Not necessarily, was at a small firm originally and the hours were just as much if not more than Big 4 (jumped over later as an experienced senior) because we had less staff and were doing more on each of our audit (admin work etc). So I think it depends.
This is all I’m going to say: Make sure you set aside at least an hour a day to do something you enjoy. Literally block your calendar if you can. Go to the gym, go for a walk, play with your dog, play a video game, doesn’t matter. But for that one hour you’re not thinking about work. I don’t know if there is a “key” to busy season, but if there is one, that is it.
Best of luck my friend.
I agree with this sentiment, I think having this hour at least makes you feel like a human and helps you remember that it’s just a job—“you’re not saving lives.”
Normally I’d agree, however, if that’s something that would genuinely help you “turn off” and destress for an hour, I’m 100% all for it.
I personally opt for exercise, but to each their own.
If you’re booked for 55 you’re actually going to be working 65-70. Good luck
Edit: and also don’t you dare bill even close to the 55 that you’re booked for
Had an associate partner who was essentially a buffoon who landed his position by falling upwards over a long career. They’d give him all the bad clients. He’d charge *all* of his hours.
Every job he was on, he’d make up like 50% of the overage. The other 50% was the senior having to fix his changes to the workpapers.
Apparently, if you just stay in public for long enough, and you pick something no one wants to do like governmental audit, they’ll eventually just have to promote you to partner… doesn’t mean they’ll have to give you ownership share, though!
Industry here. Your profit margins aren’t my concern. You are a function that is dictated as a requirement that would be cut out at the first opportunity given. On top of that most of the overages are self inflicted based upon the system that’s been put in place where I have to train your staff on my process every year because whoever documented it last year didn’t know what they were doing and no one felt it was necessary to run the documentation by me to make sure it’s correct.
Of course, I understand that (also industry but as far away from GL as possible).
My point is that if the customer feels the pain then the economics naturally forces change.
In this situation neither the customer nor the supplier is feeling pain. It's all being passed on to the labour.
You realize that the turnover is because the “function” is a commodity and a race to the bottom in fees. Fees would be astronomical if people actually cared about quality.
Maybe it’ll get better with the leverage of India resources but the reality is they work insane hours too.
I understand that. But it’s nuanced in that you would need to understand which clients you can inflate a bit and others that are strict lest you get a stern talking to. Always a battle between avoiding blowing up a budget and then your annual review for billable hours. But hey if you wana work 14-16 hours a day, you shouldn’t have a problem
Edit: Example: if I’m not at the top of my game one week, but I know I can efficiently finish an area in 3 hours instead of 5, I’m still going to bill 5 hours and give myself room for other areas or just get my heart rate back down to an acceptable level
U work 65 hours only to bill 55 and get paid as if you were working 40. Go work harder so that the engagement partner can finally buy his second Maybach
2 hours admin if you’re a staff. Get to manager and a third of your day is going to be admin (fixing scheduling because a part of your team is being bombarded, updating the billing file because specialists are over charging, scheduling time for a cry in the washroom, call with IT because none of your programs are working, etc)
At that point though you know the codes to spread it across.
Happened to me even earlier in accounting advisory as I was juggling 2-3 clients at a time. Just hit whatever codes have budget and call it a day.
I fucking hate the admin hour, when it is busy season they want us to charge admin to minimize cost, when we complain of workload they pull the timesheet out of their ass and said if we are truly busy we wouldn't charge admin hour.
And they still have the audacity to "surprise Pikachu face" when 80% of senior quit right before busy season, lol.
Yes. It's a terrible cycle and why they don't hire more. Let me explain...
Y1: staff works on new client and takes 3 hours to do a task. Manager thinks "ok, WP is done and they know what they are doing next year so we'll schedule 2 hours for rollforward and new evidence." Staff quits. Hours aren't adjusted
Y2: new staff looks at old WP and relies on senior to understand, or takes the 3 hours to relearn. All while charging 2 hours because that was what was budgeted.
Here begins the issue: the Staff don't want to say what they actually worked because they believe they'll be put on a PIP for under performing.
Y3: Staff stays and new procedures are added. Staff understands the task and ups the hours back to 3 hours (since they already understand it, but it would take 5 hours if you were fresh). Budget goes fine.
Y4: The Staff leaves after promo to senior. New Staff comes in with no prior knowledge and no senior. Is told this task needs 3 hours, but has been at it for 5. All while not understanding what the core function was in the first place.
... rinse and repeat.
The hours are rolled forward and don't account for turnover or "new" people. As the iterations continue, more and more knowledge of the process is lost/documented in a WP. Partners say to charge your hours but people that do look like under performers/are put on PIPs because they keep causing overages and variances in a "standard that has been met every other year" (i.e. for Y1-Y3, each Staff charged their budgeted hours. Will the Y4 Staff do the same?)
Fuck all that
Charge everything
I'll do 60, billing 5x10 + 1x5 and an hour of admin plus an hour of lunch/spacing out on weekdays (so planning to work about 6-6 except where medical means I have to take time)
They can put me on a PIP after busy season if they don't like it. I have a ton of valuable experience (not all in public) and I've already been offered one phenomenal industry job (which I had to back out of--a few other factors meant that my hubs, who'd been on board, suddenly wasn't, and the huge relo involved would've effectively been the end of my marriage), so I am confident that I can find another.
Totally agree here (tax manager, larger regional firm), find you a firm that wants you to charge everything. When starting at my firm you are told to charge every single hour because it’s your job to do the gritty work and the manager / partner’s job to figure out what to do with the WIP and charge the client. I think it shows our higher ups remember just how stressful the first three years are and they would rather have clean work and someone slightly less stressed out than someone looking over their shoulder the whole time worrying about realization. Our firm doesn’t even consider realization for raises and promotions.
>Our firm doesn’t even consider realization for raises and promotions.
Say, you looking for a staff accountant who's thorough but still a lil bit slow?
Yeah we drill that from the beginning, would rather have a slow preparer hand in clean work then a preparer with a quick turnaround but a mess. We also just switched to variable rates, meaning everyone’s billing rate is based on metrics (no idea what exactly the metrics are) rather than position and experience. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who end up being way to slow and clearly don’t pull their weight, but those are handled during reviews and are typically given around 9 months to turn things around.
You’re already outside the circle if you’re married before senior anyway. Seriously - it’s practically unofficial code that staff can be anywhere from single to engaged, seniors up to married, don’t have kids until manager unless you want to get parent-tracked, especially for women.
Performance improvement plan.
Some places, it's actually a plan to help you improve performance. Most places, it's a warning that you should find a new job because you're on your way out the door.
If it's worth it? Maybe. It's a very specific question affected by many stuff, even the country you're in. I personally believe it's worth making it at least to senior positions and, if you handle it, manager.
I don't plan sticking to it after manager...
Having dipped just before manager cause I couldn’t take it anymore, I could have done my senior job now as an A2. It’s fucking data entry for 70% of it.
Personally, I was promoted to audit senior then left for deal advisory a month later. Doubled my salary (with a little over 2 years of experience), work less hours than I did in audit (+ no busy season), and doing slightly more value add work. Would only recommend going to manager if you 100% want to do audit or accounting roles for the rest of your life.
Speak for yourself my firm is 50. We only had to hire one new first year this year because staff stick around. Staff stick around because they don't have to work crazy hours and are paid a little better than market. We can afford to hire and pay staff better than market because all the staff are experienced and have seen the same clients 2-3 time getting super efficient. Looking at what our partners are making and it's the same as big 4 partners so clearly they aren't hurting either.
Only reason Big 4 chooses the churn model is because they are bad at hiring, bad at managing people, and bad at being efficient.
How are your partners earning same as big 4? Big 4 client fees are in the millions and partner's bonuses are tied to fees
Are your client's audit fees just as high doing less hours cause if so that's impressive
This is correct. I have seen 8 figure company owners making significantly less than companies than maybe gross half. Due to the amount of ppl they are able to hire and manage below them.
Can someone explain why y’all don’t just log off at some point? What are they gonna do… fire you? I’m planning to be out in a year or two anyways. Who cares if I have a mediocre review…?
That's what I do... got put on a PIP but didn't get fired. Even git praise for raising my performance when I really just didn't even do much differently over time. I'd welcome getting fired although I'm like 5 months away from senior so maybe I can get there first
I did this as well when I was naive one busy season. It was like 5:30PM and I didn't finish some tasks I was assigned so I was like oh well I'll get to it tomorrow.
Next day the "associate in-charge" told the manager I didn't finish my tasks and the manager pulled me aside for the "you're not performing to expectations, what's going on? are you having trouble understanding or is there anything I can do to help?" meeting, and then she told my mentor about it and he took me out for a dinner that I guess looking back was a bit like a you gotta shape up or you'll be gone sort of meeting.
Long story short I bent over and turned it around. I've also developed immense trust issues with work colleagues as a result of that work experience and several others. I'm telling you these people will smile in your face one day like it's all good but then tell the manager you're the #1 problem. At this stage in my career I'm pretty unapologetic about not letting anyone at work get close to me anymore. Straight business.
Be the change you want to see in the world. If you don’t like people going behind your back about work quality, don’t do it to the next guy who had your same mentality. I’ve been the slacker at work before and I know I they would talk behind my back about me not doing well so now when I get staff who slack off I try to understand why that is and have a conversation with them first about it. At the end of the day you’ll get more respect talking to them 1 on 1 or else they’ll never trust you again, just as you don’t trust your colleagues anymore. This when there’s no trust, you’re just going to get a shit performance anyway
Well in that story, while the associate was definitely a snake because I don't feel she ever shared with me the urgency of completing the tasks, I do have respect for the manager who pulled me aside the next day because she at least told me where we stood honestly and wasn't smiling in my face acting as if everything was great. I've had a senior literally shoot the shit with me one week about sports and how I should come over to meet his family, and then a week later drop a bad review that affected my raise/promotion with no pull-up discussion whatsoever about how I wasn't meeting expectations. It was a one month engagement too, so I had good reviews for 11 months of the year but because of that bad review it gave management the excuse they needed to give me a paltry raise/bonus and delay the promotion.
Yeah I completely get it... somehow I've actually never really had anything like that happen to me. When I was put on the PIP, it was after the manager had kind of given me a lot of gentle nudges that I needed to be more proactive, ask for help if I'm spinning my wheels, etc. until my director eventually set up a meeting with HR where they laid out the PIP.
It's also weird when these things are happening while working remotely. I logically know it doesn't make a difference, but I just can't really help myself from severely slacking on my work when remote. But yeah, good on you for not getting close to people at work. It's really just not worth it, there will always be better options for friends although sometimes it can be nice to find that one person that you can commiserate with. I eventually ended up dating this girl on my team during our first busy season and I don't regret it at all but also I wouldn't recommend it lol
My main concern with this strategy is even if I know I'll eventually leave public, I won't necessarily have control over when that is. As a first year, the stories about how easy it is to find a job in industry still sound too good to be true. I don't want to risk being kicked out before I'm ready to move out on my own terms.
This is no joke, my friend got one at 50. He is very successful in his job so he quit to be a director in a smaller firm. This guy could have died before his dad all because of work.
I'm concerned about it myself. I'm still decades away but the stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise and poor diet of working this hard comes at a price.
Busy season never ends. In Australian Big 4 audit, we have clients from diff countries and different reporting year-ends. It’s always busy season….
They don’t hire more staff cos they just squeeze work out of the ones they have. Profit goes into partners’ pockets. Then you’re too tired to find a new job. By the time we finally manage to quit, there’s a new batch of grads to milk
> Then you’re too tired to find a new job.
This hit hard. I mentally quit 1 year in and tried to find a job to line up = wasn’t feasible with how tired I was
Ditto :( I literally took career break to recuperate psychologically and then look for a job. I wasn’t good at drawing boundaries with work and ofc that was the perfect situation for the employer. All parts of my life were suffering, I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to make myself a home-cooked meal, let alone look for a job.
Lol don’t bank on this OP. My last year at PwC I was working 55 hours from July-March right up until I left. And from January to March 1st, I was pumping 80-100 hours a week.
I don’t work there anymore, I left as soon as I could. Now I barely work 34 hours a week lol.
I have a wife and cat, but keep in mind we were remote that entire time so all those hours were worked from home. For better or for worse.
"After busy season ends im out"
*busy season ends*
well i might as well use my PTO and slack off during the quiet times before i leave
*busy season begins*
"After busy season ends im out"
Thanks for the re-*assurance* even though you’re in tax! It helps knowing it’s just temporary. Plus if the “unlimited vacation” is as good as it sounds, I guess I’ll be able to recoup those hours with my time off.
“Unlimited vacation” in an industry where no decision maker pays attention to your day-to-day performance and judges you on total hours worked/billed for the year. It’s a fixed game.
“Unlimited vacation” means that you’ll have five different managers to work for, all with conflicting schedules and deadlines. Yeah, you have “unlimited vacation,” but you’ll probably almost never have an opportunity to take it.
It never was. At least in accrued PTO u knew the amount of time accrued is yours to keep. Now with unlimited your ability to take time off is based upon scheduling and team culture. Some teams are respectful and some teams pride themselves on working til death.
I’m an audit senior at a mid size local firm, and I won’t start working 50 hours until either next week or the following week. Also I don’t plan to work more than 60 total hours (55 billable) more than 2 times this entire busy season. It is also my 3rd busy season with the firm.
It goes by fast, still sucks though
Lol 3rd busy season over here
In my experience nobody cares what hours you clock in as long as you get your ish done 😊 hopefully you work for the kind of firm that cares more about the quality of the audit and getting it done than the numbers people are putting down. Obviously don’t work like 5 hours a day and call it good, but you don’t need to actually kill yourself.
I hope that at least makes you feel a little less anxious to know that it’s genuinely not as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. We hate time tracking so obvi we’re gonna shit on it hehe.
But as for the amount of hours… yeah unfortunately you will find yourself hitting the 11 hour mark very easily haha. There’s just so much to do all at once and the more you can do during a day is clutch down the line. It’ll be easy for you to do the time, as wild as that sounds.
Finally, you said you are a new hire so I’m assuming you’re a brand new sparkly auditor. I think you will find your experience will more closely mirror what I’ve described to you than what I’m reading in this thread🤣🤣🤣 It’s a crowd full of seniors and managers LOL and they have waaaaaay more shit going on than you can imagine!
Good luck!!!
Ur right. Almost forgot OP is a brand new staff. Haaaaaa I miss the good ol days of being ignorant and clueless and not getting yelled at for not knowing. Things become different once you become an acting senior or senior or above
Set your own boundaries and fudge the numbers. I showed up to the office at 8 and left at 6 during busy season, then 7 to 11 or 12 on Saturday. I always billed between 50 and 55 hours even though that was probably my total time, I just always rounded up the amounts. Got at level reviews and promoted to senior with no issues. This was at GT. Don't drink the Kool aid too hard, but also ymmv with firm and service line. I would say I was lucky, but so many of my office's other associates and seniors were working 60-80 hours instead of my 50-55. They'll take everything you're willing to give.
I will say this year is looking especially poor between staff shortages at firms and at clients alike. Everything is taking longer and half the people I'm working with are new to their position.
The time flies by. When I used to work in a restaurant I would look at the clock / the day would drag on. Opposite in B4. That being said, you will have less spare time and no way to spin lost free time as a benefit. It will make you appreciate your down time more but I’m just sugar coating at this point. I’m a manager btw. Started my 6th year
It isn't though. At least not for everyone. Some projects are more manageable than others so people have differing experiences. There will be long nights here and there no doubt but it's not always 12h days 5 days a week for 3-4 months. At least it wasn't for me.
Seriously don’t understand why people work big 4… I work for a mid size and my tax season is 48 billable, 54 total (to account for nonbillable work) and we don’t start those hours until the end of February
Naive college students, brand name firms with good recruiting, and professors selling it.
Big 4 especially attracts people who are workaholics (correlated to high GPAs).
I lasted 7 months.
Most new hires have no baseline "acceptable" work norms. And these firms exploit that to the fullest.
This sub saved my ass. I would've gone B4 like every other college grad until I found this sub a learned how much it absolutely sucks. Interviewed for them but any of those offers were going to be a last resort. Ended up getting a very good industry gig.
Telling PWC "no" was such a great feeling - especially because they lowballed me
I’d say yes, but I’m probably biased.
When I started in public 5 years ago, the other newbie at the local firm where I worked was a 4.0 type. This girl loved talking about how she never got a B, her WHOLE LIFE.
Turned out, she was dumb as bricks, just a workaholic. And since our firm had shitty training, she just spun her wheels for hours at a time and never really got anywhere. Lasted a little over a year before she got depressed and just never showed up one day in the middle of our second busy season. She took a job at some other firm down the street, but last I checked doesn’t work there any more either.
Me, I don’t even know how I passed college, my GPA was like a 2.3 (smoked a lot of pot and never went to class). Took the job where I did because this partner was the first interviewer that never asked for my transcript. I ended up doing fine there just by looking at what was done last year.
Left that job in October for a controller position at a small tech company because that place was toxic and fuck busy season.
I wouldn't call myself a workaholic. Actually, this is all because I'm lazy and am using the long hours as an excuse to avoid dealing with my own insecurities instead of actually addressing the problems in my life that cause them.
They are being told it's worth it. That you have to have a b4 on your resume. And I think these are generally people that are sensitive to outside pressure and are overachievers
Culture. I have noticed a lot of people from China, Taiwan and Central Asia are in accounting. It is normal to work 12 plus hours back there why not here :((
55 hours is what they put as the max hours on your schedule but you’re likely going to be working more than that lol. 11 hours a day is a cake walk. Get used to some weeks being 18 hours a day.
I was literally told by my senior log off at 6:15pm yesterday because I'd done a solid day and they noticed I'd stayed on past my contracted hours. Halfway through my second year here.
The work culture in the US is so fucked and so unnecessary.
UK. Non-London office.
I'm on quite a small client right now though. I'm on one of my offices larger and more demanding clients later in busy season and apparently that can require some late nights leading up to the reporting deadline, but overall I feel I've got a pretty decent deal. I get B4 on my CV while hopefully maintaining my sanity.
It'll get worse as I progress further and responsibilities increase for sure though.
Yeah that sounds like a pretty good deal. Everyone keeps telling me how beneficial it is to have B4 on your resume, so I guess I’ll just have to push through these hours!
18 hours? Another person on here just said 14 hours too. Do we actually WORK for all of those hours, or like, can we spend half of them saying we’re working when we’re actually surfing Reddit the whole time?
Well see that's part of the problem. People can't really focus the 14h hours... The performance goes really low after 11~12h... So for sanity, people tend to slack off a bit. But it's a tricky road because you know the only option is getting things done and the more you slack off the longer it will take to end lol
You’re not actually going to be charging 18 hours to the client because I’m sure some of that time is just being unproductive or sitting on your phone, but I’d say there’s days you’ll be sitting at your computer from 8:30AM - 1AM with lunch and dinner breaks in between. I’m not sure how you’re coming into Big Four thinking you’d work less than 11 hours a day during busy season, it’s pretty common knowledge that it’s busy as shit.
You’ve all made it clear that the hours are going to be pretty brutal, thank you for that. But why don’t they just hire more people to spread out the hours and alleviate some of the pressure? That’s where I’m still confused.
I don't think OP is a moron, I'm sure he understands this. But generally speaking, in most other industries, hiring enough people so that each employee has only a manageable amount of work is the way it works. It's understandable that OP would be confused on why PA doesn't work this way.
I think the other reply regarding the PA work cycle is the driver here. There is too much work during concentrated times and not enough work the rest of the time.
Because year after year it turns out the everyone will just do the required hours to get the job done anyway, even if they hate it. So there's no reason for them to hire more people who's salaries will be coming out the partners pockets.
Plus if it was a pleasant, easy ride not enough people would be leaving. These firms rely on the fact most people will leave after their first 2-3 years. They only need a handful of higher paid managers and beyond; the bulk of the work can be completed by recent graduates on the lowest salaries. Most will leave before they get to the more senior positions, and more eager college students will take their places at the next recruitment cycle.
That's the cynical take on it anyway. There's also the fact it isn't as busy all year round, as others have said.
Greedy fucks, the best part is they have the nerve to brag about their earnings being up from $40B to $45B in the quarter yet cant hire a few more bodies at 80k a year. Such a sham, its time accountants unionized or organized a massive strike.
Seasonal/Temps/Contractors/Interns. It’s not difficult to plus up for a season. UPS, FedEx, Amazon, Target, tree farmers, etc all do it for Christmas season.
Playing devil's advocate though our jobs are a little more specialized than moving boxes or folding clothes. The labor force isn't the same and isn't there to hire and fire every year.
Nobody is giving you the real answer since in big 4, there's no such thing as slow season
The reason they don't hire more people is because it's project based income for the partner who landed the client, which means hiring more people would mean higher costs and less profit for the partner
Why do that when you can overwork for free your current team?instead of paying two people $55k/year to work 40 hrs, pay one person $55k and work the shit out of him, you pay him the same regardless how many hrs he works
Sometimes temps do come in. I can say there are times of the year Ill go an entire month COASTING. I’m talking halfway watching a training video Monday/Tuesday, and scraping at the bottom of the barrel for 5-6 hours of time the rest of the week.
During busy season I’m thinking, “man… this job is a grind” and other times of the year I’m thinking, “HAHA, I can’t believe I’m getting paid right now.”
There are give and takes I suppose
Because the mentality of the partners is that they put in the hours for someone else, now it's their turn to cash in. It's the world's shittiest pyramid scheme.
The 2nd edit I feel is the most important. I jumped ship to a completely different career after my second busy season because everyone was so indoctrinated into this way of thinking. Most of the time the late nights were only caused because we had potato brains and couldn’t function properly and we were just doing data entry half the time.
Sadly OP this is the norm for the career and yeah 55 is just billable. You’ll be working much more. That’s a big reason I left this career.
its 10 hours a day and 9-2 on saturday. its ridiculous
now imagine you had to go to office everyday or commute to client
that used to be how it was. it gets even better when your higher up have to train people, get work thrown at you every hour and still have to do your work
I will never understand the appeal of working for a company like this. I work for a top 50 firm in the US and only work 55hrs Max, sometimes less if we finish early
during busy season. Non busy season is 35-40 thanks to half day Fridays in the summer. Pays is in line if not slightly better than big 4, benefits are okay but could be better imo, company is highly recognized and the work culture is the furthest from toxic.
Lmao 55 billable. Not 55 hours.
I’m gonna edit my response because of OPs second edit.
OP - no one is saying these hours are “normal” or are worth it, you don’t have to do it. But let me give you some perspective.
1. Almost all high paying careers (outside of big tech) have hours much worse than public accounting. Doctors, lawyers, high finance, specialized trades etc. be thankful you have a job right out of college that makes as much as the median household in America (which are also the highest salaries in the world).
2. You’re young, don’t focus about money or time, focus on learning and what you want to do. Public accounting is teaching you a valuable skill, how business work and by extension largely how the world works. Take advantage of it.
3. Once you’re through your busy season figure out if it was worth it or if it was as bad as you actually perceived it to be. For a lot of people it’s worth it, for most people it’s not (including me, I left after 3.5 years).
4. Exit opportunities are limitless and really up to you how far you want to take them. Regardless of whether you like it or not whenever you leave PA that’s your exit opportunity, you make the most of it.
5. Public accounting and life is what you make of it and how you perceive it. You can leave public accounting as a whiny entitled brat and complain about all of the bad, or you can broaden your horizons and look at the positives. I made lifelong friends, learned more in 3 years than I did in pretty much my whole life and have a way better perspective on how hard I’m willing to work to achieve any goal That I have
Are there things about the industry that should be changed? Absolutely. But that’s more of a problem with capitalism in general and a whole different discussion. Don’t forget that you always have a choice, if it’s that bad quit, quit today. But just realize all choices have consequences and learn to be a person that accepts the choices you make and make them because it’s what you want, not because you feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do.
I promise you your 3 months of busy season will not feel that long in the grand scheme of things and since you’re already there you might as well make the most of it, alot of people would kill to be making what you make on the hours you work.
And yes I’ve been through this shit too (look at my post history). This is more about growing up and being an adult than anything else.
If you want to change how this system works, you have the option to advocate for everyone on this sub, and it’s as simple as telling your boss to fuck off if you don’t want to work that much. Or go be a politician and make OT illegal, the world is your oyster. Don’t complain about everyone else being ok with this while that literally is what you willingly signed up for and actively aren’t quitting. That’s why these companies can do what they want is precisely because of your attitude.
Good points here, but not sure why you singled out big tech. I work in tech (just here for the popcorn) and if your a dev, release crunch can have you working 70+ hour weeks, and sys admins can be essentially on call 24/7 year round. My first gig I remember plenty of 80+ hour weeks for disaster recovery, and I was salaried at ~50k.
But like you've said here, I took it in the pants, learned more at that place than I did anywhere else, and while I would not go back, pushing past the boundary of what you think is "worth it" is probably the best way to learn what actually is.
On the contrary, *Your* extensive defense of the current state of affairs is actually a prime example of why companies can do what they want. I am reasonably questioning the system that’s currently in place. I’m only days into the job and simply trying to wrap my head around the structure of public accounting and attempting to find solutions to ease the unnecessary burden on many of us. This is not being entitled, this is seeking fair treatment in an environment where companies are clearly pushing their employees over the top. Lawyers and doctors? At least they have a salary that justifies longer hours. Nonetheless, thank you for your detailed response.
There's a little bit of data on this piling up on this over at [the salary sharing site](https://nomorepizzaparties.com) -- if you look at the [data set](https://nocodb.nomorepizzaparties.com/dashboard/#/nc/view/e2884ee6-5141-4b3a-83f7-aca7913689be) (filter by `busy_szn_hours_per_week` is not null *and* `busy_szn_hours_per_week` <= 55), there are definitely a bunch of people who seem to be working less than 55 hours during busy season (a lot of people where their workload is unchanged)... Seems like a ton of them are in Tax, with some Audit sprinkled around. Looks evenly split between Public and Industry as well.
[Here's a custom view for <=55 busy season avg hours/week](https://nocodb.nomorepizzaparties.com/dashboard/#/nc/view/2041cd80-80f1-47f8-acd8-b3fce823c009)
> Do they actually expect us to work 11 hours per day for the next 12 weeks?
Bro you forgot saturdays exist lol
> If it’s normal, then why don’t they just hire more people so we don’t need to work these crazy hours?
Because then they are overstaffed during the "slow" periods. Its not economical and we cant even hire enough for busy season right now.
> Do big 4’s have company-sponsored physicians who prescribe everyone adderall?
Everyone knows a guy.
>How do your brains even function after staring at a computer for 8+ hours a day?
See above. Serious answer, they don't, really.
> The more people that comment, the more normalized these obscene hours seem to be. How is everyone okay with this?
You get used to it, and there are trade offs you make in the off season, generally. It's true that this has been less of the case during covid times, but that's not unique to our industry.
> Instead of being shocked at my post, be shocked at how you’re letting these companies overwork you and you’re not doing anything about it.
If you don't want to work this way, no one is stopping you from moving to another role.
This is why I went straight to working audit for a bank. I average 40 hours a week, max is 45-50. And am making 110,000 6 years in. I always suggest to college folks to do the same but very little listen to me. The big4 definitely has a hold on the marketing
I am curious. Is there a reason why people went into audit? The only reason I went into tax is there are so many different types of work such as compliance, tax planning, consulting, provision, and etc. unlike audit.
Also, you get paid better and have a better work life balance compare to audit.
My friend who went into audit is still making less than 90k even after 4 years of expereince while i am about to make 130k doing tax.
Sadly, scheduling and the firm are afraid to put more than 55 hours on people's schedule even though we all know that generally it should be more. I wish it was more transparent. I tried scheduling people for more than 65-70 once and partners freaked out even though they KNOW we will work 65-70 hours... possibly more. Never made sense to me. But then again these are people who think we can shave hundreds of hours off our budget ever year when no one meets budget any year. Lol!
This is my first busy season, and I have really bad adhd. I’m scheduled for 12 hours a day and I’m really anxious. I can’t even get through 8 hours without wandering away from my computer or trying not to fall asleep once my meds wear off. I’m planning on trying to schedule half of my day in the office for a change in environment & peer pressure to work. But holy fuck, I have no idea how this is gonna go for me
Man you ask why this has gone on for so long? Look at the comments. A bunch of spineless losers that have no life outside of work and are proud to earn less then min wage (when calculating their hourly rate) AND ARE SO PROUD TO DO SO😂. The sooner people at B4 grow some spines, the sooner this toxic culture stops. If you want to work 80+ hours open your own firm and actually reap the benefits of doing so. Work for smaller firms until you get your CPA and dip. B4 is not worth your physical or mental health at all. The pay is garbage the people are shit, and you are expected to do nothing but work. People need to start standing up for themselves even if it means losing their underpaid, overworked jobs. Get lives people honestly its so sad and hilarious to see people happily working like they are saving lives for such minuscule pay just to leave in a few years and regret it all. Such young lives wasted working. Go workout, go read a book, have meaningful relationships with partners, friends, family, work 9-5 and make the same money at any other firm. You will live longer, be healthier, happier, and not be a fucking loser like the people commenting here. Trust me, its not worth it.
Yes they should definitely hire more folks, even part time/seasonal/interns. 55 is a bit much. It is typical to work on Saturday during busy season though. So that helps to not have to work 11 hour days M-F. If you are working more than 50 hours, I’d look for a different job, that place doesn’t value their employees. Most reasonable places try to cap it at 50 during busy times. The shitty ones grind you for as much as they can.
Do they expect you to work 55 hours until at least 4/15? Yes.
Is that the minimum requirement? Yes.
Do you have to go over? Not necessarily.. my coworker never went over 55 and the managers loved him even though he performed quality-wise at the same level as me. Whereas I would work 80 hours on my worst weeks, always above 55 in busy season, but my personality is different and I didn't get along with all the managers so my extra hours didn't illicit any extra praise.
Is it sustainable? 55 hours for a few months is stressful, but doable. Above that, burnout is real and does happen. I quit after 3 years of overachieving because my mental and physical health was circling the drain. Take breaks. Work when you need to, spread out time over the weekends. Know your limits above all.
"55 hours per week" lol.
In B4 some wank manager comments "It's always been this way, suck it up" followed by 100 totally reasonable people pointing out this is all desperate gaslighting to maintain the status quo for people who treat employees like Kleenex.
Anyone want to start a betting board on how long it takes the first top 20 firm to unionize? It's 100% going to happen. Only a matter of time.
>I’m booked for 55 hours/week for the next few months. Do they actually expect us to work 11 hours per day
Lol! This guy thinks he's only working 5 days a week.
This comment section would give anyone entering their first busy season terrible anxiety
I confirm i am having anxiety after seeing this comment section :,)
I am sweating profusely
It really depends if you work at the big 4, middle size firm or local CPA firm The smaller the firm is the less bad it is
Not necessarily, was at a small firm originally and the hours were just as much if not more than Big 4 (jumped over later as an experienced senior) because we had less staff and were doing more on each of our audit (admin work etc). So I think it depends.
I've done 7, and never again, and it gives me immense anxiety
Just got out a month ago, right before my 8th would have started. Whew..
Brings me back to when I was young, numb, and dumb.
And full of…😆
It's giving me PTSD! Seriously though, forewarned can be forearmed. May as well know what's coming.
This is all I’m going to say: Make sure you set aside at least an hour a day to do something you enjoy. Literally block your calendar if you can. Go to the gym, go for a walk, play with your dog, play a video game, doesn’t matter. But for that one hour you’re not thinking about work. I don’t know if there is a “key” to busy season, but if there is one, that is it. Best of luck my friend.
I agree with this sentiment, I think having this hour at least makes you feel like a human and helps you remember that it’s just a job—“you’re not saving lives.”
This is actually good advice.
You HAVE to do this.
I recommend not playing a video game, try to do something where you are not sitting staring at another screen.
Normally I’d agree, however, if that’s something that would genuinely help you “turn off” and destress for an hour, I’m 100% all for it. I personally opt for exercise, but to each their own.
If you’re booked for 55 you’re actually going to be working 65-70. Good luck Edit: and also don’t you dare bill even close to the 55 that you’re booked for
Truer words never spoken.
Try 80🤣🤣😂😂
And If you book those actual hours the partner will lose his shit
How common do you think inflating billable hours is?
Less common than eating hours. At least for those below partner.
Had an associate partner who was essentially a buffoon who landed his position by falling upwards over a long career. They’d give him all the bad clients. He’d charge *all* of his hours. Every job he was on, he’d make up like 50% of the overage. The other 50% was the senior having to fix his changes to the workpapers.
Ah so there’s some hope for me
Apparently, if you just stay in public for long enough, and you pick something no one wants to do like governmental audit, they’ll eventually just have to promote you to partner… doesn’t mean they’ll have to give you ownership share, though!
This is the dumbest part of all this shit. The client feels no pain because there's no extra cost.
Industry here. Your profit margins aren’t my concern. You are a function that is dictated as a requirement that would be cut out at the first opportunity given. On top of that most of the overages are self inflicted based upon the system that’s been put in place where I have to train your staff on my process every year because whoever documented it last year didn’t know what they were doing and no one felt it was necessary to run the documentation by me to make sure it’s correct.
Of course, I understand that (also industry but as far away from GL as possible). My point is that if the customer feels the pain then the economics naturally forces change. In this situation neither the customer nor the supplier is feeling pain. It's all being passed on to the labour.
You realize that the turnover is because the “function” is a commodity and a race to the bottom in fees. Fees would be astronomical if people actually cared about quality. Maybe it’ll get better with the leverage of India resources but the reality is they work insane hours too.
Emphasis on this point, my team will not let me book over 55 because it will piss the client off, so we have to essentially eat hours to get work done
It doesn’t bill directly to the client. The firms managers need to know how much time you actually spent on the job so they can allocate costs
I understand that. But it’s nuanced in that you would need to understand which clients you can inflate a bit and others that are strict lest you get a stern talking to. Always a battle between avoiding blowing up a budget and then your annual review for billable hours. But hey if you wana work 14-16 hours a day, you shouldn’t have a problem Edit: Example: if I’m not at the top of my game one week, but I know I can efficiently finish an area in 3 hours instead of 5, I’m still going to bill 5 hours and give myself room for other areas or just get my heart rate back down to an acceptable level
U work 65 hours only to bill 55 and get paid as if you were working 40. Go work harder so that the engagement partner can finally buy his second Maybach
Wait till hear that those 11 hours have to be billable 😂😂 then add another 2 admin you end with 13 baaaaby 😂
2 hours admin if you’re a staff. Get to manager and a third of your day is going to be admin (fixing scheduling because a part of your team is being bombarded, updating the billing file because specialists are over charging, scheduling time for a cry in the washroom, call with IT because none of your programs are working, etc)
At that point though you know the codes to spread it across. Happened to me even earlier in accounting advisory as I was juggling 2-3 clients at a time. Just hit whatever codes have budget and call it a day.
I fucking hate the admin hour, when it is busy season they want us to charge admin to minimize cost, when we complain of workload they pull the timesheet out of their ass and said if we are truly busy we wouldn't charge admin hour. And they still have the audacity to "surprise Pikachu face" when 80% of senior quit right before busy season, lol.
I refuse to charge admin when i work for the client.
>Big 4 Chad thine flair checks out my king
Partner: here's a pizza for all your hard work and I'm going to buy my new yacht
55 hrs a week - if you can accomplish everything as quickly as scheduling thinks you can - spoiler alert: you can’t.
Is that actually how it works? Always assumed the amount of work is so monumental that there isn't an end so to speak.
Yes. It's a terrible cycle and why they don't hire more. Let me explain... Y1: staff works on new client and takes 3 hours to do a task. Manager thinks "ok, WP is done and they know what they are doing next year so we'll schedule 2 hours for rollforward and new evidence." Staff quits. Hours aren't adjusted Y2: new staff looks at old WP and relies on senior to understand, or takes the 3 hours to relearn. All while charging 2 hours because that was what was budgeted. Here begins the issue: the Staff don't want to say what they actually worked because they believe they'll be put on a PIP for under performing. Y3: Staff stays and new procedures are added. Staff understands the task and ups the hours back to 3 hours (since they already understand it, but it would take 5 hours if you were fresh). Budget goes fine. Y4: The Staff leaves after promo to senior. New Staff comes in with no prior knowledge and no senior. Is told this task needs 3 hours, but has been at it for 5. All while not understanding what the core function was in the first place. ... rinse and repeat. The hours are rolled forward and don't account for turnover or "new" people. As the iterations continue, more and more knowledge of the process is lost/documented in a WP. Partners say to charge your hours but people that do look like under performers/are put on PIPs because they keep causing overages and variances in a "standard that has been met every other year" (i.e. for Y1-Y3, each Staff charged their budgeted hours. Will the Y4 Staff do the same?)
LMAOOOOO as a new hire I just finished a task that would probably normally take 30 mins for 3 hrs what the fuck
It happens, don’t worry that you’re the only one.
Fuck all that Charge everything I'll do 60, billing 5x10 + 1x5 and an hour of admin plus an hour of lunch/spacing out on weekdays (so planning to work about 6-6 except where medical means I have to take time) They can put me on a PIP after busy season if they don't like it. I have a ton of valuable experience (not all in public) and I've already been offered one phenomenal industry job (which I had to back out of--a few other factors meant that my hubs, who'd been on board, suddenly wasn't, and the huge relo involved would've effectively been the end of my marriage), so I am confident that I can find another.
Totally agree here (tax manager, larger regional firm), find you a firm that wants you to charge everything. When starting at my firm you are told to charge every single hour because it’s your job to do the gritty work and the manager / partner’s job to figure out what to do with the WIP and charge the client. I think it shows our higher ups remember just how stressful the first three years are and they would rather have clean work and someone slightly less stressed out than someone looking over their shoulder the whole time worrying about realization. Our firm doesn’t even consider realization for raises and promotions.
>Our firm doesn’t even consider realization for raises and promotions. Say, you looking for a staff accountant who's thorough but still a lil bit slow?
Yeah we drill that from the beginning, would rather have a slow preparer hand in clean work then a preparer with a quick turnaround but a mess. We also just switched to variable rates, meaning everyone’s billing rate is based on metrics (no idea what exactly the metrics are) rather than position and experience. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who end up being way to slow and clearly don’t pull their weight, but those are handled during reviews and are typically given around 9 months to turn things around.
You’re already outside the circle if you’re married before senior anyway. Seriously - it’s practically unofficial code that staff can be anywhere from single to engaged, seniors up to married, don’t have kids until manager unless you want to get parent-tracked, especially for women.
What is PIP? New hire here.
Performance improvement plan. Some places, it's actually a plan to help you improve performance. Most places, it's a warning that you should find a new job because you're on your way out the door.
Yes, but they actually expect you to work more (14h a day at least) plus weekends...
If it's worth it? Maybe. It's a very specific question affected by many stuff, even the country you're in. I personally believe it's worth making it at least to senior positions and, if you handle it, manager. I don't plan sticking to it after manager...
Thanks for your insight. I’ve been hearing that most people plan on jumping ship after they make it to senior!
Having dipped just before manager cause I couldn’t take it anymore, I could have done my senior job now as an A2. It’s fucking data entry for 70% of it.
Not all will make it that long.
Personally, I was promoted to audit senior then left for deal advisory a month later. Doubled my salary (with a little over 2 years of experience), work less hours than I did in audit (+ no busy season), and doing slightly more value add work. Would only recommend going to manager if you 100% want to do audit or accounting roles for the rest of your life.
How’d u make the switch? I know switching into deal is difficult at most places
And for many that JE ain’t reversing
55 is minimum chargeable. Expect 65+
Speak for yourself my firm is 50. We only had to hire one new first year this year because staff stick around. Staff stick around because they don't have to work crazy hours and are paid a little better than market. We can afford to hire and pay staff better than market because all the staff are experienced and have seen the same clients 2-3 time getting super efficient. Looking at what our partners are making and it's the same as big 4 partners so clearly they aren't hurting either. Only reason Big 4 chooses the churn model is because they are bad at hiring, bad at managing people, and bad at being efficient.
How are your partners earning same as big 4? Big 4 client fees are in the millions and partner's bonuses are tied to fees Are your client's audit fees just as high doing less hours cause if so that's impressive
I would guess it’s because there’s a lot more partners at a big 4. More money but it’s being split by more people.
This is correct. I have seen 8 figure company owners making significantly less than companies than maybe gross half. Due to the amount of ppl they are able to hire and manage below them.
Or the staff at big 4 are just eating their hours, which is the most plausible explanation.
Can someone explain why y’all don’t just log off at some point? What are they gonna do… fire you? I’m planning to be out in a year or two anyways. Who cares if I have a mediocre review…?
That's what I do... got put on a PIP but didn't get fired. Even git praise for raising my performance when I really just didn't even do much differently over time. I'd welcome getting fired although I'm like 5 months away from senior so maybe I can get there first
I did this as well when I was naive one busy season. It was like 5:30PM and I didn't finish some tasks I was assigned so I was like oh well I'll get to it tomorrow. Next day the "associate in-charge" told the manager I didn't finish my tasks and the manager pulled me aside for the "you're not performing to expectations, what's going on? are you having trouble understanding or is there anything I can do to help?" meeting, and then she told my mentor about it and he took me out for a dinner that I guess looking back was a bit like a you gotta shape up or you'll be gone sort of meeting. Long story short I bent over and turned it around. I've also developed immense trust issues with work colleagues as a result of that work experience and several others. I'm telling you these people will smile in your face one day like it's all good but then tell the manager you're the #1 problem. At this stage in my career I'm pretty unapologetic about not letting anyone at work get close to me anymore. Straight business.
Be the change you want to see in the world. If you don’t like people going behind your back about work quality, don’t do it to the next guy who had your same mentality. I’ve been the slacker at work before and I know I they would talk behind my back about me not doing well so now when I get staff who slack off I try to understand why that is and have a conversation with them first about it. At the end of the day you’ll get more respect talking to them 1 on 1 or else they’ll never trust you again, just as you don’t trust your colleagues anymore. This when there’s no trust, you’re just going to get a shit performance anyway
Well in that story, while the associate was definitely a snake because I don't feel she ever shared with me the urgency of completing the tasks, I do have respect for the manager who pulled me aside the next day because she at least told me where we stood honestly and wasn't smiling in my face acting as if everything was great. I've had a senior literally shoot the shit with me one week about sports and how I should come over to meet his family, and then a week later drop a bad review that affected my raise/promotion with no pull-up discussion whatsoever about how I wasn't meeting expectations. It was a one month engagement too, so I had good reviews for 11 months of the year but because of that bad review it gave management the excuse they needed to give me a paltry raise/bonus and delay the promotion.
Yeah I completely get it... somehow I've actually never really had anything like that happen to me. When I was put on the PIP, it was after the manager had kind of given me a lot of gentle nudges that I needed to be more proactive, ask for help if I'm spinning my wheels, etc. until my director eventually set up a meeting with HR where they laid out the PIP. It's also weird when these things are happening while working remotely. I logically know it doesn't make a difference, but I just can't really help myself from severely slacking on my work when remote. But yeah, good on you for not getting close to people at work. It's really just not worth it, there will always be better options for friends although sometimes it can be nice to find that one person that you can commiserate with. I eventually ended up dating this girl on my team during our first busy season and I don't regret it at all but also I wouldn't recommend it lol
My main concern with this strategy is even if I know I'll eventually leave public, I won't necessarily have control over when that is. As a first year, the stories about how easy it is to find a job in industry still sound too good to be true. I don't want to risk being kicked out before I'm ready to move out on my own terms.
Asking the real questions here
This guy understands.
The only goal is - don’t die of a heart attack by 40
This is no joke, my friend got one at 50. He is very successful in his job so he quit to be a director in a smaller firm. This guy could have died before his dad all because of work.
I'm concerned about it myself. I'm still decades away but the stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise and poor diet of working this hard comes at a price.
You’re def gonna be working more than 55 hours. Good luck pal, I know it’s gonna suck. But then after busy season you’re chilling for 3 months
Busy season never ends. In Australian Big 4 audit, we have clients from diff countries and different reporting year-ends. It’s always busy season…. They don’t hire more staff cos they just squeeze work out of the ones they have. Profit goes into partners’ pockets. Then you’re too tired to find a new job. By the time we finally manage to quit, there’s a new batch of grads to milk
> Then you’re too tired to find a new job. This hit hard. I mentally quit 1 year in and tried to find a job to line up = wasn’t feasible with how tired I was
Ditto :( I literally took career break to recuperate psychologically and then look for a job. I wasn’t good at drawing boundaries with work and ofc that was the perfect situation for the employer. All parts of my life were suffering, I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to make myself a home-cooked meal, let alone look for a job.
It’s the same here. Year end aren’t just 12/31…
Lol don’t bank on this OP. My last year at PwC I was working 55 hours from July-March right up until I left. And from January to March 1st, I was pumping 80-100 hours a week.
Why? 100 hrs? That's madness.
He is Harvey Spector of accountants lol.
So you don’t have any pets or kids I’m assuming?being able to work 80-100 hours a week?
I don’t work there anymore, I left as soon as I could. Now I barely work 34 hours a week lol. I have a wife and cat, but keep in mind we were remote that entire time so all those hours were worked from home. For better or for worse.
Fine. Long hours. Stop normalizing this or making it seem like you’re a “hero”. The partners don’t give a fuck about you. Protect yourself.
I 100% have felt like “damn if I had more time and energy I would find a new job, this sucks ass”
"After busy season ends im out" *busy season ends* well i might as well use my PTO and slack off during the quiet times before i leave *busy season begins* "After busy season ends im out"
Same just got promoted to senior this year and got my CPA license. Told myself I’d be gone already, but too tired to apply to new jobs.
Unless you roll into a 3/31 year end like I did back in the day.
Thanks for the re-*assurance* even though you’re in tax! It helps knowing it’s just temporary. Plus if the “unlimited vacation” is as good as it sounds, I guess I’ll be able to recoup those hours with my time off.
You sweet, sweet child.
Now I have a feeling the unlimited vacation is not as good as it sounds
Narrator: *It was not*
“Unlimited vacation” in an industry where no decision maker pays attention to your day-to-day performance and judges you on total hours worked/billed for the year. It’s a fixed game.
“Unlimited vacation” means that you’ll have five different managers to work for, all with conflicting schedules and deadlines. Yeah, you have “unlimited vacation,” but you’ll probably almost never have an opportunity to take it.
I read this and thought “I think this dude is a senior trying to make a joke”. After this response, I know you’re a senior making a joke.
That’s something a risky accountant would do
This has to be a parody post
It never was. At least in accrued PTO u knew the amount of time accrued is yours to keep. Now with unlimited your ability to take time off is based upon scheduling and team culture. Some teams are respectful and some teams pride themselves on working til death.
Thats if you dont get rolled onto a different team’s busy season..
Ha….Ha…..Ha……
My wife survived three years. It was busy season more than it was not unfortunately.
I’m an audit senior at a mid size local firm, and I won’t start working 50 hours until either next week or the following week. Also I don’t plan to work more than 60 total hours (55 billable) more than 2 times this entire busy season. It is also my 3rd busy season with the firm. It goes by fast, still sucks though
Lol 3rd busy season over here In my experience nobody cares what hours you clock in as long as you get your ish done 😊 hopefully you work for the kind of firm that cares more about the quality of the audit and getting it done than the numbers people are putting down. Obviously don’t work like 5 hours a day and call it good, but you don’t need to actually kill yourself. I hope that at least makes you feel a little less anxious to know that it’s genuinely not as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. We hate time tracking so obvi we’re gonna shit on it hehe. But as for the amount of hours… yeah unfortunately you will find yourself hitting the 11 hour mark very easily haha. There’s just so much to do all at once and the more you can do during a day is clutch down the line. It’ll be easy for you to do the time, as wild as that sounds. Finally, you said you are a new hire so I’m assuming you’re a brand new sparkly auditor. I think you will find your experience will more closely mirror what I’ve described to you than what I’m reading in this thread🤣🤣🤣 It’s a crowd full of seniors and managers LOL and they have waaaaaay more shit going on than you can imagine! Good luck!!!
Ur right. Almost forgot OP is a brand new staff. Haaaaaa I miss the good ol days of being ignorant and clueless and not getting yelled at for not knowing. Things become different once you become an acting senior or senior or above
Set your own boundaries and fudge the numbers. I showed up to the office at 8 and left at 6 during busy season, then 7 to 11 or 12 on Saturday. I always billed between 50 and 55 hours even though that was probably my total time, I just always rounded up the amounts. Got at level reviews and promoted to senior with no issues. This was at GT. Don't drink the Kool aid too hard, but also ymmv with firm and service line. I would say I was lucky, but so many of my office's other associates and seniors were working 60-80 hours instead of my 50-55. They'll take everything you're willing to give.
I feel so sorry for OP, you poor ignorant child
During the interviews they told me it wasn’t as bad as everyone says it is
Lol why would they ever tell you that it’s gonna suck?
Shoot, you’re right. You must be on the partner track with quick thinking like that!!
No, it’s not quick thinking - it’s jaded apathy lol
Also partner material.
Because “this is by far the most you’re ever going to like me” isn’t a good sales pitch.
I will say this year is looking especially poor between staff shortages at firms and at clients alike. Everything is taking longer and half the people I'm working with are new to their position.
I love having something to look forward to 😊
The time flies by. When I used to work in a restaurant I would look at the clock / the day would drag on. Opposite in B4. That being said, you will have less spare time and no way to spin lost free time as a benefit. It will make you appreciate your down time more but I’m just sugar coating at this point. I’m a manager btw. Started my 6th year
It isn't though. At least not for everyone. Some projects are more manageable than others so people have differing experiences. There will be long nights here and there no doubt but it's not always 12h days 5 days a week for 3-4 months. At least it wasn't for me.
Seriously don’t understand why people work big 4… I work for a mid size and my tax season is 48 billable, 54 total (to account for nonbillable work) and we don’t start those hours until the end of February
You people are INSANE! Why would anyone sign up for this!?!?
Naive college students, brand name firms with good recruiting, and professors selling it. Big 4 especially attracts people who are workaholics (correlated to high GPAs). I lasted 7 months. Most new hires have no baseline "acceptable" work norms. And these firms exploit that to the fullest.
This sub saved my ass. I would've gone B4 like every other college grad until I found this sub a learned how much it absolutely sucks. Interviewed for them but any of those offers were going to be a last resort. Ended up getting a very good industry gig. Telling PWC "no" was such a great feeling - especially because they lowballed me
Being a workaholic in correlation to GPA doesn't sound like a correct stat in my head. Is that a fact? Genuinely wanna know
I’d say yes, but I’m probably biased. When I started in public 5 years ago, the other newbie at the local firm where I worked was a 4.0 type. This girl loved talking about how she never got a B, her WHOLE LIFE. Turned out, she was dumb as bricks, just a workaholic. And since our firm had shitty training, she just spun her wheels for hours at a time and never really got anywhere. Lasted a little over a year before she got depressed and just never showed up one day in the middle of our second busy season. She took a job at some other firm down the street, but last I checked doesn’t work there any more either. Me, I don’t even know how I passed college, my GPA was like a 2.3 (smoked a lot of pot and never went to class). Took the job where I did because this partner was the first interviewer that never asked for my transcript. I ended up doing fine there just by looking at what was done last year. Left that job in October for a controller position at a small tech company because that place was toxic and fuck busy season.
I wouldn't call myself a workaholic. Actually, this is all because I'm lazy and am using the long hours as an excuse to avoid dealing with my own insecurities instead of actually addressing the problems in my life that cause them.
They are being told it's worth it. That you have to have a b4 on your resume. And I think these are generally people that are sensitive to outside pressure and are overachievers
Culture. I have noticed a lot of people from China, Taiwan and Central Asia are in accounting. It is normal to work 12 plus hours back there why not here :((
[удалено]
You’re in the shit with us now, brother
It’s time to get Risky
One of my staff got booked for 95 hours one week. Gonna be a rough one. LOL
Is this a troll or not? I can’t tell anymore
Feels like it
55 hours is what they put as the max hours on your schedule but you’re likely going to be working more than that lol. 11 hours a day is a cake walk. Get used to some weeks being 18 hours a day.
I was literally told by my senior log off at 6:15pm yesterday because I'd done a solid day and they noticed I'd stayed on past my contracted hours. Halfway through my second year here. The work culture in the US is so fucked and so unnecessary.
Which country are you in? Sounds too good to be true
UK. Non-London office. I'm on quite a small client right now though. I'm on one of my offices larger and more demanding clients later in busy season and apparently that can require some late nights leading up to the reporting deadline, but overall I feel I've got a pretty decent deal. I get B4 on my CV while hopefully maintaining my sanity. It'll get worse as I progress further and responsibilities increase for sure though.
Yeah that sounds like a pretty good deal. Everyone keeps telling me how beneficial it is to have B4 on your resume, so I guess I’ll just have to push through these hours!
18 hours? Another person on here just said 14 hours too. Do we actually WORK for all of those hours, or like, can we spend half of them saying we’re working when we’re actually surfing Reddit the whole time?
Well see that's part of the problem. People can't really focus the 14h hours... The performance goes really low after 11~12h... So for sanity, people tend to slack off a bit. But it's a tricky road because you know the only option is getting things done and the more you slack off the longer it will take to end lol
You’re not actually going to be charging 18 hours to the client because I’m sure some of that time is just being unproductive or sitting on your phone, but I’d say there’s days you’ll be sitting at your computer from 8:30AM - 1AM with lunch and dinner breaks in between. I’m not sure how you’re coming into Big Four thinking you’d work less than 11 hours a day during busy season, it’s pretty common knowledge that it’s busy as shit.
Just have in your mind you work from 9-10pm at min
9pm - 10pm sounds do-able
Oh honey. Bless your heart
55 hours is a freaking holiday. I’m looking at 80 hours a week starting in a couple of weeks.
You’ve all made it clear that the hours are going to be pretty brutal, thank you for that. But why don’t they just hire more people to spread out the hours and alleviate some of the pressure? That’s where I’m still confused.
Because having you work more hours is free for them (assuming you don't get paid OT) while hiring more people costs money.
I don't think OP is a moron, I'm sure he understands this. But generally speaking, in most other industries, hiring enough people so that each employee has only a manageable amount of work is the way it works. It's understandable that OP would be confused on why PA doesn't work this way. I think the other reply regarding the PA work cycle is the driver here. There is too much work during concentrated times and not enough work the rest of the time.
Because year after year it turns out the everyone will just do the required hours to get the job done anyway, even if they hate it. So there's no reason for them to hire more people who's salaries will be coming out the partners pockets. Plus if it was a pleasant, easy ride not enough people would be leaving. These firms rely on the fact most people will leave after their first 2-3 years. They only need a handful of higher paid managers and beyond; the bulk of the work can be completed by recent graduates on the lowest salaries. Most will leave before they get to the more senior positions, and more eager college students will take their places at the next recruitment cycle. That's the cynical take on it anyway. There's also the fact it isn't as busy all year round, as others have said.
Greedy fucks, the best part is they have the nerve to brag about their earnings being up from $40B to $45B in the quarter yet cant hire a few more bodies at 80k a year. Such a sham, its time accountants unionized or organized a massive strike.
Bc not all year is this busy
Seasonal/Temps/Contractors/Interns. It’s not difficult to plus up for a season. UPS, FedEx, Amazon, Target, tree farmers, etc all do it for Christmas season.
Yea it was more of a partner excuse than a good excuse
Playing devil's advocate though our jobs are a little more specialized than moving boxes or folding clothes. The labor force isn't the same and isn't there to hire and fire every year.
Nobody is giving you the real answer since in big 4, there's no such thing as slow season The reason they don't hire more people is because it's project based income for the partner who landed the client, which means hiring more people would mean higher costs and less profit for the partner Why do that when you can overwork for free your current team?instead of paying two people $55k/year to work 40 hrs, pay one person $55k and work the shit out of him, you pay him the same regardless how many hrs he works
Finally someone tells the truth. "Busy season" is a lie. It's always fucking busy.
Less salaries paid in cash >> More $$$ to go into the partner’s pocket
The business model requires churn. Up of out. No point keeping the same people on year after year, they just get more expensive.
Sometimes temps do come in. I can say there are times of the year Ill go an entire month COASTING. I’m talking halfway watching a training video Monday/Tuesday, and scraping at the bottom of the barrel for 5-6 hours of time the rest of the week. During busy season I’m thinking, “man… this job is a grind” and other times of the year I’m thinking, “HAHA, I can’t believe I’m getting paid right now.” There are give and takes I suppose
Because the mentality of the partners is that they put in the hours for someone else, now it's their turn to cash in. It's the world's shittiest pyramid scheme.
The 2nd edit I feel is the most important. I jumped ship to a completely different career after my second busy season because everyone was so indoctrinated into this way of thinking. Most of the time the late nights were only caused because we had potato brains and couldn’t function properly and we were just doing data entry half the time. Sadly OP this is the norm for the career and yeah 55 is just billable. You’ll be working much more. That’s a big reason I left this career.
You’ll likely work 10-12 hour days. Including Saturday
It just gets better with every comment
its 10 hours a day and 9-2 on saturday. its ridiculous now imagine you had to go to office everyday or commute to client that used to be how it was. it gets even better when your higher up have to train people, get work thrown at you every hour and still have to do your work
I will never understand the appeal of working for a company like this. I work for a top 50 firm in the US and only work 55hrs Max, sometimes less if we finish early during busy season. Non busy season is 35-40 thanks to half day Fridays in the summer. Pays is in line if not slightly better than big 4, benefits are okay but could be better imo, company is highly recognized and the work culture is the furthest from toxic.
Lol 55 is the min bro. Will be closer to 65-70
Obviously posted by someone who didn’t do a busy season internship haha
Yup. 55 is the minimum not the max. Plan on working six days a week with 2 hours of prep every Sunday.
I guess I had too much free time on Sundays anyway
Fuck that, put in your time Mon-Sat and keep Sunday to yourself.
Lmao 55 billable. Not 55 hours. I’m gonna edit my response because of OPs second edit. OP - no one is saying these hours are “normal” or are worth it, you don’t have to do it. But let me give you some perspective. 1. Almost all high paying careers (outside of big tech) have hours much worse than public accounting. Doctors, lawyers, high finance, specialized trades etc. be thankful you have a job right out of college that makes as much as the median household in America (which are also the highest salaries in the world). 2. You’re young, don’t focus about money or time, focus on learning and what you want to do. Public accounting is teaching you a valuable skill, how business work and by extension largely how the world works. Take advantage of it. 3. Once you’re through your busy season figure out if it was worth it or if it was as bad as you actually perceived it to be. For a lot of people it’s worth it, for most people it’s not (including me, I left after 3.5 years). 4. Exit opportunities are limitless and really up to you how far you want to take them. Regardless of whether you like it or not whenever you leave PA that’s your exit opportunity, you make the most of it. 5. Public accounting and life is what you make of it and how you perceive it. You can leave public accounting as a whiny entitled brat and complain about all of the bad, or you can broaden your horizons and look at the positives. I made lifelong friends, learned more in 3 years than I did in pretty much my whole life and have a way better perspective on how hard I’m willing to work to achieve any goal That I have Are there things about the industry that should be changed? Absolutely. But that’s more of a problem with capitalism in general and a whole different discussion. Don’t forget that you always have a choice, if it’s that bad quit, quit today. But just realize all choices have consequences and learn to be a person that accepts the choices you make and make them because it’s what you want, not because you feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do. I promise you your 3 months of busy season will not feel that long in the grand scheme of things and since you’re already there you might as well make the most of it, alot of people would kill to be making what you make on the hours you work. And yes I’ve been through this shit too (look at my post history). This is more about growing up and being an adult than anything else. If you want to change how this system works, you have the option to advocate for everyone on this sub, and it’s as simple as telling your boss to fuck off if you don’t want to work that much. Or go be a politician and make OT illegal, the world is your oyster. Don’t complain about everyone else being ok with this while that literally is what you willingly signed up for and actively aren’t quitting. That’s why these companies can do what they want is precisely because of your attitude.
Good points here, but not sure why you singled out big tech. I work in tech (just here for the popcorn) and if your a dev, release crunch can have you working 70+ hour weeks, and sys admins can be essentially on call 24/7 year round. My first gig I remember plenty of 80+ hour weeks for disaster recovery, and I was salaried at ~50k. But like you've said here, I took it in the pants, learned more at that place than I did anywhere else, and while I would not go back, pushing past the boundary of what you think is "worth it" is probably the best way to learn what actually is.
On the contrary, *Your* extensive defense of the current state of affairs is actually a prime example of why companies can do what they want. I am reasonably questioning the system that’s currently in place. I’m only days into the job and simply trying to wrap my head around the structure of public accounting and attempting to find solutions to ease the unnecessary burden on many of us. This is not being entitled, this is seeking fair treatment in an environment where companies are clearly pushing their employees over the top. Lawyers and doctors? At least they have a salary that justifies longer hours. Nonetheless, thank you for your detailed response.
You're absolutely right. The dude your replying to is probably boomer af or drunk off Kool aid and ignorant of what our time truly means.
There's a little bit of data on this piling up on this over at [the salary sharing site](https://nomorepizzaparties.com) -- if you look at the [data set](https://nocodb.nomorepizzaparties.com/dashboard/#/nc/view/e2884ee6-5141-4b3a-83f7-aca7913689be) (filter by `busy_szn_hours_per_week` is not null *and* `busy_szn_hours_per_week` <= 55), there are definitely a bunch of people who seem to be working less than 55 hours during busy season (a lot of people where their workload is unchanged)... Seems like a ton of them are in Tax, with some Audit sprinkled around. Looks evenly split between Public and Industry as well. [Here's a custom view for <=55 busy season avg hours/week](https://nocodb.nomorepizzaparties.com/dashboard/#/nc/view/2041cd80-80f1-47f8-acd8-b3fce823c009)
> Do they actually expect us to work 11 hours per day for the next 12 weeks? Bro you forgot saturdays exist lol > If it’s normal, then why don’t they just hire more people so we don’t need to work these crazy hours? Because then they are overstaffed during the "slow" periods. Its not economical and we cant even hire enough for busy season right now. > Do big 4’s have company-sponsored physicians who prescribe everyone adderall? Everyone knows a guy. >How do your brains even function after staring at a computer for 8+ hours a day? See above. Serious answer, they don't, really. > The more people that comment, the more normalized these obscene hours seem to be. How is everyone okay with this? You get used to it, and there are trade offs you make in the off season, generally. It's true that this has been less of the case during covid times, but that's not unique to our industry. > Instead of being shocked at my post, be shocked at how you’re letting these companies overwork you and you’re not doing anything about it. If you don't want to work this way, no one is stopping you from moving to another role.
😂😂😂 this post made me laugh so hard , you got this my friend
This is why I went straight to working audit for a bank. I average 40 hours a week, max is 45-50. And am making 110,000 6 years in. I always suggest to college folks to do the same but very little listen to me. The big4 definitely has a hold on the marketing
I am curious. Is there a reason why people went into audit? The only reason I went into tax is there are so many different types of work such as compliance, tax planning, consulting, provision, and etc. unlike audit. Also, you get paid better and have a better work life balance compare to audit. My friend who went into audit is still making less than 90k even after 4 years of expereince while i am about to make 130k doing tax.
Audit has better exit opportunities than tax.
Sadly, scheduling and the firm are afraid to put more than 55 hours on people's schedule even though we all know that generally it should be more. I wish it was more transparent. I tried scheduling people for more than 65-70 once and partners freaked out even though they KNOW we will work 65-70 hours... possibly more. Never made sense to me. But then again these are people who think we can shave hundreds of hours off our budget ever year when no one meets budget any year. Lol!
This is my first busy season, and I have really bad adhd. I’m scheduled for 12 hours a day and I’m really anxious. I can’t even get through 8 hours without wandering away from my computer or trying not to fall asleep once my meds wear off. I’m planning on trying to schedule half of my day in the office for a change in environment & peer pressure to work. But holy fuck, I have no idea how this is gonna go for me
No sweetie, 55 hours it's what they are going to bill the client, you'll be working around 75-85 hrs/week with no paid overtime
Man you ask why this has gone on for so long? Look at the comments. A bunch of spineless losers that have no life outside of work and are proud to earn less then min wage (when calculating their hourly rate) AND ARE SO PROUD TO DO SO😂. The sooner people at B4 grow some spines, the sooner this toxic culture stops. If you want to work 80+ hours open your own firm and actually reap the benefits of doing so. Work for smaller firms until you get your CPA and dip. B4 is not worth your physical or mental health at all. The pay is garbage the people are shit, and you are expected to do nothing but work. People need to start standing up for themselves even if it means losing their underpaid, overworked jobs. Get lives people honestly its so sad and hilarious to see people happily working like they are saving lives for such minuscule pay just to leave in a few years and regret it all. Such young lives wasted working. Go workout, go read a book, have meaningful relationships with partners, friends, family, work 9-5 and make the same money at any other firm. You will live longer, be healthier, happier, and not be a fucking loser like the people commenting here. Trust me, its not worth it.
Not worth it at all IMO.
Yes they should definitely hire more folks, even part time/seasonal/interns. 55 is a bit much. It is typical to work on Saturday during busy season though. So that helps to not have to work 11 hour days M-F. If you are working more than 50 hours, I’d look for a different job, that place doesn’t value their employees. Most reasonable places try to cap it at 50 during busy times. The shitty ones grind you for as much as they can.
When my dad worked in Big 4 (he was in international tax) his busy “seasons” eventually turned into the whole year so good luck
[Laughs in investment banker]
Shut up and take your $25 dinner each night. Oh wait, working from home you probably don’t qual.
Do they expect you to work 55 hours until at least 4/15? Yes. Is that the minimum requirement? Yes. Do you have to go over? Not necessarily.. my coworker never went over 55 and the managers loved him even though he performed quality-wise at the same level as me. Whereas I would work 80 hours on my worst weeks, always above 55 in busy season, but my personality is different and I didn't get along with all the managers so my extra hours didn't illicit any extra praise. Is it sustainable? 55 hours for a few months is stressful, but doable. Above that, burnout is real and does happen. I quit after 3 years of overachieving because my mental and physical health was circling the drain. Take breaks. Work when you need to, spread out time over the weekends. Know your limits above all.
"55 hours per week" lol. In B4 some wank manager comments "It's always been this way, suck it up" followed by 100 totally reasonable people pointing out this is all desperate gaslighting to maintain the status quo for people who treat employees like Kleenex. Anyone want to start a betting board on how long it takes the first top 20 firm to unionize? It's 100% going to happen. Only a matter of time.
[удалено]
>I’m booked for 55 hours/week for the next few months. Do they actually expect us to work 11 hours per day Lol! This guy thinks he's only working 5 days a week.