[WinningCPA]

In your accounting career, what are some of the biggest challenges you are facing? Is it an issue with your clients? Company culture? Software? Maybe we can work out some of these.

In my case, I work at a medium sized public firm as a staff accountant. One of the problems I am working on is communicating more clearly to my supervisors. I think I have issues verbalizing my questions, suggestions, and concerns. I think that this has improved over the last couple of tax seasons, but I still see room for improvement.

Please be as specific as possible! I’m interested to hear what you guys have to say and also suggestions for me.

[Guti]

These bad apples with their royal ass kissing have the street smarts that you don’t learn through books. One of them is the reason why I left my last employer. She is so good at the ass kissing and the street smarts that she was able to go from Senior Accountant to General Director of Accounting for a 1 Billion dollar company. And she is not a CPA. She does have 4 CPAs reporting to her. According to this individual, she does not think is necessary to take the CPA exam at all, and the real smart individuals do not need so many letters next to their name.

FAR-84
AUD-
REG-
BEC-

[Guti]

These bad apples with their royal ass kissing have the street smarts that you don’t learn through books. One of them is the reason why I left my last employer. She is so good at the ass kissing and the street smarts that she was able to go from Senior Accountant to General Director of Accounting for a 1 Billion dollar company. And she is not a CPA. She does have 4 CPAs reporting to her. According to this individual, she does not think is necessary to take the CPA exam at all, and the real smart individuals do not need so many letters next to their name.

FAR-84
AUD-
REG-
BEC-

[groud12]

How about a subordinate with the interpersonal skills of a 13 year old? At company events she will be silent in the corner by herself until someone is brave enough to engage her, which usually wont happen because it's commonly known that she is not fun or interesting and can not hold a conversation. She lacks the general creativity that is needed to enter a conversation that is already in motion. Rather than asking a question or two about the topic at hand, she will just change it to something that is mildly related and completely about her, effectively killing the flow.

She does not speak when she enters a room for the first time of the day. This one can land on either side, but it seems to me like the person arriving should initiate the pleasantry (good morning, hi how are you, etc.),

Is it my job to teach her how to act like an adult? How do I go about doing this without coming off as condescending? ie “what youre doing right now is not good social etiquette”

AUD: 85 (4/5/14)
BEC: 77 (4/19/15)
FAR: __ (8/31/15)
REG: __ (10/4/15)

[groud12]

How about a subordinate with the interpersonal skills of a 13 year old? At company events she will be silent in the corner by herself until someone is brave enough to engage her, which usually wont happen because it's commonly known that she is not fun or interesting and can not hold a conversation. She lacks the general creativity that is needed to enter a conversation that is already in motion. Rather than asking a question or two about the topic at hand, she will just change it to something that is mildly related and completely about her, effectively killing the flow.

She does not speak when she enters a room for the first time of the day. This one can land on either side, but it seems to me like the person arriving should initiate the pleasantry (good morning, hi how are you, etc.),

Is it my job to teach her how to act like an adult? How do I go about doing this without coming off as condescending? ie “what youre doing right now is not good social etiquette”

AUD: 85 (4/5/14)
BEC: 77 (4/19/15)
FAR: __ (8/31/15)
REG: __ (10/4/15)

[Anonymous]

@Zubairs–I'll reply in the FAR thread so we don't take away from the original posters thread.

[Anonymous]

@Zubairs–I'll reply in the FAR thread so we don't take away from the original posters thread.

[CPAfit]

@mommy waiting 🙂

[CPAfit]

@mommy waiting 🙂

[Anonymous]

@zubairs–I posted in the FAR thread, but apparently all of my posts are still being rejected in that thread and no one can see them but me. This is what I wrote–I understand being burnt out on MCQs. I'm sure you can scroll back through here and see how burnt out I was. I got to a point where I was missing easy questions because I was just tired of reading so many long questions. I found it helpful to study SIMS in addition to the MCQ. Maybe for a change you could start working some of those. While I think WIley SIMS aren't a good representation of the exam it is still good to have the exposure on the different ways the information can be presented and asked. The last few days before the exam I read every note possible and did little MCQ sections on each topic. The day before I just focused on the few topics that I still couldn't get, but I mostly relaxed so I could go into the exam with a clear head. I didn't do this, but I highly suggest making a one page note list on the memorization topics, the things that you want to look at right before the exam and have fresh in your mind. When you get into the exam you can jot a lot of those things down on your white board and then not worry about having to keep that stuff fresh in your head throughout the exam. I hope this helps. I honestly don't know what made me pass FAR. I wasn't sure I passed until I saw my score. I've studied differently for every test and FAR was by far my least consistent study routine. I jumped around so much that I was convinced I wasn't learning anything. You can email me at blh0821 at gmail if you want to since I'm not on the forum as much as I was. I will start studying for REG in the next week or two and be back on more frequently, but for now I'm trying to make up for lost time with the fam–My oldest turned 5 today. *sniff* *sniff*. 🙂

[Anonymous]

@zubairs–I posted in the FAR thread, but apparently all of my posts are still being rejected in that thread and no one can see them but me. This is what I wrote–I understand being burnt out on MCQs. I'm sure you can scroll back through here and see how burnt out I was. I got to a point where I was missing easy questions because I was just tired of reading so many long questions. I found it helpful to study SIMS in addition to the MCQ. Maybe for a change you could start working some of those. While I think WIley SIMS aren't a good representation of the exam it is still good to have the exposure on the different ways the information can be presented and asked. The last few days before the exam I read every note possible and did little MCQ sections on each topic. The day before I just focused on the few topics that I still couldn't get, but I mostly relaxed so I could go into the exam with a clear head. I didn't do this, but I highly suggest making a one page note list on the memorization topics, the things that you want to look at right before the exam and have fresh in your mind. When you get into the exam you can jot a lot of those things down on your white board and then not worry about having to keep that stuff fresh in your head throughout the exam. I hope this helps. I honestly don't know what made me pass FAR. I wasn't sure I passed until I saw my score. I've studied differently for every test and FAR was by far my least consistent study routine. I jumped around so much that I was convinced I wasn't learning anything. You can email me at blh0821 at gmail if you want to since I'm not on the forum as much as I was. I will start studying for REG in the next week or two and be back on more frequently, but for now I'm trying to make up for lost time with the fam–My oldest turned 5 today. *sniff* *sniff*. 🙂

[golfball7773]

I struggle with being newly married and my wife wanting me to be home all the time. At the same time, she wants me to study and achieve my goal of being a CPA. I just feel so guilty for being gone all the time and then being too tired to hold good conversations……

Does anyone else struggle with this whether been married for a while or not? Hopefully I can be done with this process in a year.

FAR: 63, 55, 62
REG: 65, 77*
AUD: Fail, 64, 71
BEC: 72, 74, 81

*expired

[golfball7773]

I struggle with being newly married and my wife wanting me to be home all the time. At the same time, she wants me to study and achieve my goal of being a CPA. I just feel so guilty for being gone all the time and then being too tired to hold good conversations……

Does anyone else struggle with this whether been married for a while or not? Hopefully I can be done with this process in a year.

FAR: 63, 55, 62
REG: 65, 77*
AUD: Fail, 64, 71
BEC: 72, 74, 81

*expired

[Anonymous]

@golfball7773

I see you made the same mistake I did. I would recommend choosing two sections to focus on until you pass.

This is just an example. Study for REG, Take REG. While waiting for REG score release, study AUD. Take AUD (by this time you should have found out your REG score). If you pass AUD, study FAR. If you did not pass AUD, restudy AUD. Rinse and repeat until you pass all 4 sections.

[Anonymous]

@golfball7773

I see you made the same mistake I did. I would recommend choosing two sections to focus on until you pass.

This is just an example. Study for REG, Take REG. While waiting for REG score release, study AUD. Take AUD (by this time you should have found out your REG score). If you pass AUD, study FAR. If you did not pass AUD, restudy AUD. Rinse and repeat until you pass all 4 sections.

[005]

mo' money

BEC - ✔
REG - ✔
AUD - ✔
FAR - 11/29/14

CPAExcel, Ninja MCQs, and a sh*t ton of coffee

[Author]

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