Networking is hard.  You have to approach a bunch of people you don’t know, in a setting your unfamiliar with for the purpose of mutual exploitation.  At least that’s how it felt at most university info sessions.

I was volunteering at a conference all week.  The people who made the most contacts weren’t the ones who were actively “networking.”  They were the ones who were genuinely interested in what other people were saying.  They made people feel important because they engaged them.  And through using this approach they created a magnetism that encouraged people to want to work with them.

They made networking look easy.  Instead of feeling intimidated because they didn’t know anyone, they got excited about how much they could learn from a group of really interesting people.  It didn’t matter where they were.  And when a contact was made or an idea hashed together it felt natural.  Being a part of that felt much better than the employer info sessions during 4th year.

It’s really difficult to find the time to eat healthy and stay active during busy season, especially if you work at a big 4 firm.  Last year I dropped close to 6 pounds just from stress.  I decided things would be different this year.  I made a conscious effort to actually gain muscle; actually to get as jacked as possible while working ridiculous hours.  It worked pretty well.  I put on 10 pounds of muscle in a month and upped my weight in every exercise.  Most notably were my deadlifts.  They jumped from 225 to 315.  Here’s how it’s done.

First, you need to change two paradigms.  One, when it comes to exercising, think of training specific lifts instead of training muscle groups.  I know lots of people who do 3 exercises per muscle and hit the same muscle group once a week.  It’s far more effective to perform exercises that train multiple muscle groups at once (compound exercises) that can be done 3 times a week.  It makes your workouts far more efficient.  To reiterate it’s more effective to train a muscle 3 times a week verses 3 times a workout.

Second, doing cardio is not the best way to lose weight/get cut.  This is difficult for most people to comprehend.  It’s actually easier to lose weight through lifting heavy and eating better.  This goes for girls too.  You will not look like this if you do the exercises I mentioned above.  Girls don’t have enough testosterone.

When it comes to eating it’s best to think of the things you can eat versus what you can’t.  Think of it this way, you can eat as much protein and vegetables as you want.  If you have a protein and vegetable with every meal you’re doing pretty good.  Then in between meals you can snack on fruits, nuts and dairy products like cottage cheese.  A sample day could look something like this.

Breakfast: 5 egg omelette with pancetta

Snack 1: 2 handfulls of almonds

Lunch: 2 salmon fillets and some salad

Snack 2: strawberries and blue berries

Dinner: Chicken breast and butternut squash

Keep in mind I’m not a personal trainer.  I casually read websites like EliteFTS, T-Muscle and straight to the bar.  I also watch Ronnie Coleman videos – more for comedic reasons than anything else (YEAH BUDYYY!!!).  But I have followed this plan and I have tracked my progress in excel for the past month and a half.  Here are my gains.

Squats: 225 – 255

Deadlifts: 225 – 325

Bench press: 225 – 235 (I tore a muscle because my form was lacking)

Press: 95 – 135

Snatch: 135 – 155

Weight: 170 – 180

I do two different workouts that alternate every other day.  On average they take 90min.  This includes a 5min warm-up and 10 min cool down of light cardio and stretching.  I usually throw in dips, chin ups, pull ups and push ups randomly too.  I’m a huge fan of the workouts because they’re so simple.  Don’t let that fool you though.  These workouts are hard.

Workout 1: Squats, Press, Deadlifts (5 sets of 5 reps)

Workout 2: Squats, Bench press, Snatches (5 sets of 5 reps)

If anyone is thinking of doing something like this I highly recommend reading starting strength.  It explains how to do each of the above exercises properly.

Have fun!

I haven’t posted in a while.  And this is the reason.  I resigned.

The right way to resign is with class.  You only have to give two weeks notice, but three definitely doesn’t hurt.  You could resign during busy season, but it wouldn’t kill you to wait until after April 30th.  You could resign when the majority of the partners are on vacation, but it shows more respect if you do it in person.  It’s best to leave on a high note.

It can be tempting to go out in a blaze of glory or pepper your actions with a passive aggressive tone, especially if you don’t like the people you work with.  But it’s a bad idea.  You can’t win.  If you’re going this route, you’d have to ensure your actions could never come back to bite you in the ass, which is impossible.

So the right way to resign is with class, the best way to resign is through foresight and planning.  Here’s how this went down and how I will ultimately end up in Egypt for a month this August.

I knew it was important to get at least a year’s worth of experience under my belt after I was fired.  Getting fired drop kicked my credibility in the face and sacked my confidence in the balls.  Working at a firm for at least a year would go a long way in getting me back on track.  At that point I was ready to take anything.  Starting last February I knew that I’d be looking for a job at the end of busy season this year.  That’s when I started planning.  I planned for my resignation a year in advance.  I made a timeline with milestones and I made sure I hit every one.  I had a macro plan and it looked something like this.

February (start calling recruiters/update resume)

• February 24^th had a meeting with a recruiter and discussed my plan.  I wanted to quit in June and start working at a new firm in Sept.  This would give me the entire summer off.

March/April (Go through list of firms with recruiter/decide on trip in August)

May (interviews/decide on trip/buy tickets)

• May 13^th and 21^st – first and second interview with new firm
• Decide on Egypt and begin talking with my friend’s sister who’s a travel agent
• May 30^th tickets bought.

June (decision/resign)

• June 3^rd I signed the work agreement.
• June 5^th I resigned.

Now I’m working out the details.

When you resign it’s important to read the entire policies and procedures manual – especially reimbursements for the CKE, SOA, UFE, prep courses and medical expenses.  It’s very common for firms to require employees to pay these amounts back within a year of getting them reimbursed.

And this is why my last day is Saturday July 4th instead of Friday July 3rd.  If I picked Friday I’d owe the firm $1,400 on top of my $1,300 UFE fee.  That’s almost $3,000 I’d have to pay back.  It’s a good idea to ask your new employer to cover these costs.  They might not, but it’s not an unreasonable request.

Vacation days are another important issue.  Some firms give you vacation straight up.  Others accrue it over the course of the year.  If you’re planning to resign in June and took 2 weeks vacation in May, you would owe the firm money if they accrued vacation.  That would suck.  My firm accrues vacation so as at June 30th I will have accrued half of my vacation days or 1 week.  This allows me to take next week off and volunteer at the IdeaCity conference.  Where I plan to talk to this guy about giant squids for a prolonged period of time.

After you’ve thoroughly combed through all of the firms policies and procedures you’ll have to focus on people.  Understand who you’re dealing with.  For example, I work with 4 partners, 2 secretaries, 1 office manager and 12 staff accountants.  We have 2 lead partners and 2 semi-retired partners.  The secretaries and office managers control the flow of information in the office and everyone else works on files.

I told all the staff accountants 2 weeks in advance of my formal notice that I was quitting.  I did it because everyone I work with is awesome and I wanted their input.  I also wanted them to hear it from me, which lessens the impact of the formal email that’s ultimately circulated when someone resigns.

Then I told the partners.  I told the head partner first.  Don’t mess this up.  Talk to the person you know you’re supposed to talk to.  Talking to a partner that’s retiring when you know you should be talking to the managing partner makes you look like a coward.

People respect it when you are forthright.  As much as it sucked, I walked into my managing partner’s office, told him that I had decided to resign and handed in my letter.  And I repeated this with each other partner.  Things can fall apart easily here, so be warned.  Your boss will want to know why you’ve decided to resign.  Give them reasons that they can’t compete with; otherwise it will turn into a really awkward bargaining session.  And be sure to say as little as possible.  Your partner will be surprised and even though they’ll be asking questions, treat them as rhetorical ones.

Once the partners knew, I told the secretaries and office managers.  They would have found out that day anyways since the partners sit closest to them.  If they didn’t hear it directly, they would’ve overheard it eventually.

This strategy has worked perfectly.  Even though I’m leaving at the end of this month work isn’t awkward.  I still joke around with everyone and I still high five my partners.  It’s the perfect scenario.  It just took a stupid amount of planning.  Now I have the entire month of July to look forward to where I’ll be taking a personal training course and generally doing nothing.  Then come August I ship off to Egypt where I’ll be partying/taking in the sites for a month.

Epic Win.

Why doesn’t anyone like auditing?  Yeah, I guess it sucks if you’re at a big firm and all you do is tie in schedules.  But that doesn’t mean it’s awful.  It means tieing in schedules sucks.  It means that what you’re doing is particularly boring and your job has been segregated to a point that makes your 9-5 seem meaningless.  It’s just a matter of perspective.  Anything can be awful if you define it narrowly enough.

If you enjoy strategy on a very high level then auditing is awesome.  Yes, awesome.  I’m in the middle of auditing a public company for the past two years.

I’m dealing with the following people – my partner, the management of the public company, the buyers and the minions who work for the latter two.  While putting together an audit strategy for two years at once, I’m trying to appease all these people, sometimes set them against one another all while trying to meet my deadlines.

It’s intense and it requires a lot of foresight – which I don’t fully have – as well as the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.  Here’s a good example.

As of yesterday we only had the financials.  We’ve been requesting source documents, bank statements, deposit books, invoices, a/p listings – everything you need to do an audit – for the past month.  Not surprisingly the buyers contacted us wondering how the audit was going.  We told them.  It wasn’t.  We didn’t have anything.  Not thinking, I told them what we needed.  Now this had the effect of throwing the bookkeeper under the bus, because it looked like she’d been sitting on her hands doing nothing for the past month.

So yesterday went like this.

• Partner mad that the audit hasn’t started – gives me a “get er’ done” look
• Bookkeeper calls pissed off that I’ve unknowingly thrown her under the bus
• One of the buyer’s minions calls confirming why I need all of the info I requested even though we have draft financials.  I try very hard not to call her retarded and politely explain that I need the information to audit the draft financials so we can remove the draft watermark.

This is the good stuff.  This is when you get to strategize and solve problems.

• I let the bookkeeper vent for half an hour.  By the end we’re joking and she’s offering to take me out to lunch.  Solid.
• She also agrees to bring in all the source documents.  Cash money.
• Buyers are satisfied that we have the info and can now begin.  *air five unsuspecting co-worker*
• With all the info I draft an audit plan and tell my partner that we’ll do the audit meeting the following afternoon (today).
• That afternoon I send out all my confirmations in one email and set deadlines for when we need them back.

This is good stuff.  This isn’t boring.  Obviously I’m going to tie in schedules and do other things that aren’t as exciting.  But those are just very small aspects of a much more elaborate process.

I know a lot of people who hate audit.  I think I’m happy where I am.

Edit:

Krupo – The new Metric CD is sick.  I’ve been listening to it on my ipod all week.  Do you listen to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s?  I think you might like them.

Kel – The CPA progress chart is a really cool idea.  Good luck with the studying.

Francine – If you stop by and still read my ramblings, thanks for the phone call the other day.  Hopefully that position got filled.  “Button down mafia” is still my favorite phrase of 09.

The Evolution of Cooperation – Robert Axelrod

I first learned about this book when I read Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene.  Axelrod created a computer simulated competition to see if cooperation could evolve out of largely “selfish” entries.  Long story short – it can.  It’s a good book, but I’m not an evolutionary biologist so I found it hard to get into.  Some of the conclusions at the end are pretty cool.  Good food for thought.

Oh the places you’ll go/One fish two fish red fish blue fish – Dr. Zeuss

Dr. Zeuss is awesome.  I never grew up with it and I feel like there’s a gaping whole in my childhood.  The illustrations are pretty good too.  One fish two fish red fish blue fish is also entertaining.

The Peloponnesian War book 3 – Thucydides

Honestly, too much stuff is happening.  I wish this book was compulsory reading in school.  If it was, I think I would’ve gotten more out of it than I am now.  There’s so much to keep track of.  Makes your head explode after a while.  It’s proving to be a very difficult read.

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

I’m pretty sure there’s an unwritten rule that The Art of War is compulsory reading for anyone with a “business job.”  The book is good.  Sometimes it’s a little vague and understanding what Sun Tzu was trying to say is often difficult.  In terms of strategy books, I think Robert Greene’s the 48 Law of Power is a little more accessible.

Tribes – Seth Godin

I just read this book in one sitting.  I bought it this afternoon around 2:00, came home and started reading at about 3:00 and finished it 5min ago.  I felt engaged the whole way though, like someone was talking to me. If you like Seth Godin’s stuff, Tribes is worth reading.  His TED presentation is good too.

The Art of Living – Epictetus (interpreted by Sharon Lebell)

This book is an “interpretation.”  It sucks and I don’t recommend reading it.  It’s like reading the secret, but worse.

Anyone reading anything good at the moment?

It’s common across all accounting firms.  People leave after they get their designation.

It’s just really weird.  I remember feeling the mounting waves of anxiety as each big 4 firm came to our school and hired the majority of my friends – without even extending me an interview.  I remember how awesome it felt to have that anxiety lifted when I finally got a job.  Now everything is turned on its head.  As soon as you’re a CA – I know this doesn’t apply to everyone and I actually do like auditing so I won’t be jumping ship anytime soon – you begin looking for the next best thing.  What I did find surprising, because I thought I was the only one, was that he was pretty nervous about starting his new job.

When you’re at a firm, you’ve got a team of people to rely on.  When you’re in industry it’s all you.  You’re the CA.  You’re the “tax guy.”  That seems really intimidating.  Maybe it won’t be after a few more years of experience, who knows.  My coworker does and he was still worried, which makes me nervous.

It just feels strange to juxtapose how I felt coming out of university, with how I feel now.  Having the anxiety of finding a job  replaced with the anxiety of moving forward – whatever “forward” turns out to be.

And to lighten up this “emo” post let us now watch this video and allow hilarity to ensue.

more about “Dailymotion – Mother Lovers – a Webca…“, posted with vodpod

Dan had a pretty solid question.

“In your opinion, is a masters in taxation beneficial in a tax professional’s career? Does it substantially improve expertise and career prospects? Or does a tax professional learn everything they need to know on the job?”

I want to re word your question a bit, because I think it’ll make what I’m about to say resonate a little better.

1) Is a masters in taxation beneficial in a tax professional’s career?  Does it substantially improve expertise and career prospects?

2) Can you substantially improve your expertise and career prospects as a tax professional by learning as you work only?

I’d say definitely yes to question 1, but not so much for number 2.  Here’s the problem – in this scenario you could acquire the tax knowledge you need to improve your expertise and career prospects.  But there’s no certainty.  It’s always best to learn purposefully.

And on the job learning will largely be up to you.  You`ll definitely pick up things as you go, but no one will be on you to read legal acts, tax bulletins, trade agreements or tax treaties.

If you know you want to be a tax guy then go for the masters – or at least some form of directive learning.

Hope that helps.

In the meantime, read this article at the bbc on how swine flu is turning people into zombies.

Making sure you’ve got your ass covered is almost an art form.

1. Lay the foundation

This is probably the most important.  There will always be another task that begins when your work ends.  When you hand in a file, a partner will review it and meet with a client.  When the partner is done, admin will prepare the bill – and so on.  Although it can be stressful, it’s best to keep this in mind.  If you can influence the context of these exchanges, then you can increase your impact on them.  Think of it as vertical-office-integration.  The greater impact you have, the better positioned you are to avoid an unhealthy dose of servage.

2.  Follow up voice mail messages with an email

Apparently everyone already does this, except me.  It’s a good idea though.  For example, if you’re trying to get a hold of someone with respect to a deadline, having some type of evidence, showing you actually contacted that person, will help deflect blame if that deadline is missed.*

3. Speak less

Don’t ask a lot of questions.  “A lot” is a pretty relative phrase.  Just know there’s a difference between being inquisitive and annoying.  Speaking less also reduces the likelihood of making stupid comments – i.e. don’t tell Alec Baldwin the leads are weak 2:05 mark or ask him his name 2:16 mark.

4. Make recommendations not demands

As auditors we often find ourselves questioning how people do their job.  Most people don’t like this.  If you find yourself in this position, then be diplomatic.  Recommend solutions instead of giving them.

5. Read everything

This one caught me by surprise.  A lot of people give opinions on things they’ve never read.  Over the past 3 months, there have been numerous situations where I’ve been a leg up on people with 20+ years of accounting experience, only because I read the latest EIC, exposure draft, IT bulletin or court case.  Do yourself a favour and subscribe to the CICA’s rss feed.  Even if you can’t use everything they put out – which is highly likely – it’ll look good on you if you forward it to a partner who can.

*office work is largely “perception work”

Now watch Nyle absolutely kill it

During the third week of February our office gets ready for busy season.  Around lunchtime we get a memo that outlines the stepwise increase in hours, which begins with working every Saturday morning.

It’s a first blow.  Working Saturday mornings sucks no matter how you look at it, but you know that’s only the beginning.  In a few short weeks you’ll be working full days on Saturday and well past 8 during the week.

It’s easy to take for granted the gradual increase in knowledge that comes from working at a steady pace.  I mean it’s easy to take for granted the relationship between what you learn and how fast your have to learn it – the relationship between necessity and application.

Busy season isn’t hard because the work is more complex.  Busy season is hard because the pace has increased to such a level that learning can no longer be passive.  You can’t work slowly and incidentally learn.  You have to learn purposefully and focus your attention on the things you don’t know and aren’t comfortable with.

Here’s some examples of what I’m talking about.  The first one I managed to come out on top.  And the second, well, not so much.

Example 1 (conversation between CEO and myself re upcoming audit)

Me: Hey how come this amount is sitting as a due from your subsidiary when we’re doing the consolidation?

CEO: Do you have the subs bank statements?

Me: Yeah

CEO: Well if you have the subs bank statements, then you also have the subs bank activity for the year.  And if you have the subs bank activity for the year, then you’ll have the information you need to determine what that balance relates too.  Plus, you have the GL, so you can see exactly what’s going through that account.  I think you have enough information to figure this out on your own.

Me: [while feeling emotionally and mentally crushed] True, I do have that information.  However, the bank activity does not explain the nature of the $1,000 and the GL detail is a single line item with no description in the memo field.  There’s no description because the accounting software you are using runs on DOS and doesn’t allow this – but that’s a different issue we’ll bring up in the management letter.  I know we can both say that $1,000 is well below materiality, and probably was just a transfer to cover the small legal costs in the sub, but I was just curious what the amount related to, so I can reverse it correctly instead of just plugging it.

CEO: Oh

Me: [you just got served]

Example 2 – (conversation between me and my partner)

Partner: Where’s this rental income coming from?

Me: I think the operating company is renting space from him

Partner: Well why the hell are they doing that?! The operating company is in a loss position, so they don’t need the extra expenses and we’re trying to minimize the guy’s taxable income so he’s getting screwed as a result.

Me: Uhhh…

Partner: The client pays us to be smart, not [insert very colourful words] dumb.

Me: [I just got served....big time]

These aren’t isolated incidents.  I have conversations like this every day.  And everyday, at some point, I feel insignificant, mentally inferior and generally stupid.  But if you bang your head against something long enough, it’ll usually leave a mark.

In the past two months I’ve done close to 50 tax returns, seniored 3 different audits (at once) and I’m starting another junior mining company tomorrow.  I’ve done research on support payments eligible for deductions, flow-through shares, principle residence when a change in use occurs, whether same sex married couples can couple their tax returns, the audit implications of determining the rights and existence of mining claims and impairment testing on resource properties.  I’ve written a qualified audit report, sat in on two audit committee meetings and experienced what it’s like to drop a client.

Throughout all of this I screwed up often and people let me know it – usually very quickly too.  It’s an awful experience not knowing how to complete a file when you’ve been given a ridiculous deadline.  It’s sink or swim.  There’s no way around it.

This is why busy season is awful.  Not because it’s hard, but because it makes you better.  And to do that, you need to focus on everything you’re not good at and accomplish it in half the time you’re used to.

It’s hard to reconcile the fact that these companies make no money, have very low prospects of ever making money and yet people invest in them – usually a lot – while management is able to pull down 6 figure salaries.  Here’s how this happens.

Junior mining companies need cash because they don’t generate any revenue.  They probably won’t for at least a few years. Unfortunately, it’s hard to convince people to invest in something that can’t generate a return.  To create an incentive, the government created flow through shares.  These allow companies to “flow-through” their expenses to each investor who in turn use them as deductions on their tax returns (to read more about flow through shares read ITA S.66).  It’s a huge incentive.

That’s the investor side.  The management side is pretty sweet too.  If you’re managing a junior mining company, it doesn’t have to be profitable for you to walk away with lots of cash.  When people sign on to these companies as CEOs or whatever, they tend to get lots of options.  It’s not unheard of for management to receive over 1 million options as compensation – and then making over 5 million when they’re exercised.  These companies also don’t have a lot of transactions.  So you can act as CFO for a bunch of them, effectively diversifying the risk of picking a dud.

There’s nothing wrong with this.  I don’t want to make it seem like this is a scam.  Even though it looks like that, this is how mining companies start out.