[Anonymous]

I joined a public accounting firm last November and have quickly come to the realization that I genuinely don’t know what the hell I’m doing with most of my assignments. I just try to remember the basics (A=L+OE) and hold hands with my best friend SALY (Same As Last Year). God forbid there are any variances during the current year project, I might actually have to know something.

Granted, it’s my first year, but 1.) does anybody else feel as anxious about work as me and 2.) does it get better? I don’t mean to play on the great itgetsbetter.org thing but this has to get better, at least I have to get better at doing it.

For example, I had a manager who did all the accounting work/work papers for an investment partnership (many K1s flowing into this partnership) with little to no referencing in her files and then a few days before her two week vacation she let me know I was going to prep the return with her godforsaken work papers. “Don’t worry, it will be easy.” She even cut the 10 hour budget to 5 because it was “mostly done”. BS. Needless to say, seven to ten hours later on a five hour budget I have lost my damn mind. Some day, I might actually understand how to take PBC piles of turds and turn them into financial statements, but I’m not there yet.

Anyways, I’ve got the CPA (Can’t Pass Again) and MST (Master of whaaaaaaaa??) but I can’t help but feel like I’m a jack of all trades (1040, 1041, 1065, 1120/1120S) and master of none.

Vent done…Thanks.

[littlenumberrobot]

Hang in there, dont give up. I felt that way and still feel that way about things, and I am going into my 3rd year of public accounting. I must say your post did make me crack up a bit, only because I know exactly what you are going through. Just apply yourself the best you can and learn. It took me a awhile to figure out how to learn from each project, for me taking notes helped. Good luck and you are not alone.

CA CPA - All because of the journey listed below
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
FAR - 53('10), 8/25/12 79 PASSED!
REG - 66('11), 69('12), 12/06/12 77 PASSED!!
BEC - 58('10), 74('12), 01/05/13 77 PASSED!!!
AUD - 43('11), 66('12), 69('13), 74('13) 7/29/13 85 PASSED!!!!!

(Combinations of Roger, Yaeger, Wiley Book, Wiley TB, & NINJA Notes)

Ethics 90%

[Author]

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