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Warning: Shitty vent post, typed out hastily in a hotel somewhere in rural Australia.
Last Friday a good number of things happened at work that sent my anxiety levels through the roof, all of which were caused or exacerbated by the decentralised structure of public tax accounting, which features a system where one preparer works under a number of reviewers on different jobs (which can be anything from a tax return to a business activity statement to a tax planning task).
So the inciting incident for this cascade of bullshit is that I had booked five days of leave a good while ago, and I had followed the proper procedure by sending a leave form to my most direct superior that then got sent to the firm’s secretary for dissemination. But somehow one of my managers didn’t seem to know about this due to some kind of error in internal communication (or so I was told when I asked about it), and as a result I had to perform emergency handovers of some tax returns I was working on one day before I went on leave (since this was the case, I have offered to assist periodically with work when I can make myself available). This has never occurred before and in all previous instances my superiors appeared to know I would be going on leave before I even had to inform them, but it appears I cannot rely on internal communication and will need to take things into my own hands in the future. Somehow I feel this issue is going to end up being placed on me in the end as the junior. “Doesn’t communicate well” or something.
In addition, I got bitched out by one of my managers that same day for dropping one of the 5000 balls I’ve been juggling in the course of my work, and forgetting to send out a reminder email to a client for a business activity statement while sidetracked with other extremely urgent work that had to be completed and this meant the necessary client information arrived late. The lodgement date came due over my leave period, and he stated that he would now “have to” work on the client’s business activity statement in my stead in spite of the fact that applying for an extension of the due date is an option. I consider this criticism to be rather hypocritical since just less than a month ago his own failure to sign and approve a lodgement email had resulted in this same client lodging an instalment activity statement two months past the tax office-approved due date, and the only reason why it got solved is because I noticed the issue; I suppose the mistake is only unacceptable when it’s mine. Nevertheless I stayed at work four hours late that day just trying to placate him and getting the workpaper to at least a reviewable state, though why the firm couldn’t just ask for a due date extension from the ATO is unclear to me (requesting extensions is not uncommon at all; ostensibly the reason for not seeking extension in this case is not to jeopardise the payment plan the client has with the ATO, but if lodging an instalment activity statement two months late doesn’t jeopardise it, I seriously doubt this will either). He was also not happy I “got to their tax compliance late” meaning I deprioritised this client’s tax return in favour of meeting the year-end lodgement dates for other taxpayers, a decision I fully stand by, since this client is nearly insolvent and I would prefer to prioritise clients that actually pay us and not ones who are in arrears for a year’s worth of billings.
I consider both of these to be prime examples of how the multiple reporting lines of public accounting firms really messes everything up. Firstly, you report to so many people that when one person doesn’t get tied into what you’re doing due to some breakdown in internal communication it ends up causing issues. Secondly, it misaligns incentives really badly - different clients are assigned to different managers that then get delegated to you, and while on a firm level it’s better to prioritise clients that actually do pay you as compared to clients whose status as a going concern is in serious question, on an individual-manager level everybody just wants you to get to their clients regardless of how much it makes sense at all because it personally affects them and how they are evaluated. I always see people saying that accounting is a “good job for autistic people” but frankly I just think it’s terrible, at least if you go into public. You need to communicate almost constantly with a revolving door of managers, reviewers and clients to make sure things don’t fall apart, and there are so many seemingly nonsensical aspects of the job that really only make sense once you start interpreting them through the lens of incentive structures. Yes, I am badly burned out and looking for exit opportunities.
Uh, why do you report to more than one person?
I used to be in this line of work, in the US. Here, every client has at the very least a partner (who earns the fees), a manager, a senior, and an associate staff (there are more levels of review for bigger clients).
There are plenty of each of those titles around the office. For a new client, the partner picks a manager he likes. The manager picks an available senior he likes. The senior recruits an associate. It’s all mixed and matched. So the number of bosses I had was # of clients I’m on (which was always several) times the average number of reviewers on each project.
None of the reviewers on any client coordinated with the others. You are expected to manage your deadlines and, somehow, know at least a week beforehand if you will miss one.
Consulting is very similar. You will have a line manager and then a number of different projects that have a project manager and various stakeholders that you're meant to talk to (including directly to clients for those projects). Sometimes the stakeholders of those projects are in other companies stacked 5 deep (and I mean 5 companies deep, each with their own hierarchies) before you get to the end client.
When going on leave, you're basically meant to tell everyone yourself that leave is happening. Do the procedure with your line manager, but email practically everyone you work with that you won't be available. Then fill out the outlook 'out of office' auto respond.
It's pretty exhausting. No, you can't trust anyone to do this for you. Most of the time your project managers are cc'd in on a lot of correspondence so if someone requests something from you they will step in and remind the stakeholder you are on leave and cover for you. But not always.
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