7:40 p.m. - 2005-02-18
It just don't add up

Bean Counter From Hell

When I started my new job, I met the controller of our parent company, Bill. Bill had been doing the accounting for both companys and we had several meetings in person and on the phone so that he could pass the torch to me.

He was a young man of maybe 30 with very very thin light blond hair that you could see his scalp through and a fair complexion with a reddish cast that looked like he could sunburn in the dead of winter. His voice sounded boring and bored, just the kind of voice you would expect a bean counter to have. We got along right off the bat, however he did make the comment that he was surprised that they hired me to do the bookkeeping because the job actually required a full blown accountant like himself.

He said "No offense, it's just that it takes someone with a degree to do this job." He then proudly added that he had an MBA and was going for his second MBA in business management.

When I arrived at work on Monday, I was alerted that the Mother company had FIRED Bill. I felt sorry for Bill and it made me a bit nervous, wondering if they fired people from this place easily and wondered why they would fire a brilliant almost double MBA who had worked there for 6 years.

Over the course of the week I found out, and let me tell you. If you hear of a 30ish, pale blond, fair complected double MBA bean counter from the Chicago suburbs named Bill was found murdered, you will know that I ran into him on the street.

Now making this transition was hard enough. I have been working 10 and 11 hours per day...without overtime pay...to help get this company off the ground. This week, boxes upon boxes of stuff started arriving. Boxes of stuff that Bill fucked up, hid, ignored and in general did not do. We had unpaid sales taxes from 3 states. I found 10 thousand dollars worth of sales tax from one he did pay that we shouldn't have paid. In order to file the amended tax return to get it back, I need to see the original return. Guess what....he didn't keep copies.

The paper trail he left is so confusing that we will never straighten it out. He was like those mailmen you hear about that can't deliver all their mail and rather than admit it, they start hiding it under their porch, hoping to work it into future routes until the pile just grows so big that they end up burning it. Every now and then a mailman will get caught and it will make the news.

So me...the lowly uneducated, non-degreed bookkeeper is straighting out all the tax problems and doing the tax returns that Mr. Brilliant didn't or couldn't do. I am learning how to do an annual report, I am doing some serious financial archeology and have even earned the respect of the CPA's that handle our taxes.

I am exhausted, but I am gaining valuable experience that will be of benefit to me in the future.

I have been thinking about going back to school for an accounting degree. If I get B's or better, my employer will pay for it. Seeing as how I am getting first hand experience at being an accountant, I'll bet I could just about sleep walk through the classes. This in indeed the opportunity of a lifetime, I just hope I don't burn myself out.

OH...and all bean counters are not boring. With my cast iron bra, and my new haircut, I will be the sassiest most buxom bean counter in Chicagoland.

Oh, and I must tell you all about the email from my potty mouthed company owner. He asked a stupid question in an email then realized it and sent another email telling me that it was a stupid question. "Sorry, I had a brain fart." he said.

Happy Weekend everybody...I'm gonna go pass out. Tomorrow???? More house shopping. I am going to actually go check out neighborhoods in Elgin. The more I think aobut it, the better I think I like Elgin over Aurora.

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