Why accountants R so boring & dry ........

[KK]

There is a general impression that accountants are very dry and boring in nature. They don't have any sence of humour and enjoyment ..........
Why it's like dis and how this wrong impression was developed. What I think it has nothing to do woth accounting profession infact it depands upon the nature of the person.

What u people think abt that ...................

[KK]

Accountants are definitely not the boring bean counters they are often portrayed as. As with lawyers, they have acquired a range of useful skills through formal education, specific training, and subsequent experience that places them in an incredibly wide range of jobs--jobs that are not only well-paying, but definitely not boring. Forensic accounting, for example, is so absorbingly interesting and even exciting, that it makes Sherlock Holmes being chased around by the Hound of the Baskervilles seem mundane by comparison.

Accountants are involved in a far broader range of activities than just doing your taxes. And if you equate accountancy with book keeping, think again--it's whole different ball game. The forensic accountants, for example, may be engaged in public practice or employed by insurance companies, banks, police forces, government agencies, and many other organizations. They are routinely involved in

- Investigation and analysis of financial evidence

- Development of computerized applications to assist in the analysis and presentation of financial evidence


- Communication of their findings in the form of reports, exhibits and collections of documents


- Assistance in legal proceedings, including testifying in court as an expert witness and preparing visual aids to support trial evidence

[Hammad]

I think that the impression of Accountants being boring is being created by old generation accountants who has to prepare manual books of accounts and reports (definitely a boring work) but now computers has solved this problem and role of accountant is more towards strategy building and help management make critical decision that I believe is a really interesting and challenging work and have a pleasant effect on accountants personality. So, I believe the impression of Accountants being boring will change soon.

[KK]

what about in advance coutries where accountants are using computer for a long time and still the impression "Boring accountants" is there.

[Ashfaque Shaikh]

I think we should concur, ours is a boring profession. And whatever we say about it in terms of breadth of experience and learning opportunities, we miss something called "creativity", and when we try to be creative by employing "creative accounting", our ethics are compromised. so to remain ethical, we must be boring. )

[khawerjavedqazi]

Yes you are right to an extent that accountants are boring.The main reason for this is that accountants have to do very sensitive job.The little mistake can lead a company to the worst situations and there good move can bring the company to a shinning future.As accountants are the backbones of the businesses.
And last but not the least is that the accountants are the most intelligent personalities.

[Khawerfca]

The accountant's job needs that he should be sincere and concerned with his work.So that he can make good results.Otherwise it is a wrong concept that accountants are boring and dry people.

[unlucky18]

AOA
As u all r accountant but friends i ma a student of foundation so as far as i am concerned we r not boring icap make us bored.The criteria of icap make us bored we have to study so much tht we can't participate in different activities due to which people around us declare us as boring person or "kitabi kera" so we r not boring it's due to icap (devil).Am i right or wrong u guys have to tell me

[TheOne]

Don't get further bored and read this

You may be taking accounting too seriously if…
You can't wait to do your own tax return.
You think the GAP store at the mall sells accounting standards.
You think the CMA awards on TV relate to accounting (CMA is the Country Music Association).
You cheer at the Oscars when they announce the accounting firm in charge of the envelopes.
You read film credits to identify the name of the Production Accountant.
You double underline your mother's name when preparing her death notice.
You do an NPV calculation when you receive an indecent proposal (Of course this makes perfect sense if you are married).
You do an NPV calculation before deciding not to have children.
You think that Greek Oracles were early developers of database accounting systems.
You can explain the difference between "downsizing", "right sizing", "re-engineering" and "firing people".
You think that leaving at 5 o'clock is a half day.
You use the term "value added" with a straight face.
Your Valentine's Day cards have bullet points.
You schedule a meeting with your spouse to discuss the past year's performance.
You aren't sure, but you think that you can claim depreciation on your human capital as a tax deduction.
Your idea of "absolute terror" is an unbalanced T account.
Your idea of "creativity" is a one-sided journal entry.

[TheOne]

Think again.. r Accountants really boring ?
Accountants aren't boring people, we just get excited over boring things.
Where do homeless accountants live?
In a tax shelter.
Why don't accountants count sheep to get to sleep?
Because they lose count and then take three hours to find the error.
Why don't accountants count sheep to get to sleep?
Because they need a spreadsheet to do the calculations.

Heard at an accounting support group "It seemed so harmless. I started making journal entries..then, secretly at home, I would post the entries to T accounts, and then I started recording them in ledgers. It just felt so good, and then I started doing financial statements and I couldn't stop....

Why did God create actuaries?
So that accountants could think they had personality.
There are only three types of accountants
those who can count, and those who can't.
Why did the auditor cross the road?
Because he did it last year.
Why did the auditor cross the road?
Because it was in the audit plan.
Why did the auditor get run over crossing the road?
Auditors never do risk assessment well until after the accident happens.
What does an accountant use for birth control?
His, or her, personality.
What is the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance?
Jail.
Half of accounting is ninety percent correct calculations.
How do you know the financial statements are finished?
The accountant drools out of both sides of his mouth.
Why do accountants make good lovers?
Because they are good with figures, and who deals in figures, must take care of Curves.
What does CPA stand for?
Certified Public Annoyance OR Can't Pass Again

What is the proof that accountants have no imagination?
Naming a firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
What is KPMG's idea of "simple advice"(their 1998 advertising theme)?
A several hundred page guide on implementing SFAS 133 - hedge accounting for derivatives and other financial instruments. "Just like your mother's advice".
An auditor qualifying the accounts is like one who arrives after the battle is lost and bayonets the wounded. Of course, then the attorney arrives and strips the bodies.
Old accountants never die, They simply lose their Balance.

[Evil Edna]

I have never come across such a dull group of people as accountants. Working where I do, I sometimes feel as if it is a morgue. In fact, many a dog has walked in and died and the bell doth always toll when the clock strikes 9. Oh my god... And why are accountants always so ugly? Is this a stipulation of their contract? What's with the bad breath? Jesus, chill out on the coffee boys, you're liable to follow through if you're not careful! Never bother going on a social event with accountants, unless you just fancy a kip. 'A pint at lunch' actually consists of a bottle or two of J20 whilst holding onto your paper bag of lunch (normally cheeeeeeeese). And the convo never gets past auditing and year ends. Puh-lease.

[Desert Sleet]

Accountants are definitely not the boring bean counters they are often portrayed as. As with lawyers, they have acquired a range of useful skills through formal education, specific training, and subsequent experience that places them in an incredibly wide range of jobs--jobs that are not only well-paying, but definitely not boring. Forensic accounting, for example, is so absorbingly interesting and even exciting, that it makes Sherlock Holmes being chased around by the Hound of the Baskervilles seem mundane by comparison.

Accountants are involved in a far broader range of activities than just doing your taxes. And if you equate accountancy with book keeping, think again--it's whole different ball game. The forensic accountants, for example, may be engaged in public practice or employed by insurance companies, banks, police forces, government agencies, and many other organizations. They are routinely involved in

- Investigation and analysis of financial evidence

- Development of computerized applications to assist in the analysis and presentation of financial evidence


- Communication of their findings in the form of reports, exhibits and collections of documents


- Assistance in legal proceedings, including testifying in court as an expert witness and preparing visual aids to support trial evidence


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If I could... Then I would... Turn back time!!

[Azeem Shah Khan]

Hi,

Just read an article in FT, thought you guys will enjoy it too, so here it goes

<font size="5">
<b>No more Mr Nice tedious Guy</font id="size5"></b>

<i>Sathnam Sanghera No more Mr Nice tedious Guy
By Sathnam Sanghera
Published February 17 2005 1909 | Last updated February 17 2005 1909</i>

Doctors have ER. Lawyers have Ally McBeal. Accountants, however, have to do with humiliating bit parts such as Keith in The Office - a fat lump who, in his career appraisal, identifies his strength as "accounts" and his weakness as "eczema".

They have always been portrayed badly on TV. Monty Python had Mr Anchovy, an accountant and would-be lion tamer, described as "an extremely dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, easily dominated". Cheers had "boring" Norm, a fat lump who, when asked how life was treating him, replied "Like it caught me sleeping with its wife."
But now the number-crunchers are fighting back. Allen Blewitt, chief executive of ACCA, the international accountancy body, has created Loot, a slick new TV drama that, for once, doesn't portray accountants as timid, spineless and deathly tedious.

He came up with the concept a decade ago but met with resistance from broadcasters until the Enron and Worldcom scandals when, he says, accountancy became "glamorous". Australia's ABC produced a pilot last year, with former pop star Jason Donovan starring in the central role of forensic accountant Jon Peregrine.

The other day I went to watch the 90-minute episode at ACCA's headquarters in London. From the outset it was apparent that Jon Peregrine, a "financial sleuth and general business rebel", was going to be unlike any accountant seen on TV before. He wasn't fat. He wasn't socially retarded. And he even had a little fashion sense when not walking around topless in his flat, his jacket of choice was a rather swish leather number.

The plot unravelled rapidly Peregrine takes it personally when a dodgy initial public offering catches out thousands of small investors and triggers the suicide of his brother-in-law. Together with his genius computer hacking assistant, he won't rest until he finds out who is responsible.

With no Swiss bank account safe, no tax haven secure, tracking down that kind of money can buy you some seriously powerful enemies. And it's not as if Peregrine had a lot of friends to start with. At the same time, he is distracted by another case a high-profile underworld business figure is missing and Peregrine has been hired by his ex-wife Cynthia to find him ...

Not following? Frankly, neither was I. This synopsis is actually taken from the back of aDVD of Loot, obtained from an Australian website. Donovan, who is playing Caractacus Potts in a West End production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also struggled he confessed in an interview that it took him "around 30 times reading the script to get it".

But Loot does not fail for this reason. It fails for another reason it is impossible to take Jon Peregrine seriously. And this is not the fault of Blewitt, the scriptwriter, th e producers or Donovan. It is the fault of history.

Accountants have been the butt of jokes for so long (Heard the one about the extrovert accountant? He stares at your shoes . . . ) that they have become intrinsically comic. Making one an action hero, as Blewitt has done, is like making Caractacus Potts a protagonist in a thriller. It is almost impossible to suspend one's disbelief.
I found myself giggling at all the wrong moments when Peregrine had a gun pointed at him and remarked "We're not cops, we're accountants"; when the gun-toter responded by asking "You want to tell me what brings an accountant down here?"; when another character remarked "I'm in insolvency, I'm not a hero".

And I suspect that broadcasters being approached by Loot's producers to turn this "gritty, fast-paced" drama into a regular TV series will have a similar reaction. There's more chance of a Hollywood studio commissioning a movie about accelerated asset depreciation, with Nicole Kidman starring as an auditor.

Doubtless, accountancy trade bodies will be disappointed if this turns out to be the case. They have been trying to glamorise their much-maligned profession for decades in an effort to attract more graduates. A major TV series showing accountancy in a positive light would have been the most useful contribution made since an American trade body suggested the profession bolster its image by changing the word "accountant" to "cognitor".

But they should not despair. If Loot doesn't become accountancy's equivalent of ER or Ally McBeal, they should use its failure as an excuse coolly to re-evaluate the ir PR strategy, looking at their profession as dispassionately as they look at company balance sheets. Doing so, they will discover that accountancy has certain assets and certain liabilities.

Unavoidably, the dullness of the work is a liability. Nowadays, being an accountant involves doing more interesting things than just maintaining and auditing business accounts. But still, this is what most accountants do, most of the time. People like Blewitt are wrong when they say that scandals like Enron have made such work "glamorous". They haven't. They have simply made such work dangerous as well as dull, which is worse than safe and dull.

But accountancy does have assets. First, the work isn't quite as dull as actuarial work. Second, as an accountant you have the potential to earn lots of money. When I look at my friends who have chosen careers in accountancy, the only thing that makes me envy them is that they live in nice parts of London and drive nice sports cars.

Indeed, if accountants want to attract more graduates to their profession, they should give up trying to pretend that what they do is terribly glamorous and exciting. Everyone knows it isn't. Instead, they should publicise the simple fact that when it comes to earning a decent salary, accountants are the ones having the last laugh.
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Regards

"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now."

[Desert Sleet]

I would agree that bean counters are geeks. (I don't like that term)[D]

However, I would not say this about people in accounting profession. It is true that sometimes you have to be “anal”, especially if you work in audit. The standards are pretty strict and if you don’t stick to them you are going to get hurt. However, this does not prevent people from having fun, if people indeed desire to have fun.

All people are different; this is true for accountants as well as other professions. What I always try to do is to make sure that I am fun to be around. Some people are afraid to relax, because they think this may appear unprofessional. What I try to do is to signal to them that it is OK to relax. Some people can’t relax, that’s just the way they are; you can’t change them.



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If I could... Then I would... Turn back time!!

[ophie]

It seems that the forum has completely been surrounded my immatures.............. CHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH ...... Its quite nice to see theone though ...... where have you been mate ???????????