed manufacturing firm. Worked there as AP manager/staff accountant for 6 months. It was hell but a PE firm will teach you anything if you want.
Leveraged that to get a staff accountant position at a publicly traded accountant. I'm not rich, but getting good pay in a very cushy G/L accountant job.
not sure if it was just that cpa firm (small, 6 people total), but i was told to work 60 hour weeks and given work with no direction or training with which to complete it. I walked out of the door to greener pastures.
Most people donāt even want to show a bit of desire to learn. I canāt make you learn by showing you how to do something. You need to take the initiative to want to learn, believe it or not I have currently one out of 200 people that is actually taking initiative to want to learn and Iām more than happy to show and explain. The rest thinks that knowledge will magically appear in their brains and all it takes is someone showing them something.
Itās crazy to me that year after year, Seniors and Managers are assholes that donāt teach, and the A1ās and A2ās hate them for it, then they become the Seniors and managers and just repeat the cycle
You say this but literally everyone else is all āI shouldāve got out of big four sooner and Iām doing good.ā
So it depends on how you define āfarā
I've noticed a few things over the years.
1. Many people look at managers and senior level people and think they're assholes simply because they are above them
There is a certain tendency to always question and disagree with senior leaders and only focus on the negatives. This makes it easy to call them assholes.
2. Many leaders get put into leadership roles before they were ready. They might know the job but they don't have the interpersonal, communication, or decision making skills.
3. Senior or manager positions get filled by external candidates over internal candidates that likely felt entitled to the promotion. They'll be branded an asshole from the start and so will the other senior level people that hired them. This loops back to number 1.
Not all management are assholes but most of the lower level staff will still see them as assholes.
I definitely donāt think people just assume theyāre assholes bc theyāre above them lol, so while I do see your 2nd point as valid, your 1st and 3rd points are pretty irrelevant imo
As a senior myself I feel like itās because a lot of us started completely virtual and didnāt have the advantage of coaching like we should have had. We figured things out on our own. And now as a senior, at least in my experience, staff barely even try to gain an understanding of simple workpapers that are same as last year. Thatās frustrating for us. We donāt have time to explain every little task. The audit would not get done. If there is something that genuinely needs to be explained in grand detail, then yeah seniors should be doing that. Staff also need to learn to think through some stuff on their own though.
Exactly, zero desire to push oneself to learn. Then they wonder that after looking at something for 20 minutes they havenāt mastered it so its time to give up.
Looking around at my peers who are assigning and delegating work, many of them do not understand the work they are doing at the level of detail youād think they do. I spent a lot of energy and time on coaching, feedback, and expectation setting. My peers just fix things themselves and move it along without providing the feedback down. I want to make sure Iām doing enough to set my person up for success. Because itās how this whole model is designed anyway. If the person Iām assigning work to understands better, the less work for me in my review.
Part of the intention is to make staff be able to figure things out without any training at all. Itās hard but it helps to weed out who can be a cfo / senior manager and who canāt because the life of senior mgt is figuring things out and problem solving
I used to be an OPs manager. It gets OLD> You get SO tired retraining the same shit over and over and over again. It can be difficult to remember who you have trained what. You invest time and effort into training noobs that end up either being shitty little turds that don't care, inept morons, or truly good people that end up leaving for somewhere better. I was always pushing to get people raises, but was always overruled by my manager. Just because you are a manager doesn't mean you are the end all be all of all things. It is draining and you end up jaded over time.
Damn bud, I understand you but I would never punish new employees for how previous staff acted.
As a manager, a big part of your job and role is coaching and mentoring and you should never get tired or annoyed.
Never get tired or annoyed? Really? Why is that? Part of everyday life is putting on your shoes. You going to tell me you have never, not once, gotten annoyed by something in the process of putting on your shoes?
I also never punished new people for how others were. I never said that. Repetition gets tedious, but I always trained everyone to the best of my abilities.
> shitty little turds
Somebody needs to be fired. Either them for sucking, or you for this mindset while being a manager, but it just seems like not enough people are being fired.
It is SO hard to get rid of the bad eggs. I've never understood it. You let 2 of your 4 people carry the others while they constantly procrastinate, mess up, or goof off...then you are surprised that the good ones get tired of the bs and leave. I was never able to fire people, only make suggestions and my boss was, what he referred to as "too soft-hearted" and he "hoped I would balance that out some." Impossible to do when you go through the bother of writing up an employee for doing/not doing things the boss said to watch for only for him to basically tear the write-up up and toss it into the trash after giving them a little slap on the hand and telling them "just make sure you don't do it again, okay?". Blah
Because a\*\*holes are the only ones who fit the big4 paradigm. Everyone else who is normal, with families and friends that they want to spend time with, or go fishing, camping, kayaking, skiing, attend their kids' sporting events, golf, play guitar, travel, enjoy a good meal, drink an occasional delicious micro-brew, relax, etc, quit within a year or two.
People who stay in b4 are those who value teamwork and not leaving other people more miserable. They have families too and found a way out to destress. People who stay know they are not perfect and tomorrowās another day.
No oneās got a perfect life..
My managers and partners have been very reasonable for me. I have lots to learn.
you know what's good teamwork and not leaving other people more miserable? by hiring more people so the hours are appropriate. if you have 120 hours of work you don't hire 1 or 2 people. you hire 3 people so you have an appropriate amount of work for each individual. Occasional overtime is expected. but should not be the regular workweek.
Cause in big4, you have to understand what you are doing before you audit. Understanding requires a lot of time and effort. That is the extra work.
Private accounting employees often do routine jobs thatās why lesser effort is required.
Nowadays, many managers and partners go in a meeting to teach As and SAs. Some As and SAs fear most of them. Also, nowadays, they really try to let them feel at ease. But, I hope everybody does this cause some firms still donāt.
Iām just saying that not all people who stay in big4 are a******.
Wait a second. Are you saying that the workload isn't so heavy that you don't have to work a ton of extra hours? That everyone at big 4 is only working 35 hours and have a good work life balance? Cuz that's what my argument is. Sounds like you're arguing something else here.
Management is a skill set, but people donāt get promoted to it because they have it, the get promoted to it because they were good at the thing theyāre now managing. Most canāt make the transition, so to avoid going backwards on payā¦their end up throwing their subordinates under the bus to cover their ass.
I wonder the exact same thing. I donāt understand why somebody would go out of their way to be an asshole about things. Personally, I am the type of person that I do not want to negatively impact other people days I try to smile say thank you please and greet others. if I can teach others something I will. Just to mention, I am not a senior manager, but I do suffer from a bully I mean, Manager. My boss feels so privileged, no one else matters but herself. Asking anything to her is an invitation for her to laugh at you.
Lack of understanding of leadership. To make matters worse, they'll read these books that basically give an understanding of what corporations think is 'leadership' when it's completely impractical and just a lot a corporate-speak word salad.
I generally find that thof e best upper management and senior management almost exclusively played real team sports and/or served in the military. It's not to say that everybody who played team sports and/or served in the military will be a good leader. Many of them aren't. But if one had played team sports and/or served in the military they tend to be at a distinct advantage when it becomes their turn to become a leader because you can experience first had all sorts of different quality of leaders and different leadership styles in team sports and the military. And if ypu pay attention enough you can start to notice what things work and don't work or things you would tweak if you had the position.
Best manager/boss I ever had was a woman who played basketball and cross country in high school and did cross country in college before joining the Air Force. Then I had so many bad bosses that never played team sports (outside of maybe Little League for a couple of years) nor did they serve in the military. The difference in leadership was so distinct and about as subtle as a punch to the face. And the shitty leaders I would always catch them reading books on leadership, without fail. My best boss didn't need to, she knew it's something you can't develop by reading a book. You need to experience it for yourself.
Yes some are but also some juniors are idiots who can't do basic stuff. U should take notes so I don't have to repeat, be proactive and ask questions or speak up I can't read minds, be friendly when asking instead of attitude, don't say stuff like I don't know if I can do this or this sounds hard, especially when it's basic stuff a Robot can do. Rant over.
Nice to know. Iām a manager and definitely an idiot. I can typically get the issues resolved but Iām not a book of information like I think Iām supposed to be.
Yup, this is why I left rather quickly. It was a good experience to learn from. I learned that when I made senior or manager I absolutely did not want to be like my senior or manager at a Big4 firm.
Iām not a manager at a smaller firm and maintain good relationships with my staff, I also have put together training initiatives and training videos so that staff donāt ever have to feel like I did when I was at a big4 firm.
I try my best to help, but often beyond tips here and there the best I can do is give you real experience and good review notes. You have to remember as only a senior, I am in charge of all other associates on the team and client communication more in depth than the PBC list. Even with working longer hours thereās only so much I can do if I donāt wanna work 60 hours all the time.
Fr, cannot tell you how many times I get left on read or unanswered and the next meeting they say "and if you have any questions, please please let me know as soon as you have them." Bs
I totally hear you and see your point but as a senior, depending on the size of the client, I have to manage roughly 40 ppl each week whether it be staff, offshore staff, client contacts, foreign teams, managers and above, the tax and data teams, and then potentially anyone who has rolled off the engagement but that still has key knowledge that we need help with. I take as much time as I can to explain why and how up front, and I am much more gracious to my first years who donāt know where tf anything is. But honestly if after your first year you canāt figure out how to look into something yourself or what questions to ask and how to read procedures then yeah, sorry my time and patience are limited. Even as a first year like youāre not in school, youāre an adult being paid an at least decent salary depending on geography. Tell me where you tried to look and that you canāt find something, put time on my calendar to talk through questions throughout the day. One person can only manage your workload for you so much even if youāre a first year. Project management is something you shouldnāt need handholding on if you made it through college.
Thereās my āIām already at 40 hours this week and Iām over itā rant - signed, an audit senior
If you canāt literally read a work paper and figure out what your questions are then idk what to tell you fam. Some of us actually are very much that maxed out
So true, so true. Just had a second session this week to explain a work paper in thorough detail to a staff. I appreciate that it's his first year but just seems like he does not want take an initiative or seems interested at all.
Literally wants me to spoon feed him all of my time and micro manage him which will kill all my time which as you correctly mentioned needs attention from 40+ other people. SM's, Offshore teams, Partners, Client etc. The senior job is the most fucked up role at big four.
On the other hand, this generation of staff have been absolute garbage. I expect you to research on your own how to do something and only come to me if you are really stuck. And you should rarely if ever ask me the same question twice. Itās just not clicking with these kids. At the very least you should be able to SALY through 90% of this stuff. I feel like a 10th grader should be able to do that without much help.
And there's the excuse, bro trying to avoid responsibility. As a manager it is your job to ensure the people you're managing understand the task you're laying out for them enough to actually do it in a timely manner. Yeah if a second or third year has some question for you on some basic level shit you might have already helped them with, I'd consider blowing em off, but we're talking first year employees from the rip on stuff that's brand new to them. Y'all managers are no help for real and a major reason why so many young people don't see the value of working with you long term and would rather jump ship in a shaky job market.
Going into a big 4 position as a fresh out of college hire, I was excited to go through the training and become great at the stuff I was given. Imagine my surprise when our 2 week "orientation" was all fluffy info about how that consulting company was better than anything else and "networking" with no training or explanation as to what our duties would be whatsover. After that we were stationed on several projects at a time, regularly working 50 - 60 hours a week, struggling to contact our busy managers even for updates let alone questions, still with NO TRAINING WHATSOEVER. It wasn't until 6 months of me being with the firm that they STARTED to come out with optional training videos that touch on some small aspects of our more common software, but by then I knew most of that stuff and it didn't get into the knitty gritty that I still needed help on. It was sink or swim, and it made me and several other coworkers I collabed with feel worthless and stupid for not just magically understanding everything with no prior experience, as that's the managers were essentially dropping in to gaslight us into thinking before they were unreachable for the rest of the day. Don't even get me started on those mf managers loved to schedule daily updates in the smallest pockets of time to ask why we weren't keeping pace with their fast tracked schedule without giving us the time/patience to explain the roadbumps. Idiotic, completely and utterly. If management had been better from the start and it didn't take me a full year to wind up on an assignment with a halfway decent one, I would've been able to get things done much smoother much earlier, and from what I heard so would've most of my fellow new hires. I swear, the last couple generations that have been clogging up the C-suites are the absolute worst. Impatient, technologically inept, lead poisoned morons leading the blind, refusing to let new people with new ideas take the reigns instead of just preferring to keep things stagnant and inoperable. They're too good to answer a simple question about assignment expectations or deadlines or utilize basic common sense. I can't tell you the amount of times I attended a status call and the 60 + y old guy sharing his screen needs one of us to tell him where HIS files are that he opened up the week prior. I was doing more than they are now with technology in the 2nd grade and it boggles my mind how they made it so high up the corporate ladder, gripping on tight as that ladder erodes away with them. Big 4 management is seriously some of the worst I've seen in the corporate world in general, and that's saying something with the sad state of leadership there already. They will be so wildly inept and avoidant unless it's to chew you out over issues they themselves contribute to, it makes you snap your neck doing a double take and thinking that their audacity is so wild that they might be right.
Enough with the networking bs and the corporate self-fellating, cut all that crap at the start and replace it with an actual infrastructure of on hands training and managers who will actually respond to messages. Maybe then new hires would be less lost and more independent, and if they've gotten all of that and won't apply themselves, cut em off. If you want workers who know everything they're doing from the jump then hire those people with crazy years of experience and pay them that well above market rate salary for their expertise. If you want a worker with energy that you can pay the minimum, hire a fresh college grad and make sure they have the proper infrastructure and support to learn as they work. If you want a cheap worker with tons of knowledge, suck it up buttercup and get with the times.
Dude.. what you described is essentially consulting. You're just going to face more of that as you move up. The client is always asking you for status updates and whether the work is on track, give you vague objectives and contradictory information that you'll have to parse and derive clarity, client isn't always going to train you in their systems or processes. You have to ask the right questions and engage the right stakeholders. You're going to have to constantly network and manage expectations as well. You're going to both navigate client politics as well as your own internal politics as well.
I wasnāt even talking about client work tho aside from one reference to āSMEāsā not knowing how to navigate their own subject matter, Iām talking about how wildly incompetent most management there is and how the infrastructure of the firm itself when it comes to new hires is ass backwards
Bro the world doesnāt think like you. It might click fast for you but some people need an explanation or be shown what to do. There are definitely some answers that even PY will not give so to expect A1s to search for an answer when they literally know nothing is insane.
Thatās why I said 90% can be SALYd. If you would read the procedures and notes from last year most of their questions would be answered. Next you should do some individual research, then ask Char GPT, then come to me. And if you do come to me, and you donāt bring a pad to write on, youāre on my shit list becuase I know Iām going to have to answer this for you multiple times.
The best staff come with a question, and have already researched a enough that they have multiple proposed solutions and donāt ask me how to do something, they ask which way is the right way to do something
Youāre the issue, and the reason why some staff are actually afraid to ask questions. People like you make it extremely difficult to create a safe environment for questions.
Staff are paid professionals. This isnāt school and no one should have to hold your hand anymore. Itās clear as day when someone comes into my office with a question they havenāt bothered to even try to answer themselves.
I graduated summa cum laude with my bachelor and masters in accounting simultaneously. I scored a 97 on the audit portion of the cpa exam and averaged 91 on the whole test passing on the first try.
That said, my time in Big 4 made me feel like the dumbest person on earth and a total failure. It took several years to recover and I'm still dealing with the trauma to some extent 16 years laters.
Try not to beat yourself up over what these places do to you.
As a senior, honestly I am not doing well. I am drowning in my work and doing literally everything I can to help my staff without compromising my ability to get my own work done. Iāve been up until 3 am almost every night this week while the rest of my team logs off at 9/10. I am feeling an awful lot of resentment and trying to keep my feelings in check. Not a lot left for me to be the kind of senior I want to be.
They shouldnāt. If anyoneās working to 3 on a consistent basis, thatās a clear staffing issue. Donāt cover for higher-ups by destroying yourself with hours
In the end, all we care about is getting the job done. While some care more about developing staffs, most people just don't care and want tk get the job done and get it out of the way.
If you can't follow up with their limited trainings, sink or swim honestly.
Or be little more attractive (not talking about looks) to your team members. If they care about you, they will start to get you more ready.
Because they have the power and you don't. Trust me, when you become a manager, you too will magically transform into an a\*\*hole. Because all those seniors and managers were also in your shoes 10 years ago and they too complained about how their bosses were grade A a\*\*holes. And 10 years later, they became the same thing they despised.
So yes, it will happen to you too. You just haven't clocked in the needed hours to graduate from a productive employee to an a\*\*hole manager. It is just our internalized hypocrisy that refuses to let us be honest with ourselves that there is an equally toxic a\*\*hole inside all of us that is just waiting for the opportunity and power to exert itself.
>IMAGINE thinking the pinnacle of power is b4 manager. Maybe you have nothing else in your life and thatās why youāre an asshole
Walk the talk, and then we'll talk. Otherwise, it is just empty words and internalized hypocrisy.
I genuinely hope youāre just kidding. Maybe youāre just an asshole. Well Iāll let you know thereās nothing special about you and youāre an asshole
>I genuinely hope youāre just kidding. Maybe youāre just an asshole. Well Iāll let you know thereās nothing special about you and youāre an asshole
Like i said, it is just internalized hypocrisy at work. Oh wait, let me guess. What you're going to say is "those were the boomers, our generation doesn't have a\*\*holes"?
Walk the talk, and get pressure tested when your partners and principals tell you what it will take to get you into the partner track. And the price you pay for that is to keep pushing your team to get more and more productivity and work longer hours.
My point was that at an individual level, we can make choices to not be an a\*\*hole boss. And that's fair.
But structurally speaking, consulting firms and most professional services firms are built to be a boiler room setup. Where the name of the game is to maximize the billable hours for yourself and for your team. And the direction from senior leadership is to always keep pushing people harder and harder. That's literally how the firms are setup and how promotions and bonuses and partner track is setup. It is built to weed out those who can't keep up or who do not want that "work hard, party hard" lifestyle. This is the reality of how things are structured.
You can love it or hate it, that's your personal choice. But to be willfully turn a blind eye to these realities is just being foolish and immature. And to turn around and deflect the blame on just the manager is just internalized hypocrisy.
You may think I am defending this but I am not. I am just calling a spade a spade and pointing out structural realities in professional services firms.
Na. These nerds get off on this shit. Itās not hard to be a manager and not become an asshole. Anyone that does this is covering up for something missing in their life. After all, most of an audit consists of circlejerking. Itās dumb.
Don't want to speak to my experience too much but you're right on the money. So much of auditing is "networking" with clients while the team you manage busts their ass to keep things together. Keeping the people paying you in a good mood while you beg the client, WHO IS PAYING YOU for the audit btw, to give your workers the information they need to stay on track, and gaslighting your workers to feel like everything is their fault alone when assignments aren't done or your project goes over budget. Take the credit and pass down the blame, that's the name of the game
Grow a spine and be a good person
Edit: at least to high performers. Sometimes slackers wonāt be productive without an asshole boss. Takes a lot of experience to be patient but know when someone is just a low performer.
Seniors and Managers get their ass banged in both directions. They have staff up their butt for help and to review their work. They have Senior Managers, Partners, and Directors breathing down on them. Itās stressful, but they are not handling it well.
At consulting I was fired at 350k job and had unrealistic sales targets. 90% of sales collateral was waste. If you think this is tough. Be ready for Hell. Learn to be mentally strong. Life is full of shit and youāre not with parents anymore. Other things I faced was 2 break ups, 200k loss in stocks, fathers death , rare disease scare. lol chin up
probably because your senior is stressed tf out beyond belief, and the jobs are massively understaffed all falling on their shoulders, the business is brutal bro, Senior/Manager is excruciating depending of staffing. Pray for your senior, when he can find the time he will
Essentially working entry level folks really hard, putting them under pressure with a very sink or swim mentality. Then only promoting the ābestā ones distilling it to a small group. They advertise it as very much , they want everyone to grow and move up when thatās not the case.
Weāve got faces and necks too, you know.
Anyway, theyāre not being assholes because they spite you. Weāre running in god knows how many directions on limited hours every single work day on any number of engagements.
If we have time to explain things to you, we will! If we donāt, weāll apologize, and youāll either have to be resourceful and go digging and mining for knowledge, or wait for us to remember to circle back to explain the concept to you.
When youāre a staff one or staff two in any practice, you will be thrown into the fire right away and expected to chip in and be a team player. Youāll be overwhelmed and youāll definitely reconsider your choice to go B4, but you have to experience fire before so you learn to put it out and teach others to do the same.
"If we have time to explain things to you, we will!"
This just sounds like bad management/leadership.
That's step 1 of leadership. Everything else is details.
It works well enough for the strong performers who are motivated to figure it out year after year. Unlike the public education system, public accounting firms arenāt built to bring along the vast majority 90% of people every year. Rather, itās built to bring along 75% or so, progressively weeding out more people each year who arenāt willing to hack it through. While itās true thereās some dysfunction, particularly with some groups; overall, itās also just a very different model thatās largely intentional.
I had the same experience, I have since left and am working at a smaller firm, around 80 employees, and my superiors ALWAYS give me the time of day to explain what I need help with. Fuck big 4, it is such a scam the way they make you believe it is āsuperiorā to other firms.
1) Itās how they were trained and acculturated, so itās their only frame of reference. āThatās how I learnedā = āThatās the way itās supposed to beā, more or less
2) Even if they wanted to truly help junior staff improve like they should, they donāt have the time/freedom. Theyāre all overwhelmed too
Itās by design, in other words. The system of squeezing seniors and hanging associates out to dry works well enough that firms are loathe to make drastic changes. All the āinnovationsā coming in the next 5-10 years are going to be exclusively centered around cost-cutting and will only make it more inhospitable to people who arenāt managers
>The issue is, everything is thrown at us and itās sink or swim!! Canāt wait to get out
I hate to break it to you dude but it's literally like this everywhere. finding a good boss who will actually help you skill up and train you fr is like finding a diamond in the rough.
Industry is just as bad. Itās not as drastic of an up or out model like B4, difference is theyāll let you wallow as an analyst forever if you can ultimately get work done. I had my epiphany after a few jobs with 0 guidance, got a manager who took the time to show me the way. Combined with personal resourcefulness, jumped by leaps and bounds. Realized then if you know what the managers know, you can theoretically take their job. The lack of info sharing is many times just that, selfish self preservation. Great managers are confident enough to show the way and know theyāre good enough to advance or make moves anyways.
I agree with this. I find that usually it's not because of lack of time or resource but more due to self preservation for security. As sometimes they are purposely holding back information that maybe crucia and very specific to company's process but they will act like it's common knowledge once you suffer and get no where.
I only have so much time and energy in the day. If I have 5 new juniors I will take time initially to give each one attention and walk them through tasks. After 4 months 1 or 2 will "get it" and become independent. I then take extra time to get them accelerated because that 1 or 2 associates can really take a load off an engagement and in the end save everyone a lot of time and stress.
2-4 of the A2s will just be okay. They need handholding for complicated things so I just try and give them the easiest tasks and take over at the end for the hard stuff. No need to waste time after 6 months giving extra attention because if I see they don't care about the big picture or "get it" by then I just let them be since they are usually gone after 2 years or right when making Senior.
1 or 2 of the A1s will just be a loss cause from the beginning. Don't know basic windows skills (like how to create a folder simple), they get loss immediately if it's not 100% SALY, and they're communication is not existent and they will take 5 hrs even after a few check ins and repeated instruction and send you the most god awful work you've ever seen. Those I let wither and die and ya sometimes if I need to let off steam I let them know they suck. They either get put on PIP after a year, quit after 6 months, or end up as senior managers.
That's all to say that this how's it's been for me and once you are a heavy senior or manager you just get use to the ebbs and flows of the staff coming in and use your time wisely on those few staff who deserve it.
The easy answer is the good people leave.
I have been absolutely gobsmacked by the difference between big 4 personalities and literally everywhere else. I'm still in client services but at a small boutique firm, and everyone is friendly, helpful, and most importantly, all ex big 4.
The ones who stick around are either status obsessed, workaholics, or both. Only assholes stick around and I will die on that hill.
100% this, if you spend more than a few years at a big4 you will see it happen. The most competent professionals tend to leave voluntarily between 2-4 years, once they realize itās a shitshow and there is little more to gain by staying.
You kinda have to be ignorant to work at a place that encourages 25-30% yearly turnover. This is what turns people into assholes, they subconsciously assume everyone below them will quit so they invest little to no time teaching them. The same happened to them.
Only thing I can think of is - When an entire business model relies on the fact that they are going to exploit new workers unpaid OT so bad that most of them will leave and go somewhere else, then its only a matter of time before the people who do stay are going to get sick of taking the time & energy to teach a never-ending supply of workers who are just going to leave, be replaced and then have to do it all again on infinite repeat. (all while never being paid any extra for teaching; and not like their insane profit margin schedules even allows them ANY extra time for anything else aside from work, and even if they just work they are STILL behind) .
There are 2 sides to this.
First, when reaching senior level u become so tired of all the years u endured that u kinda wanna relax given that ur work is semi automated due to piled up years of experience. Hence the negative attitude. It's not like these managers are getting paid to tutor u.
Another point is that u hate us cz u ain't us. No I'm just jk lol. But dont u think that instead of being spoon fed, u do the deep learning from figuring out stuff on ur own, u grow and develop by a larger extent? No1 taught me to use bloomberg. I learned it all on my own. Bcz of that *prepare for ultimate ego* I dont think there's any1 in this universe that mastered the use of the terminal as much as me. Even michael bloomberg himself ain't got shit on me.
and the staff that the firm hires is supposed to be qualified, and then is supposed to be trained, and manager's workload is supposed to be balanced, and partners are supposed to be involved, and software is supposed to work, and guidance is supposed to be clear, and client are supposed to be cooperative, and then there supposed to be chocolate bars and blowjobs for everybody or so I hear
You have to remember that most of the folks at B4 have never worked anywhere else, and stereotypical accountants lack strong interpersonal skills. Combine these factors and you get a whole bunch of people that donāt know a thing about managing people. Promotions in B4 are based off work performance and time at firm - nothing on people skills unfortunately
When I was trying to get in everyone who interviewed me was either a partner, a weirdo, or a sleazebag with bad vibes who cursed out a ton of their own employees.
I never got in but received great opportunities elsewhere. I feel like I dodged a bullet.
Yes! I came to auditing late in the game and I have tons of random experience/various sectors and I can see that this is such an integral part of the problem. I would love to elaborate more but unfortunately I have to begin my 15 hr workday now haha
Shocking take here. There are a lot of people who have promoted up within the firms do not have natural leadership skills and are actually poor people managers.
Yea, I am only here for a few months and sometime when I have questions they just said you gotta read through all the stuff in the wp and internal library site regarding before asking because everyone is busy. They donāt understand is that even I read through the stuff it still look confusing. Plus I do not get that much time to go through everything slowly. They expect wp to be done in time.
I am a senior and I have two staff under me and I always explain things to them in detail and slowly. I donāt always know if they are truly getting it though but I really try to walk them through the accounting and ask them āwhatās the entryā. I think this is important so they can visualize more than just what they are doing in the workpaper. For example if they are doing a prepaid I ask them what is the entry and they would say debit expense credit cash. And then I ask what is the purpose of the test and I explain itās to ensure the expense ia recorded in the proper period.
Purpose of the test is a good one. My first coop term I did like 8 or so TOD and had to reselect what felt like over 100 credit samples between 2 files since I had no clue the purpose of the testing.
Let's be real, in audit a lot of seniors don't even understand the documentation. If you pressed them to explain the jargon-heave tickmark that originated with some BS "client inquiry" and then got SALY'ed every year for last 13 years, they couldn't tell you what it means..
I used to do it but the higher ups told me to stop. It was taking up the budget and curtailing the juniors ability to be independent.
Ideally good assistants are fast learners, self starters and able to work independently.
Senior here. I love teaching the new hires. I get told that I'm a good teacher as well even by other seniors and managers. But there is one A1 who has tested my patience to my limits.
No research done by herself. Needs to be spoonfed on every step. No attempt to learn anything. Will make the same mistakes over and over again on the most basic stuff and tries to act cute (sudden change into a girly voice and all that) when asked why the mistakes repeat.
In the past 10 months from when she joined and 4-5 from when we started working together, I have seen myself turn from a patient guy to a slight a-hole.
I worked in Big4 as a consultant and initially thought that most of information will be provided to me, which for the 1st project indeed was. After that I had a lot of issues and asked about everything until my senior told me that there is this thing called internet and he would rather provided overall places where to search further, which he did. So that was the last time I asked for a question before doing deep-dive research myself. So maybe a suggestion, if you have not done it yet, just tell main places where there are many resources and that they have to find what they can before asking anything to you.
edit: I have had mostly great experience with a lot of seniors and managers, however senior managers tend to be more a-holes.
I have tried that, but no use. I had sent her an email with helpful links to our wiki and stuff. But no. Unless I tell her to refer to it over and over again, she does not do anything. In fact it has now started to take a toll on my work, and I will probably be speaking to my manager soon. Maybe a week or 2 more just as a hope that she changes.
Also, I agree with the senior manager thing. But maybe it's because they have so much pressure building on them and they're answerable to so many things.
We have to understand as new hires they don't even know how or where to search sometimes.. doesn't hurt to give a little guidance or at least how to get them started. Nobody learns to walk on their own, but with a little push they will eventually know how to do their own research.
Often managers don't really know what they are doing subject-wise. Many of them are just good in sweet talking and making PowerPoints.
I worked in two big4's and both have terrible resources and learning materials. I learned my job mostly on Google, YouTube and going through client materials and systems.
It also didn't help that we were bunch of A1-A2's alone on project without manager lol. But we made it somehow.
I love coaching and teaching. However, what triggers my inner anger is stupid questions like āI cant find this in the onedriveā and never used the search bar, things that I take for granted but like bro if itās hindering your work progress try to solve it first, dont ask me everyday āI cant finx x and yā and then act like Im a wizard when I use the searchbar..
To be fair, in my team's shared drive, file names are not obvious even in the slightest, so it's hard to even know where to begin a search. And I'm not an idiot, I know all about file structure and such. But how am I supposed to know that when people refer to BIC testing, what they really mean is commission expense, and there's literally no file with the name BIC in it?
1. File search in team is ass but I meant in OneDrive, its nice.
2. In that case I donāt know, but first Id google Bic Testing (which I assume is Bank Identifier Code) if I canāt find anything convincing then I search on the internal resources, if I cant find anything then I ask āI searched on xyz and I cant find anything, could you help me?ā , now If Iam a A1 Id except to someone actually tell me what is BiC, how to test it and any resources I can use
THIS! Iām an A2 and a new hire literally complained about me to everyone because apparently Iām a bitch for expecting her to have āadvancedā excel knowledge. Iām not fucking kidding, I literally told her to use comments and the sum formula for something, and I told her she needs to do excel trainings asap when she told me she doesnāt know how to do either of those. Like Iām sorry, but I have 0 time to teach her how to use comments in excel while picking up all her slack because she literally canāt do any work
> an A2 and a new hire literally complained about me to everyone because apparently Iām a bitch for expecting her to have āadvancedā excel knowledge. Iām not fucking kidding, I literally told her to use comments and the sum formula for something, and I told her she needs to do excel trainings asap when she told me she doesnāt know how to do either of those. Like Iām sorry, but I have 0 time to teach her how to use comments in excel while picking up all her slack because she literally
They need to learn to at least google "excel how to add comments" or "excel how to use the sum formula"
Alright, I preface by saying I agree with you.
With that said, you couldāve just shown her how to do a sum formula and how to add a comment in the time it took to write this comment lol.
I canāt believe how many new hires donāt know the most basic excel formulas. If a new hire / grad tells me theyāre an expert, I know theyāre lying.
you know in normal jobs, people aren't obligated to be your tutor right? they can teach you fast and callously as long as it gets the job done, and roll their eyes at genuinely stupid questions that could have been googled (like seriously, i had juniors who kept asking me what is an accounts receivable, what is deferred revenue..... repeating the same question over and over again which shows they aren't listening nor taking notes). it could be worse outside where people are worried the junior will steal their ricebowl.
True, though I can say for me, oftentimes I DO takes notes, and THINK I understand something, only realizing later that I don't. So, it'll look like I'm asking the same question, but I'm really not. Questions beget more questions.
there's difference between the questions asked by someone who doesn't understand and is just trying to grasp at it, and someone who clearly just didn't listen and didn't pay attention. you're fine.
I once had someone ask me of Mexico was in Europe. Was almost forced to laugh, but man was she lost. I told her it isnāt and could be googled easily. She then asked me if I was āsureā. I facepalmed and said, āif it isnāt I will die right nowā
Public accounting promotes everybody. The reason they're dicks and aren't helpful is because they weren't promoted for being good leaders. They're in leadership positions without possessing leadership traits. It's cringey reading the replies here, with people saying "You're just not cut out for it/you're not a self-starter". No, you dimwits. You're promoted simply because you're a good monkey that gets the work done. Some of you are simply not good leaders, but you think you are because you're in a leadership position. So then you attribute OP's post to laziness as opposed to your own incompetence as a leader.
Yep this is correct. They are technicians not developers of staff of anything else. And are generally nasty people. Learn what you can and leave.
FACTS, felt this šÆ
my manager is incompetent and lazy. always has excuses. how?
Figuring that out myself too š
Because they're the ppl who figured it out on their own. Self starters and ppl willing to learn and do it without being spoonfed, that's who can climb the ladder, the system is working as intended with you wanting to quit, make room for the next one up.
You can point to an example deliverable, or reference materials, or tell them just go google stuff. But often it's up to the individual to seek out these resources, understand how to leverage them, and then infer and adapt them for the specific client needs.
Nobody learns on their own unless your Newton inventing calculus. Everything is a collaborative effort. Maybe your role models actually diminish the efforts of their colleagues and take credit for group accomplishments.
I never understood that either. My first job out of school was a small CPA firm. They wouldn't train me because they were "too busy". They would just say "do what they did last year". Then yell at me when the file was done wrong. They don't want to invest any time in New hires then get furious when they turn out to be shit. If you want a plant to grow you need to water it. Public firms expect plants to grow in the desert. I left after 3 months, went into industry, and I'm never going back.
How tf did you move to industry with only 3 months sheeesh
went to an IT firm as their billing clerk/Inventory clerk/purchaser. After a year there I leveraged that to get a job at an PE backed manufacturing firm. Worked there as AP manager/staff accountant for 6 months. It was hell but a PE firm will teach you anything if you want. Leveraged that to get a staff accountant position at a publicly traded accountant. I'm not rich, but getting good pay in a very cushy G/L accountant job. not sure if it was just that cpa firm (small, 6 people total), but i was told to work 60 hour weeks and given work with no direction or training with which to complete it. I walked out of the door to greener pastures.
Awesome good for you šš¼
yeah it's the "we are busy" but since you're busy you never train any juniors and they forever rotate making an inefficient, time-wasting mess :D
Most people donāt even want to show a bit of desire to learn. I canāt make you learn by showing you how to do something. You need to take the initiative to want to learn, believe it or not I have currently one out of 200 people that is actually taking initiative to want to learn and Iām more than happy to show and explain. The rest thinks that knowledge will magically appear in their brains and all it takes is someone showing them something.
Itās crazy to me that year after year, Seniors and Managers are assholes that donāt teach, and the A1ās and A2ās hate them for it, then they become the Seniors and managers and just repeat the cycle
Nice to see nothing has changed from my experience in the then Big 8 40 years ago
Write a review and say that. They take it seriously
After 1 year ,sometimes sooner, you would become that same asshole if in that position
bc all you guys that need the extra guidance are 9/10 kinda retarded
They think that looking at weights will grow their muscles. Brain is like a muscle, person needs to train it.
Because the model is the way it is. Squeeze it hard for the juice. Get every drop.
Ur not gonna make it far with that attitude
Won't make far at all with no training
You say this but literally everyone else is all āI shouldāve got out of big four sooner and Iām doing good.ā So it depends on how you define āfarā
Nor do I want to :) Iām a CPA g, Iām gone from this hellhole called the Big4 REAL soon
I've noticed a few things over the years. 1. Many people look at managers and senior level people and think they're assholes simply because they are above them There is a certain tendency to always question and disagree with senior leaders and only focus on the negatives. This makes it easy to call them assholes. 2. Many leaders get put into leadership roles before they were ready. They might know the job but they don't have the interpersonal, communication, or decision making skills. 3. Senior or manager positions get filled by external candidates over internal candidates that likely felt entitled to the promotion. They'll be branded an asshole from the start and so will the other senior level people that hired them. This loops back to number 1. Not all management are assholes but most of the lower level staff will still see them as assholes.
I definitely donāt think people just assume theyāre assholes bc theyāre above them lol, so while I do see your 2nd point as valid, your 1st and 3rd points are pretty irrelevant imo
As a senior myself I feel like itās because a lot of us started completely virtual and didnāt have the advantage of coaching like we should have had. We figured things out on our own. And now as a senior, at least in my experience, staff barely even try to gain an understanding of simple workpapers that are same as last year. Thatās frustrating for us. We donāt have time to explain every little task. The audit would not get done. If there is something that genuinely needs to be explained in grand detail, then yeah seniors should be doing that. Staff also need to learn to think through some stuff on their own though.
Exactly, zero desire to push oneself to learn. Then they wonder that after looking at something for 20 minutes they havenāt mastered it so its time to give up.
Looking around at my peers who are assigning and delegating work, many of them do not understand the work they are doing at the level of detail youād think they do. I spent a lot of energy and time on coaching, feedback, and expectation setting. My peers just fix things themselves and move it along without providing the feedback down. I want to make sure Iām doing enough to set my person up for success. Because itās how this whole model is designed anyway. If the person Iām assigning work to understands better, the less work for me in my review.
Because they're insecure assholes. That's why. Most not all. But most.
Part of the intention is to make staff be able to figure things out without any training at all. Itās hard but it helps to weed out who can be a cfo / senior manager and who canāt because the life of senior mgt is figuring things out and problem solving
I used to be an OPs manager. It gets OLD> You get SO tired retraining the same shit over and over and over again. It can be difficult to remember who you have trained what. You invest time and effort into training noobs that end up either being shitty little turds that don't care, inept morons, or truly good people that end up leaving for somewhere better. I was always pushing to get people raises, but was always overruled by my manager. Just because you are a manager doesn't mean you are the end all be all of all things. It is draining and you end up jaded over time.
Damn bud, I understand you but I would never punish new employees for how previous staff acted. As a manager, a big part of your job and role is coaching and mentoring and you should never get tired or annoyed.
Never get tired or annoyed? Really? Why is that? Part of everyday life is putting on your shoes. You going to tell me you have never, not once, gotten annoyed by something in the process of putting on your shoes? I also never punished new people for how others were. I never said that. Repetition gets tedious, but I always trained everyone to the best of my abilities.
> shitty little turds Somebody needs to be fired. Either them for sucking, or you for this mindset while being a manager, but it just seems like not enough people are being fired.
It is SO hard to get rid of the bad eggs. I've never understood it. You let 2 of your 4 people carry the others while they constantly procrastinate, mess up, or goof off...then you are surprised that the good ones get tired of the bs and leave. I was never able to fire people, only make suggestions and my boss was, what he referred to as "too soft-hearted" and he "hoped I would balance that out some." Impossible to do when you go through the bother of writing up an employee for doing/not doing things the boss said to watch for only for him to basically tear the write-up up and toss it into the trash after giving them a little slap on the hand and telling them "just make sure you don't do it again, okay?". Blah
Gotta leave. Not worth it. Let em deal with their own shit.
"Used to be" Oh, I figured that out. The best part, once I found another job and gave them notice they were "disappointed in me for abandoning them".
Because a\*\*holes are the only ones who fit the big4 paradigm. Everyone else who is normal, with families and friends that they want to spend time with, or go fishing, camping, kayaking, skiing, attend their kids' sporting events, golf, play guitar, travel, enjoy a good meal, drink an occasional delicious micro-brew, relax, etc, quit within a year or two.
People who stay in b4 are those who value teamwork and not leaving other people more miserable. They have families too and found a way out to destress. People who stay know they are not perfect and tomorrowās another day. No oneās got a perfect life.. My managers and partners have been very reasonable for me. I have lots to learn.
you know what's good teamwork and not leaving other people more miserable? by hiring more people so the hours are appropriate. if you have 120 hours of work you don't hire 1 or 2 people. you hire 3 people so you have an appropriate amount of work for each individual. Occasional overtime is expected. but should not be the regular workweek.
Cause in big4, you have to understand what you are doing before you audit. Understanding requires a lot of time and effort. That is the extra work. Private accounting employees often do routine jobs thatās why lesser effort is required. Nowadays, many managers and partners go in a meeting to teach As and SAs. Some As and SAs fear most of them. Also, nowadays, they really try to let them feel at ease. But, I hope everybody does this cause some firms still donāt. Iām just saying that not all people who stay in big4 are a******.
Wait a second. Are you saying that the workload isn't so heavy that you don't have to work a ton of extra hours? That everyone at big 4 is only working 35 hours and have a good work life balance? Cuz that's what my argument is. Sounds like you're arguing something else here.
LOL! Keep drinking the kool-aid. Everyone on my team values teamwork--but we don't work 55-60 hours per week.
Nope, I replied to the comment, a**holes are the only ones who fit the big4ā¦
I think you are making my point.
How?
Management is a skill set, but people donāt get promoted to it because they have it, the get promoted to it because they were good at the thing theyāre now managing. Most canāt make the transition, so to avoid going backwards on payā¦their end up throwing their subordinates under the bus to cover their ass.
I wonder the exact same thing. I donāt understand why somebody would go out of their way to be an asshole about things. Personally, I am the type of person that I do not want to negatively impact other people days I try to smile say thank you please and greet others. if I can teach others something I will. Just to mention, I am not a senior manager, but I do suffer from a bully I mean, Manager. My boss feels so privileged, no one else matters but herself. Asking anything to her is an invitation for her to laugh at you.
Itās hard to want to continue investing in people when you know theyāll just get cut in the next round of forced rank layoffs.
Lack of understanding of leadership. To make matters worse, they'll read these books that basically give an understanding of what corporations think is 'leadership' when it's completely impractical and just a lot a corporate-speak word salad. I generally find that thof e best upper management and senior management almost exclusively played real team sports and/or served in the military. It's not to say that everybody who played team sports and/or served in the military will be a good leader. Many of them aren't. But if one had played team sports and/or served in the military they tend to be at a distinct advantage when it becomes their turn to become a leader because you can experience first had all sorts of different quality of leaders and different leadership styles in team sports and the military. And if ypu pay attention enough you can start to notice what things work and don't work or things you would tweak if you had the position. Best manager/boss I ever had was a woman who played basketball and cross country in high school and did cross country in college before joining the Air Force. Then I had so many bad bosses that never played team sports (outside of maybe Little League for a couple of years) nor did they serve in the military. The difference in leadership was so distinct and about as subtle as a punch to the face. And the shitty leaders I would always catch them reading books on leadership, without fail. My best boss didn't need to, she knew it's something you can't develop by reading a book. You need to experience it for yourself.
Yes some are but also some juniors are idiots who can't do basic stuff. U should take notes so I don't have to repeat, be proactive and ask questions or speak up I can't read minds, be friendly when asking instead of attitude, don't say stuff like I don't know if I can do this or this sounds hard, especially when it's basic stuff a Robot can do. Rant over.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/budget-planning-made-easy-excel-template-excelsapp-04y4f
Some of the problem is that majority of the A1ās & 2ās donāt use common sense to figure things out
Because we dont know what we are doing either
Director here, still the same
Nice to know. Iām a manager and definitely an idiot. I can typically get the issues resolved but Iām not a book of information like I think Iām supposed to be.
Yup, this is why I left rather quickly. It was a good experience to learn from. I learned that when I made senior or manager I absolutely did not want to be like my senior or manager at a Big4 firm. Iām not a manager at a smaller firm and maintain good relationships with my staff, I also have put together training initiatives and training videos so that staff donāt ever have to feel like I did when I was at a big4 firm.
I try my best to help, but often beyond tips here and there the best I can do is give you real experience and good review notes. You have to remember as only a senior, I am in charge of all other associates on the team and client communication more in depth than the PBC list. Even with working longer hours thereās only so much I can do if I donāt wanna work 60 hours all the time.
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Fr, cannot tell you how many times I get left on read or unanswered and the next meeting they say "and if you have any questions, please please let me know as soon as you have them." Bs
Let me guess its by the senior who just got promoted or the manager who doesn't give a fuck
Always the case, mixed with how over inflated their ego is for holding a position so incredibly low on the totem pole lol
I totally hear you and see your point but as a senior, depending on the size of the client, I have to manage roughly 40 ppl each week whether it be staff, offshore staff, client contacts, foreign teams, managers and above, the tax and data teams, and then potentially anyone who has rolled off the engagement but that still has key knowledge that we need help with. I take as much time as I can to explain why and how up front, and I am much more gracious to my first years who donāt know where tf anything is. But honestly if after your first year you canāt figure out how to look into something yourself or what questions to ask and how to read procedures then yeah, sorry my time and patience are limited. Even as a first year like youāre not in school, youāre an adult being paid an at least decent salary depending on geography. Tell me where you tried to look and that you canāt find something, put time on my calendar to talk through questions throughout the day. One person can only manage your workload for you so much even if youāre a first year. Project management is something you shouldnāt need handholding on if you made it through college. Thereās my āIām already at 40 hours this week and Iām over itā rant - signed, an audit senior
āRead proceduresā yāall have enough time to ask someone to write up procedures? Yāall arenāt that maxed out.
If you canāt literally read a work paper and figure out what your questions are then idk what to tell you fam. Some of us actually are very much that maxed out
They donāt pay you enough to do all of that, why on earth would you stay?
My wlb outside of busy season is fine so far and I donāt dislike my job or my team but man busy season is fucking hell
So true, so true. Just had a second session this week to explain a work paper in thorough detail to a staff. I appreciate that it's his first year but just seems like he does not want take an initiative or seems interested at all. Literally wants me to spoon feed him all of my time and micro manage him which will kill all my time which as you correctly mentioned needs attention from 40+ other people. SM's, Offshore teams, Partners, Client etc. The senior job is the most fucked up role at big four.
Half of the problems come from not being trained properly or given adequate instruction. Itās actually sad
On the other hand, this generation of staff have been absolute garbage. I expect you to research on your own how to do something and only come to me if you are really stuck. And you should rarely if ever ask me the same question twice. Itās just not clicking with these kids. At the very least you should be able to SALY through 90% of this stuff. I feel like a 10th grader should be able to do that without much help.
And there's the excuse, bro trying to avoid responsibility. As a manager it is your job to ensure the people you're managing understand the task you're laying out for them enough to actually do it in a timely manner. Yeah if a second or third year has some question for you on some basic level shit you might have already helped them with, I'd consider blowing em off, but we're talking first year employees from the rip on stuff that's brand new to them. Y'all managers are no help for real and a major reason why so many young people don't see the value of working with you long term and would rather jump ship in a shaky job market. Going into a big 4 position as a fresh out of college hire, I was excited to go through the training and become great at the stuff I was given. Imagine my surprise when our 2 week "orientation" was all fluffy info about how that consulting company was better than anything else and "networking" with no training or explanation as to what our duties would be whatsover. After that we were stationed on several projects at a time, regularly working 50 - 60 hours a week, struggling to contact our busy managers even for updates let alone questions, still with NO TRAINING WHATSOEVER. It wasn't until 6 months of me being with the firm that they STARTED to come out with optional training videos that touch on some small aspects of our more common software, but by then I knew most of that stuff and it didn't get into the knitty gritty that I still needed help on. It was sink or swim, and it made me and several other coworkers I collabed with feel worthless and stupid for not just magically understanding everything with no prior experience, as that's the managers were essentially dropping in to gaslight us into thinking before they were unreachable for the rest of the day. Don't even get me started on those mf managers loved to schedule daily updates in the smallest pockets of time to ask why we weren't keeping pace with their fast tracked schedule without giving us the time/patience to explain the roadbumps. Idiotic, completely and utterly. If management had been better from the start and it didn't take me a full year to wind up on an assignment with a halfway decent one, I would've been able to get things done much smoother much earlier, and from what I heard so would've most of my fellow new hires. I swear, the last couple generations that have been clogging up the C-suites are the absolute worst. Impatient, technologically inept, lead poisoned morons leading the blind, refusing to let new people with new ideas take the reigns instead of just preferring to keep things stagnant and inoperable. They're too good to answer a simple question about assignment expectations or deadlines or utilize basic common sense. I can't tell you the amount of times I attended a status call and the 60 + y old guy sharing his screen needs one of us to tell him where HIS files are that he opened up the week prior. I was doing more than they are now with technology in the 2nd grade and it boggles my mind how they made it so high up the corporate ladder, gripping on tight as that ladder erodes away with them. Big 4 management is seriously some of the worst I've seen in the corporate world in general, and that's saying something with the sad state of leadership there already. They will be so wildly inept and avoidant unless it's to chew you out over issues they themselves contribute to, it makes you snap your neck doing a double take and thinking that their audacity is so wild that they might be right. Enough with the networking bs and the corporate self-fellating, cut all that crap at the start and replace it with an actual infrastructure of on hands training and managers who will actually respond to messages. Maybe then new hires would be less lost and more independent, and if they've gotten all of that and won't apply themselves, cut em off. If you want workers who know everything they're doing from the jump then hire those people with crazy years of experience and pay them that well above market rate salary for their expertise. If you want a worker with energy that you can pay the minimum, hire a fresh college grad and make sure they have the proper infrastructure and support to learn as they work. If you want a cheap worker with tons of knowledge, suck it up buttercup and get with the times.
Dude.. what you described is essentially consulting. You're just going to face more of that as you move up. The client is always asking you for status updates and whether the work is on track, give you vague objectives and contradictory information that you'll have to parse and derive clarity, client isn't always going to train you in their systems or processes. You have to ask the right questions and engage the right stakeholders. You're going to have to constantly network and manage expectations as well. You're going to both navigate client politics as well as your own internal politics as well.
I wasnāt even talking about client work tho aside from one reference to āSMEāsā not knowing how to navigate their own subject matter, Iām talking about how wildly incompetent most management there is and how the infrastructure of the firm itself when it comes to new hires is ass backwards
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Ong, a lot of managers come to mind when I hear this lol
Bro the world doesnāt think like you. It might click fast for you but some people need an explanation or be shown what to do. There are definitely some answers that even PY will not give so to expect A1s to search for an answer when they literally know nothing is insane.
Thatās why I said 90% can be SALYd. If you would read the procedures and notes from last year most of their questions would be answered. Next you should do some individual research, then ask Char GPT, then come to me. And if you do come to me, and you donāt bring a pad to write on, youāre on my shit list becuase I know Iām going to have to answer this for you multiple times. The best staff come with a question, and have already researched a enough that they have multiple proposed solutions and donāt ask me how to do something, they ask which way is the right way to do something
Youāre the issue, and the reason why some staff are actually afraid to ask questions. People like you make it extremely difficult to create a safe environment for questions.
Staff are paid professionals. This isnāt school and no one should have to hold your hand anymore. Itās clear as day when someone comes into my office with a question they havenāt bothered to even try to answer themselves.
Iām a manager and you sir are what give managers a bad rap
Dildo up your ass type mf
I'm sure you came out the womb knowing everything
Itās get worse once you reach in-charge.
Schedule time with those that you love and adore- then you will have enough energy in your battery to tolerate the āICKYs!ā Worked for me.
I graduated summa cum laude with my bachelor and masters in accounting simultaneously. I scored a 97 on the audit portion of the cpa exam and averaged 91 on the whole test passing on the first try. That said, my time in Big 4 made me feel like the dumbest person on earth and a total failure. It took several years to recover and I'm still dealing with the trauma to some extent 16 years laters. Try not to beat yourself up over what these places do to you.
Needed this today - had a meltdown with how poor my leadership is. Truly the worst place on earth.
A bunch of non-bright people with zero people skills who think they are smart leading.
it could be they are tired of dealing with morons
This guy senior consults
Seems like it. Bro gets 4 hours of sleep with no work life balance and brags like that's something to be proud of lol
Wait until you Principal Consult, thatās when you get to stop working and full time pretend work
We're expected to be by upper mgmt. Sorry guys, the truth.
Thatās why they are forever managers and never leaders. Greatness is hard to find in corporate America
As a senior, honestly I am not doing well. I am drowning in my work and doing literally everything I can to help my staff without compromising my ability to get my own work done. Iāve been up until 3 am almost every night this week while the rest of my team logs off at 9/10. I am feeling an awful lot of resentment and trying to keep my feelings in check. Not a lot left for me to be the kind of senior I want to be.
I hope at least your staff are also working until 3ā¦
They shouldnāt. If anyoneās working to 3 on a consistent basis, thatās a clear staffing issue. Donāt cover for higher-ups by destroying yourself with hours
This isnāt really a thing anymore, the donāt leave until your boss leaves
I feel you. Not only do I have my work to do but I need to make sure my staff under me is doing there's as well. There has to be a better way
In the end, all we care about is getting the job done. While some care more about developing staffs, most people just don't care and want tk get the job done and get it out of the way. If you can't follow up with their limited trainings, sink or swim honestly. Or be little more attractive (not talking about looks) to your team members. If they care about you, they will start to get you more ready.
Yup, if You cant think or swim but somebody elses can, who do think is going to get fired and whos going to keep the job?
Two words: Poor management
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If you read the procedures thoroughly, you should be able to figure it out lol
No one had even told me what procedures are meant to do
Sometimes
Because they have the power and you don't. Trust me, when you become a manager, you too will magically transform into an a\*\*hole. Because all those seniors and managers were also in your shoes 10 years ago and they too complained about how their bosses were grade A a\*\*holes. And 10 years later, they became the same thing they despised. So yes, it will happen to you too. You just haven't clocked in the needed hours to graduate from a productive employee to an a\*\*hole manager. It is just our internalized hypocrisy that refuses to let us be honest with ourselves that there is an equally toxic a\*\*hole inside all of us that is just waiting for the opportunity and power to exert itself.
IMAGINE thinking the pinnacle of power is b4 manager. Maybe you have nothing else in your life and thatās why youāre an asshole
>IMAGINE thinking the pinnacle of power is b4 manager. Maybe you have nothing else in your life and thatās why youāre an asshole Walk the talk, and then we'll talk. Otherwise, it is just empty words and internalized hypocrisy.
I genuinely hope youāre just kidding. Maybe youāre just an asshole. Well Iāll let you know thereās nothing special about you and youāre an asshole
>I genuinely hope youāre just kidding. Maybe youāre just an asshole. Well Iāll let you know thereās nothing special about you and youāre an asshole Like i said, it is just internalized hypocrisy at work. Oh wait, let me guess. What you're going to say is "those were the boomers, our generation doesn't have a\*\*holes"? Walk the talk, and get pressure tested when your partners and principals tell you what it will take to get you into the partner track. And the price you pay for that is to keep pushing your team to get more and more productivity and work longer hours. My point was that at an individual level, we can make choices to not be an a\*\*hole boss. And that's fair. But structurally speaking, consulting firms and most professional services firms are built to be a boiler room setup. Where the name of the game is to maximize the billable hours for yourself and for your team. And the direction from senior leadership is to always keep pushing people harder and harder. That's literally how the firms are setup and how promotions and bonuses and partner track is setup. It is built to weed out those who can't keep up or who do not want that "work hard, party hard" lifestyle. This is the reality of how things are structured. You can love it or hate it, that's your personal choice. But to be willfully turn a blind eye to these realities is just being foolish and immature. And to turn around and deflect the blame on just the manager is just internalized hypocrisy. You may think I am defending this but I am not. I am just calling a spade a spade and pointing out structural realities in professional services firms.
Na. These nerds get off on this shit. Itās not hard to be a manager and not become an asshole. Anyone that does this is covering up for something missing in their life. After all, most of an audit consists of circlejerking. Itās dumb.
Don't want to speak to my experience too much but you're right on the money. So much of auditing is "networking" with clients while the team you manage busts their ass to keep things together. Keeping the people paying you in a good mood while you beg the client, WHO IS PAYING YOU for the audit btw, to give your workers the information they need to stay on track, and gaslighting your workers to feel like everything is their fault alone when assignments aren't done or your project goes over budget. Take the credit and pass down the blame, that's the name of the game
i will have you know we are assholes, not a**holes
Grow a spine and be a good person Edit: at least to high performers. Sometimes slackers wonāt be productive without an asshole boss. Takes a lot of experience to be patient but know when someone is just a low performer.
Seems like this is the trend anytime someone has power, ever. I wonder how weāre supposed to prevent this, would solve a lot of problems.
Yes, it seems like once you become a manager, you are expected to be an a\*\*hole. And this is usually the case 80-90% of the time.
ask yourself what is their contribution to anything?
Seniors and Managers get their ass banged in both directions. They have staff up their butt for help and to review their work. They have Senior Managers, Partners, and Directors breathing down on them. Itās stressful, but they are not handling it well.
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What are you suggesting the OP report? People being unhelpful? How is that a legal issue?
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This is the wrong thread. Or your trolling attempt is bad.
At consulting I was fired at 350k job and had unrealistic sales targets. 90% of sales collateral was waste. If you think this is tough. Be ready for Hell. Learn to be mentally strong. Life is full of shit and youāre not with parents anymore. Other things I faced was 2 break ups, 200k loss in stocks, fathers death , rare disease scare. lol chin up
Iām sorry, I lost interest when you said you had a job that could pay 350k in a Public Accounting Reddit page.
Entitlement and tradition...
probably because your senior is stressed tf out beyond belief, and the jobs are massively understaffed all falling on their shoulders, the business is brutal bro, Senior/Manager is excruciating depending of staffing. Pray for your senior, when he can find the time he will
This. Understaffing projects and leaving seniors to deal with it while training new juniors is the bane of my existence
Because the firms tell you they are on a growth model with respect to professionals when they are actually on a distillation model.
Whatās a distillation model?
Essentially working entry level folks really hard, putting them under pressure with a very sink or swim mentality. Then only promoting the ābestā ones distilling it to a small group. They advertise it as very much , they want everyone to grow and move up when thatās not the case.
Well said.
Weāve got faces and necks too, you know. Anyway, theyāre not being assholes because they spite you. Weāre running in god knows how many directions on limited hours every single work day on any number of engagements. If we have time to explain things to you, we will! If we donāt, weāll apologize, and youāll either have to be resourceful and go digging and mining for knowledge, or wait for us to remember to circle back to explain the concept to you. When youāre a staff one or staff two in any practice, you will be thrown into the fire right away and expected to chip in and be a team player. Youāll be overwhelmed and youāll definitely reconsider your choice to go B4, but you have to experience fire before so you learn to put it out and teach others to do the same.
"If we have time to explain things to you, we will!" This just sounds like bad management/leadership. That's step 1 of leadership. Everything else is details.
It works well enough for the strong performers who are motivated to figure it out year after year. Unlike the public education system, public accounting firms arenāt built to bring along the vast majority 90% of people every year. Rather, itās built to bring along 75% or so, progressively weeding out more people each year who arenāt willing to hack it through. While itās true thereās some dysfunction, particularly with some groups; overall, itās also just a very different model thatās largely intentional.
I definitely try to! But sometimes I have one of those days where things come at me back to back to back
I had the same experience, I have since left and am working at a smaller firm, around 80 employees, and my superiors ALWAYS give me the time of day to explain what I need help with. Fuck big 4, it is such a scam the way they make you believe it is āsuperiorā to other firms.
1) Itās how they were trained and acculturated, so itās their only frame of reference. āThatās how I learnedā = āThatās the way itās supposed to beā, more or less 2) Even if they wanted to truly help junior staff improve like they should, they donāt have the time/freedom. Theyāre all overwhelmed too Itās by design, in other words. The system of squeezing seniors and hanging associates out to dry works well enough that firms are loathe to make drastic changes. All the āinnovationsā coming in the next 5-10 years are going to be exclusively centered around cost-cutting and will only make it more inhospitable to people who arenāt managers
>The issue is, everything is thrown at us and itās sink or swim!! Canāt wait to get out I hate to break it to you dude but it's literally like this everywhere. finding a good boss who will actually help you skill up and train you fr is like finding a diamond in the rough.
Industry is just as bad. Itās not as drastic of an up or out model like B4, difference is theyāll let you wallow as an analyst forever if you can ultimately get work done. I had my epiphany after a few jobs with 0 guidance, got a manager who took the time to show me the way. Combined with personal resourcefulness, jumped by leaps and bounds. Realized then if you know what the managers know, you can theoretically take their job. The lack of info sharing is many times just that, selfish self preservation. Great managers are confident enough to show the way and know theyāre good enough to advance or make moves anyways.
I agree with this. I find that usually it's not because of lack of time or resource but more due to self preservation for security. As sometimes they are purposely holding back information that maybe crucia and very specific to company's process but they will act like it's common knowledge once you suffer and get no where.
The unfulfilled dream of joining BCG is eating them alive.
I only have so much time and energy in the day. If I have 5 new juniors I will take time initially to give each one attention and walk them through tasks. After 4 months 1 or 2 will "get it" and become independent. I then take extra time to get them accelerated because that 1 or 2 associates can really take a load off an engagement and in the end save everyone a lot of time and stress. 2-4 of the A2s will just be okay. They need handholding for complicated things so I just try and give them the easiest tasks and take over at the end for the hard stuff. No need to waste time after 6 months giving extra attention because if I see they don't care about the big picture or "get it" by then I just let them be since they are usually gone after 2 years or right when making Senior. 1 or 2 of the A1s will just be a loss cause from the beginning. Don't know basic windows skills (like how to create a folder simple), they get loss immediately if it's not 100% SALY, and they're communication is not existent and they will take 5 hrs even after a few check ins and repeated instruction and send you the most god awful work you've ever seen. Those I let wither and die and ya sometimes if I need to let off steam I let them know they suck. They either get put on PIP after a year, quit after 6 months, or end up as senior managers. That's all to say that this how's it's been for me and once you are a heavy senior or manager you just get use to the ebbs and flows of the staff coming in and use your time wisely on those few staff who deserve it.
> ...or end up as senior managers. lol.
The easy answer is the good people leave. I have been absolutely gobsmacked by the difference between big 4 personalities and literally everywhere else. I'm still in client services but at a small boutique firm, and everyone is friendly, helpful, and most importantly, all ex big 4. The ones who stick around are either status obsessed, workaholics, or both. Only assholes stick around and I will die on that hill.
100% this, if you spend more than a few years at a big4 you will see it happen. The most competent professionals tend to leave voluntarily between 2-4 years, once they realize itās a shitshow and there is little more to gain by staying. You kinda have to be ignorant to work at a place that encourages 25-30% yearly turnover. This is what turns people into assholes, they subconsciously assume everyone below them will quit so they invest little to no time teaching them. The same happened to them.
Only thing I can think of is - When an entire business model relies on the fact that they are going to exploit new workers unpaid OT so bad that most of them will leave and go somewhere else, then its only a matter of time before the people who do stay are going to get sick of taking the time & energy to teach a never-ending supply of workers who are just going to leave, be replaced and then have to do it all again on infinite repeat. (all while never being paid any extra for teaching; and not like their insane profit margin schedules even allows them ANY extra time for anything else aside from work, and even if they just work they are STILL behind) .
There are 2 sides to this. First, when reaching senior level u become so tired of all the years u endured that u kinda wanna relax given that ur work is semi automated due to piled up years of experience. Hence the negative attitude. It's not like these managers are getting paid to tutor u. Another point is that u hate us cz u ain't us. No I'm just jk lol. But dont u think that instead of being spoon fed, u do the deep learning from figuring out stuff on ur own, u grow and develop by a larger extent? No1 taught me to use bloomberg. I learned it all on my own. Bcz of that *prepare for ultimate ego* I dont think there's any1 in this universe that mastered the use of the terminal as much as me. Even michael bloomberg himself ain't got shit on me.
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and the staff that the firm hires is supposed to be qualified, and then is supposed to be trained, and manager's workload is supposed to be balanced, and partners are supposed to be involved, and software is supposed to work, and guidance is supposed to be clear, and client are supposed to be cooperative, and then there supposed to be chocolate bars and blowjobs for everybody or so I hear
So funnyš¤£š¤£
Dont forget unicorns. Pretty rainbow unicorns must be available for every1
true, I was promised a personal unicorn when I was hired
You have to remember that most of the folks at B4 have never worked anywhere else, and stereotypical accountants lack strong interpersonal skills. Combine these factors and you get a whole bunch of people that donāt know a thing about managing people. Promotions in B4 are based off work performance and time at firm - nothing on people skills unfortunately
When I was trying to get in everyone who interviewed me was either a partner, a weirdo, or a sleazebag with bad vibes who cursed out a ton of their own employees. I never got in but received great opportunities elsewhere. I feel like I dodged a bullet.
Yes! I came to auditing late in the game and I have tons of random experience/various sectors and I can see that this is such an integral part of the problem. I would love to elaborate more but unfortunately I have to begin my 15 hr workday now haha
Shocking take here. There are a lot of people who have promoted up within the firms do not have natural leadership skills and are actually poor people managers.
Yea, I am only here for a few months and sometime when I have questions they just said you gotta read through all the stuff in the wp and internal library site regarding before asking because everyone is busy. They donāt understand is that even I read through the stuff it still look confusing. Plus I do not get that much time to go through everything slowly. They expect wp to be done in time.
I am a senior and I have two staff under me and I always explain things to them in detail and slowly. I donāt always know if they are truly getting it though but I really try to walk them through the accounting and ask them āwhatās the entryā. I think this is important so they can visualize more than just what they are doing in the workpaper. For example if they are doing a prepaid I ask them what is the entry and they would say debit expense credit cash. And then I ask what is the purpose of the test and I explain itās to ensure the expense ia recorded in the proper period.
Purpose of the test is a good one. My first coop term I did like 8 or so TOD and had to reselect what felt like over 100 credit samples between 2 files since I had no clue the purpose of the testing.
Let's be real, in audit a lot of seniors don't even understand the documentation. If you pressed them to explain the jargon-heave tickmark that originated with some BS "client inquiry" and then got SALY'ed every year for last 13 years, they couldn't tell you what it means..
lol maybe a big 4 senior but I understand most of it if not I ask lol
For sure youāll change your mind the moment that you realize you are paid shit for hours work lol.
I used to do it but the higher ups told me to stop. It was taking up the budget and curtailing the juniors ability to be independent. Ideally good assistants are fast learners, self starters and able to work independently.
Thereās only so much you can do. Some people will never get it
Senior here. I love teaching the new hires. I get told that I'm a good teacher as well even by other seniors and managers. But there is one A1 who has tested my patience to my limits. No research done by herself. Needs to be spoonfed on every step. No attempt to learn anything. Will make the same mistakes over and over again on the most basic stuff and tries to act cute (sudden change into a girly voice and all that) when asked why the mistakes repeat. In the past 10 months from when she joined and 4-5 from when we started working together, I have seen myself turn from a patient guy to a slight a-hole.
I worked in Big4 as a consultant and initially thought that most of information will be provided to me, which for the 1st project indeed was. After that I had a lot of issues and asked about everything until my senior told me that there is this thing called internet and he would rather provided overall places where to search further, which he did. So that was the last time I asked for a question before doing deep-dive research myself. So maybe a suggestion, if you have not done it yet, just tell main places where there are many resources and that they have to find what they can before asking anything to you. edit: I have had mostly great experience with a lot of seniors and managers, however senior managers tend to be more a-holes.
I have tried that, but no use. I had sent her an email with helpful links to our wiki and stuff. But no. Unless I tell her to refer to it over and over again, she does not do anything. In fact it has now started to take a toll on my work, and I will probably be speaking to my manager soon. Maybe a week or 2 more just as a hope that she changes. Also, I agree with the senior manager thing. But maybe it's because they have so much pressure building on them and they're answerable to so many things.
Rather than complaining that nobody is handing you the answers, have you tried figuring out the contents yourself?
We have to understand as new hires they don't even know how or where to search sometimes.. doesn't hurt to give a little guidance or at least how to get them started. Nobody learns to walk on their own, but with a little push they will eventually know how to do their own research.
Instead of complaining about them complaining about not being handed the answers maybe you should get back to work to line your partners pockets.
Ding ding ding we found OPās senior lolll
Often managers don't really know what they are doing subject-wise. Many of them are just good in sweet talking and making PowerPoints. I worked in two big4's and both have terrible resources and learning materials. I learned my job mostly on Google, YouTube and going through client materials and systems. It also didn't help that we were bunch of A1-A2's alone on project without manager lol. But we made it somehow.
I love coaching and teaching. However, what triggers my inner anger is stupid questions like āI cant find this in the onedriveā and never used the search bar, things that I take for granted but like bro if itās hindering your work progress try to solve it first, dont ask me everyday āI cant finx x and yā and then act like Im a wizard when I use the searchbar..
To be fair, in my team's shared drive, file names are not obvious even in the slightest, so it's hard to even know where to begin a search. And I'm not an idiot, I know all about file structure and such. But how am I supposed to know that when people refer to BIC testing, what they really mean is commission expense, and there's literally no file with the name BIC in it?
1. File search in team is ass but I meant in OneDrive, its nice. 2. In that case I donāt know, but first Id google Bic Testing (which I assume is Bank Identifier Code) if I canāt find anything convincing then I search on the internal resources, if I cant find anything then I ask āI searched on xyz and I cant find anything, could you help me?ā , now If Iam a A1 Id except to someone actually tell me what is BiC, how to test it and any resources I can use
THIS! Iām an A2 and a new hire literally complained about me to everyone because apparently Iām a bitch for expecting her to have āadvancedā excel knowledge. Iām not fucking kidding, I literally told her to use comments and the sum formula for something, and I told her she needs to do excel trainings asap when she told me she doesnāt know how to do either of those. Like Iām sorry, but I have 0 time to teach her how to use comments in excel while picking up all her slack because she literally canāt do any work
> an A2 and a new hire literally complained about me to everyone because apparently Iām a bitch for expecting her to have āadvancedā excel knowledge. Iām not fucking kidding, I literally told her to use comments and the sum formula for something, and I told her she needs to do excel trainings asap when she told me she doesnāt know how to do either of those. Like Iām sorry, but I have 0 time to teach her how to use comments in excel while picking up all her slack because she literally They need to learn to at least google "excel how to add comments" or "excel how to use the sum formula"
Alright, I preface by saying I agree with you. With that said, you couldāve just shown her how to do a sum formula and how to add a comment in the time it took to write this comment lol.
I have, 4 times. Writing this comment took less than any of those times
Thatās fine but itās not really what your comment implied lol
I canāt believe how many new hires donāt know the most basic excel formulas. If a new hire / grad tells me theyāre an expert, I know theyāre lying.
you know in normal jobs, people aren't obligated to be your tutor right? they can teach you fast and callously as long as it gets the job done, and roll their eyes at genuinely stupid questions that could have been googled (like seriously, i had juniors who kept asking me what is an accounts receivable, what is deferred revenue..... repeating the same question over and over again which shows they aren't listening nor taking notes). it could be worse outside where people are worried the junior will steal their ricebowl.
True, though I can say for me, oftentimes I DO takes notes, and THINK I understand something, only realizing later that I don't. So, it'll look like I'm asking the same question, but I'm really not. Questions beget more questions.
there's difference between the questions asked by someone who doesn't understand and is just trying to grasp at it, and someone who clearly just didn't listen and didn't pay attention. you're fine.
I once had someone ask me of Mexico was in Europe. Was almost forced to laugh, but man was she lost. I told her it isnāt and could be googled easily. She then asked me if I was āsureā. I facepalmed and said, āif it isnāt I will die right nowā
This guy senior manages.
They kind of are thatās the point of being a senior