The double whammy of SOX and tax season is taking a toll. How's YOUR busy season going so far?
by Rick Telberg
At Large
Who's excited about going to work in the morning? Of the hundreds of accountants we asked, the yays outnumbered the nays, but not by much, and about half of both groups were a little equivocal.
Like most other people, they had good mornings and bad. But the combination of tax season and Sarbanes-Oxley is a double whammy slamming CPAs these days. So who can blame them?
A total of 56 percent said "yes," they are excited to go to work in the morning. That's not an overwhelming majority. And even then, almost all admitted that "excited" was a little strong for their morning emotion, at least on some days.
Several preferred using the word "enjoy." Others chose instead "love," "like" or "look forward to." One really liked the word "juiced" to explain his feeling in the morning.
Some people just couldn't get enough. Excited? "Even at 76 years of age," said the managing partner of a small firm in Independence, Mo. "Evenings, too," said a consultant in Mountain Lakes, N.J.
Some were apparently keeping track. One felt excitement 85 percent to 90 percent of the time. Another hit just 40 percent.
Others had already had enough. A weary partner said, "After 27 tax seasons, it's getting old."
"Not as much fun as it used to be," said another partner.
Another said, "After putting in one 12-hour day after another, it is difficult to muster the excitement that I once had about going to work every morning."
Those who still feel the excitement of accounting get it from either their daily challenges or the people they work with.
A managing partner in Renton, Wash., said it well: "I am stimulated by working with people, analyzing challenges and communicating solutions to clients."
A partner in Basking Ridge, N.J., had a similarly healthy approach: "I enjoy what I am doing and enjoy helping others, which is the way I look at my work."
Someone in middle management at a regional firm expressed a feeling common to both groups: "I am excited some mornings, but busy season wears you down."
The busy season seems to have accounted for many of the 44 percent of negative responses. What the cheerier CPAs saw as challenges, the gloomier saw as pressure and stress.
"Too much to do during tax season and so few hours," according to a managing partner of a small firm in Atlanta.
Even some of the positives had really bad days. "I generally enjoy work," said a reader in middle management at a mid-sized firm, "but there are some mornings I would rather eat dirt!"
"Sometimes the work is drudgery and the client has no idea of the time it takes to get the job done right."
A more common sentiment: "If it's the same old stuff, no. I do get excited about new challenges, though."
Not one person praised the excitement and challenge of complying with the federal government. In fact, the opposite was true. One manager of a Sarbanes-Oxley 404 project professed excitement "until last week when finger-pointing ensued over the client's SOX project."
Ditto for someone in corporate middle management: "It stopped being fun when we started our 404 compliance activities last year."
But as we all know, SOX wasn't supposed to inspire excitement. It was meant to prevent it.
NOW IT'S YOUR TURN: How's YOUR busy season going so far?
COMMENTS? Send your rants, raves, questions or idle thoughts to Rick Telberg at malto: rtelberg@telberg.com.
