Blue Elevator Blog

Write It Down

If you have landed on this article, welcome!  The introductory article is titled WDF – A Three Part Series.

In this article, we discuss W.  W helps us remember to Write It Down.

Setting The Stage

I remember my first day of real professional work at the Big 8 accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand – now PricewaterhouseCoopers (The Big 8 was a term used in the 1980s to reference the world’s 8 largest accounting firms).  With my college degree in hand, and having already passed the CPA exam, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I was heavily recruited (I was blessed to receive offers from several Big 8 firms).  This boosted my confidence.  I was told my offer was $500 more than the standard “Staff B” salary.  My starting salary would be $21,500 per year.

Well, I was sent out on my very first audit.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

My First Audit

I was long on knowledge – and short on experience.  I was also a “deer caught in the headlights.”

I remember the audit supervisor giving me my first field order (Working in the Big 8 was the white collar version of working in the military).  “Take these – the clients’ schedules – and go copy them so we can put them into our working papers.”

It was a large company – so finding the photocopier was a big task.  And when I got there, I was dumbfounded.  Remember, this was “back in the day.”  The copy machine was huge.  It wasn’t the first photocopier ever made, but it was the first one I had ever seen.  Schooling – and college exercises in those days – were pretty much all manual.  In college accounting, we hand-wrote journal entries and did homework on columnar pads and notebook paper.  Formal papers were typed on “old school” manual typewriters.  Not computers.

Anyway, this photocopier had so many buttons, flaps, and gizmos, it made my head spin.  I remember asking myself, “How are you going to make it as a CPA if you can’t even make a photocopy?”  After some time and client assistance, I made the photocopies.  Then, I sheepishly made my way back to the little room where auditors were kept – some time later, I might add.

Back To The Audit

Anyway, back to the audit.  Life as I knew it went from difficult (e.g., studying and working hard in college) to impossible (e.g., working in a Big 8 accounting firm).  It was like being dropped onto the middle of a busy freeway with no possibility of getting safely over to the shoulder.

That’s what things felt like for me.  Photocopying would be the least of my worries.  Trying to do the things I learned and memorized – from a theoretical standpoint – was much different than applying things in the real world of accounting, business, and high finance.

I was like a metal target rabbit in a shooting gallery.  Seemingly, in rapid fire succession, the audit supervisor would give me successive new commands.  In practice, for me, each command seemingly replaced the previous one.

What I learned – and learned the hard way – was that each command was part of a series.  Meaning, each command was another field order.

I failed.  And I failed miserably.

Fast-Forward To W

As was the firm’s practice, after each audit, each staff member was given a performance review.  Now, I knew my first audit wasn’t the best.  After all, it was my first audit.  And besides, I’m sure the firm’s HR department told everyone how heavily recruited I was.

But I really wasn’t prepared for what I received.

As someone who had become accustomed to getting As (thank God) on report cards and passing all four parts of the CPA exam the first time (thank God), my review was a shocker for me.  It was the equivalent of a bunch of Ds and Fs.  At first glance, I thought to myself, “What I think we have here is a failure to communicate.”  Didn’t the firm’s HR (human resources) person tell my supervisor that I was heavily recruited and should get good reviews?

I say that in jest, as that wasn’t my first thought.  I remember driving home after that review thinking:

“I’m going to flunk out of the Big 8.  My degree is useless.  And so what if I passed the CPA exam? I’m not going to get certified (In addition to having a degree and passing the CPA exam, a CPA candidate had to successfully complete a minimum of of two years with a reputable accounting firm to get signed off for experience).”

I distinctly remember thinking that I might have to quit.  Or, worse yet, get “counseled out” of the firm.

Remember me saying that the Big 8 was the white collar equivalent of the military?  In actuality, the Big 8 was more like the Navy Seal or Special Ops equivalent of the accounting world.  Case in point, if you weren’t completing your exercises/audits in stellar fashion, you might not have what it takes.  It was up or out.  Either you were stellar and got successive promotions, or you were “counseled out.”  There was no “repeating the course,” so to speak.  You either got it done or you were gone.  Getting “counseled out” was a very professional way of referring to a candid discussion that went like something like this: “We, at the firm, think you might enjoy a different environment with a different pace.”

As my drive home continued, I remember thinking, “I am going to have to go flip burgers at McDonald’s.”

And this isn’t a slight to fast-food workers, as I tossed pizzas during college.  The idea of it was actually a relief.  I didn’t think I could stand the pressure of working in a Big 8 CPA firm.

The End Of The Story

I don’t remember how or when the thought occurred.  Perhaps it was divine inspiration that came by way of a still, small voice.  But it was this:

Write it down.  Self deprecation aside, my lackluster results were not “a failure to communicate.”  The failure was me.  Or rather, there was a failure in my process.

In college, things were manageable.  The professor would simply say, “Read half of this book – and in 2 months, you’ll take a midterm on the material.”  No.  In business, things come at you like shrapnel from a cannon.  Bits and pieces and all kinds of directives keep coming at you a mile a minute.

Conclusion

So, I resolved to Write It Down.  I didn’t quit.  I didn’t get “counseled out” (at least not yet, anyway).  So, I heeded the still, small voice to Write It Down.  And that’s what I did.

If I had any chance in surviving, I knew I was going to have to Write It Down.  Every directive.  Every order.  Every thought that came to mind that I figured I might need to be successful. Everything had to be written down.

So, how did this go for me?  You’ll have to read the next article – Do or Delegate – to find out.

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