Accounting Is Bad For The Bowels
Reading for accounting is such a pain.
I've been reading what feels like volumes for a financial accounting course that I'm taking towards Certified General Accountant (CGA) certification. More accurately, it's not the reading itself that's agonizing. It shouldn't be a problem to stay on schedule for the periodic quizzes if I spread out the reading over each day. What really busts my balls is trying to follow the numbers in the calculations made by the professor/textbook author. Especially when it comes to the preparation of financial statements.
Revenue $50,000...okay. Costs of Goods Sold $35,000...I see. Gross Margin $15,000...yes, that works out. Accounts Receivable $121,468...what the fuck!?!?
What really exacerbates the situation is that this is a distance education course; everything is done online from home, so you're on your own reading and understanding the material. There won't be anyone on hand to answer any questions. The best thing you could do is try your luck on the online forums, but it gets tedious for all parties asking questions every time a number doesn't seem right. So when I come across a numeric quantity from which there's no telling whence it came, there can be only one logical and inevitable conclusion.
The professor must've pulled the number out of his ass.
Yes, he just up and pulled it out just as a magician would pull a rabbit out of a hat. In fact, I've even come across such phenomena in my accounting courses for my MBA. Think about it. You have the professional and academic title that bears the credibility of an expert, as well as the responsibility to back it up. If you are an authority in the field of accounting and you can't figure out why your numbers don't balance out, you just can't leave it like that. It would damage your reputation. Asking someone else for help would also undermine your pride as an expert. So what else can you do other than to fudge it? Just pull out that magical number out of your magical anus that will make it balance. Then you try to fit your magic ass-number into the financial statements by putting it into an offsetting account - which you've probably made up as well and would usually have the word "Deferred" in its name.
Or for a cogent and less esoteric analogy, imagine that you're contracted to build a really nice house. Everything goes fine, until you realize that you don't know how to make the stone archway. If you sub-contract the job, you'll feel that people will no longer recognize you as a fancy home builder. So what do you do? You go for the jerry-rig and fashion a makeshift archway completely out of plaster, and paint it over to look like rocks.
So why do I want to make a career out of accounting, if there are so much bullshit as it seems? I'm confident that once I get the learning part out of the way, accounting could be way more interesting when I know how everything works, and I could finally put my geeky number skills to use. Well, I certainly don't want to go into academia and become an accounting professor.
My colon just isn't big enough to fit all those numbers.
I've been reading what feels like volumes for a financial accounting course that I'm taking towards Certified General Accountant (CGA) certification. More accurately, it's not the reading itself that's agonizing. It shouldn't be a problem to stay on schedule for the periodic quizzes if I spread out the reading over each day. What really busts my balls is trying to follow the numbers in the calculations made by the professor/textbook author. Especially when it comes to the preparation of financial statements.
Revenue $50,000...okay. Costs of Goods Sold $35,000...I see. Gross Margin $15,000...yes, that works out. Accounts Receivable $121,468...what the fuck!?!?
What really exacerbates the situation is that this is a distance education course; everything is done online from home, so you're on your own reading and understanding the material. There won't be anyone on hand to answer any questions. The best thing you could do is try your luck on the online forums, but it gets tedious for all parties asking questions every time a number doesn't seem right. So when I come across a numeric quantity from which there's no telling whence it came, there can be only one logical and inevitable conclusion.
The professor must've pulled the number out of his ass.
Yes, he just up and pulled it out just as a magician would pull a rabbit out of a hat. In fact, I've even come across such phenomena in my accounting courses for my MBA. Think about it. You have the professional and academic title that bears the credibility of an expert, as well as the responsibility to back it up. If you are an authority in the field of accounting and you can't figure out why your numbers don't balance out, you just can't leave it like that. It would damage your reputation. Asking someone else for help would also undermine your pride as an expert. So what else can you do other than to fudge it? Just pull out that magical number out of your magical anus that will make it balance. Then you try to fit your magic ass-number into the financial statements by putting it into an offsetting account - which you've probably made up as well and would usually have the word "Deferred" in its name.
Or for a cogent and less esoteric analogy, imagine that you're contracted to build a really nice house. Everything goes fine, until you realize that you don't know how to make the stone archway. If you sub-contract the job, you'll feel that people will no longer recognize you as a fancy home builder. So what do you do? You go for the jerry-rig and fashion a makeshift archway completely out of plaster, and paint it over to look like rocks.
So why do I want to make a career out of accounting, if there are so much bullshit as it seems? I'm confident that once I get the learning part out of the way, accounting could be way more interesting when I know how everything works, and I could finally put my geeky number skills to use. Well, I certainly don't want to go into academia and become an accounting professor.
My colon just isn't big enough to fit all those numbers.
posted by Cosmic Ocean at 8:19 PM
2 Comments:
You could always get Dad to help you with your homework. I think he would like that.
I would, but he's always busy. And he doesn't have much patience and gets easily frustrated with me.
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