As I looked at my calendar this morning, I realized there are only a few more workdays left in tax season. Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot like an elementary-schooler, wanting to make a paper chain countdown until April 17th. I would have to say that before this past week, I hadn’t really felt the pangs of busy season. However, something must have changed over the last seven days because now I’m exhausted, either slightly grumpy or in giggle fits from lack of sleep, and I believe I have forgotten what my house actually looks like in the daylight.

Despite the drawbacks, there are benefits to our situation. Yes, we may practically miss our families for three months, but I think we get something in exchange. At dinner the other night, I looked around the table at all of the people I have come to know, talking and laughing and sharing stories, and realized that I had gained a second family. I thought that, if we’re all pretty much living at the office, at least we get to be here with fantastic people.

Over my short 22 (almost 23!) years of life, I have learned that people come into our lives for a reason, and that we need to take advantage of that reason. Through busy season, I have realized that there is so much to be gained from the people around us. Whether it’s tax return advice or life advice, I’m finding that the people I work with have some pretty great suggestions. As long as I’m at Withum, I will continue to soak up as much knowledge as I can. It would be silly of me not to take advantage of the wealth of information around me.

As busy season draws to a close and spring blooms, I look forward to spending my evenings and Saturdays outside of the office and spending some much-needed time with friends and family. I’m also looking forward to seeing the sun again. Although I certainly don’t want to continue with busy season hours, I’m going to miss weekly dinners with my “work family.” I suppose we’ll have to get together somewhere outside of the office…with no tax returns, good food, regular clothes, and maybe even wine. Yes, definitely with wine.

Lauryn

This week marks the start of spring, which means as accountants, we are absolutely in the thick of things.  Thus far, the weather has been unseasonably warm and that “Springtime itch” to get outside has been acting up far too much as of late.  Over the past few days, the most trying task has not been a workpaper, tax return, depreciation schedule, or client deadline… it has been fighting the urge to forget about all of our responsibilities and enjoy the unbelievable weather that we’re experiencing. 

Typically this time of year is filled with the excitement of March Madness, milder temperatures, and more hours of sunlight.  However, I am finding that all of these things make a first-year accountant’s life and job that much more challenging.  Everywhere I look people have been enjoying and celebrating the end of winter and beginning of spring.  Whether via Facebook posts, text, Twitter feeds, or even an old fashioned phone call, I have been constantly reminded of just how great it feels to enjoy the outdoors in early spring.  With all of that in mind I began to get a little restless and turned to my co-workers for advice. 

In speaking with a few individuals I began to realize that they all felt the exact same way.  Each and every person, most of whom have been through busy season numerous times, could relate to how I felt and really shared my yearning to get outside and capitalize on the gorgeous conditions.  In speaking with my office mates, who have quickly become my very close friends, I took solace in knowing that I was not the only one “missing out”-  Of course, we all wanted to blow off our burdensome schedules and bask in the delight of a beautiful spring day, but instead, we stayed… committed to our work, our profession, our clients, and each other.  Somehow, that conversation left a smile on my face.  In just a short discussion I had gone from looking outside with an insatiable desire, to feeling happy working at the office with my friends, knowing that deep down we all felt the same way.   

Dan

With the March 15th deadline behind us and only twenty-something days of tax season left, WS+B Red Bank held their annual tax season bowling break. A few weeks ago, I received an email and was notified, to my surprise (and slight horror), that I was selected as a bowling captain. The email instructed all captains to recruit a handful of team members and to report back on their selections. Upon reading this, there was a noticeable bustle around the office as people hurried to secure their top picks for recruits. Trades and deals were made, and within the hour, emails were sent to report team rosters, names and team themes.

It turned out that some people chose their teammates without prior approval while others sought out their desired recruit to procure a verbal agreement. This, of course, caused mass chaos as the same person was frequently chosen by two teams, simultaneously. Sour thoughts grew due to the state of confusion, but the situation was remedied by a random draw, leaving everyone with a team of five or six.

Although competition can be healthy, this situation made me realize that sometimes taking something too seriously can drive all of the fun out of it. At first, many of us missed the mark, focusing too much on our teams and not enough on the idea of a fun break with co-workers. After all of the fuss, my randomly selected team was better than I could have wished. They were the perfect mix of people I knew, people I kind of knew and people who I hadn’t had too much experience with. With a little creativity, a good team attitude and two buffalo suits, we ended up winning second place in the theme contest — and had a lot of fun doing it!

My lesson learned for this week is not to sweat the small stuff. It’s understandable that there are situations in life that are stressful, but most things aren’t worthy of giving ourselves wrinkles over. So take a break, organize your thoughts, and when all else fails? Keep calm and…go bowling!

Lauryn

Oh weekends, how I miss you!  Weekends, when broken down, are very aptly named as they mark the end of one week and the beginning of another.  As public accountants, weekends simply provide an added day to the workweek, which many of us NEED in order to keep up with the onslaught of work handed out during busy season.  However, using Saturdays (and occasionally Sundays) as another workday not only limits our social lives, but also our perspectives. 

The lack of true “weekends” makes the workweek feel endless as each week leads seamlessly into the next.  In fact, it has me asking questions like, “What day is it?”  Truthfully, odds are, that if you asked me that question in the middle of last week, I would not have had an answer off the top of my head.  This past week I lost the ability to organize the tedium of the never-ending, daily grind that has become my everyday life. 

For instance, it has become ever more difficult to set straight the little facts, such as which day of the week it is, in my head.  In talking to a few “more experienced” personnel, these matters are common amongst all accountants, yet nevertheless… troubling.

In my life, this level of mental fatigue can only be rivaled by Finals Week in college, where one spends all day and night studying lessons and materials from the entire semester, while never quite getting the amount of rest needed.  It’s sort of like that, only nine weeks longer… the dog days of busy season, if you would. 

The only thing that I have found to be more peculiar than my loose grasp on what day of the week it is, is the fact that I am actually getting used to it.  It may be scary, but 12-hour workdays are starting to feel normal to me.  I am not quite sure how I have gotten used to the harsh busy-season schedule, but I am glad I’ve adjusted. 

Dan

When I was younger, my parents put me in sailing class at the MRYC. This class consisted of myself, another handful of eight-year-olds, instructors who couldn’t have been older than seventeen and little fat pram sailboats called Optimists. At the beginning of each class, we would have a lecture. Next, we would do drills: rudder around the marks, flip the boat over, right the boat back up, sail upwind, sail downwind, and so forth. During one particularly windy day, I remember being intimidated by the wind, and not wanting to sail for the day. However, I swallowed my fear and headed out with the class.

Before I knew it, I was downwind and stuck in a cove. I had to pull out my bright orange safety whistle and blow it until one of the instructors came to rescue me in the power boat. The instructor offered some encouraging words and wanted me to give it another go, but I refused. I made him tow me back to the dock, where I put my boat away and quit sailing class for good… mortifying my parents I might add. It wasn’t until a handful of years later that I started racing again. I had let fear overcome my love for doing something I enjoyed and was good at.  I had wasted years in the process. I’ve always thought back to this experience when something I come across is particularly challenging.

Over the past week of tax season, with little more than a month to go until it’s all over, I’ve done some tax returns that have certainly intimidated me. Seeing a return with workpapers so overflowing that they are rubber-banded to the outside is intimidating. Seeing a particularly complicated allocation schedule is intimidating. Feeling like you are overwhelmed with information is intimidating, but then I think back to my Optimist sailing class and I dive right in.

So what if I get blown down in the cove? There are so many sources of information at Withum to utilize as my orange safety whistle! Although this time, instead of being towed back to the dock, I ask questions of those around me, get great answers and finish my task with confidence. I can even say that I am starting to enjoy a challenging return. I learn more in completing one challenging return than I do in preparing ten simple ones.  This time around, with a little help from my co-workers, a lot of questions and a love for learning, I will overcome my challenges the first time.

Lauryn

When I first came to Withum in October, I wasn’t what you would call “too busy,” so I would work on case studies, for practice, in GoSystems. I worked on each of them multiple times, studiously following the directions and then testing myself by not looking at the steps and trying again. For the first time this past week, I was assigned a few actual tax returns, as opposed to practice ones, ranging (in my opinion) from easy to medium to hard. It’s through preparing these returns that I have learned the importance of my prior year work papers.

During our Fraud CPE this past fall, Tim Gearty, Becker Professional Education class founder, spoke on how work papers can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I’ve recently learned that he was NOT joking. I was a little overwhelmed upon being assigned my first tax return of the year, especially when flipping through the giant envelope of client workpapers.  So, I did the only sensible thing that came to mind. Instead of staring blankly into space and spinning my wheels, I went into Go File Room and opened up the prior year workpaper PDF for that particular client. Hallelujah! A road map! I thanked God at the sight of the very detailed notes my predecessor had left behind. I also vowed that I would be one of these copious-note-leavers, just in case my successor finds him or herself in the same boat. Notes in hand (or, on the double monitor, rather) I felt confident in my ability to prepare the return.

Upon receiving the return back from the reviewer, I found that there were a few things I’d missed but that I don’t think I would have otherwise known before completing the return. To remedy this, I’ve started to keep a “tax cheat sheet.” In it, I take notes on any tax rule that is a little odd or that I wouldn’t normally think to do right off the bat. I also write down helpful hints or bits of information I learn from my co-workers.  The sheet doesn’t have much in it so far, but I’m sure it will be full sooner rather than later.

Looking back, I can’t help but think how lost I would have felt if it weren’t for the detail included in those particular prior year workpapers. The notes we take as accountants are so important because we work on many jobs that only take place once per year. Ideas and directions may seem sharp and clear five minutes from task completion, but trying to recall them a year later is no easy feat. Lesson learned for this week? A good work paper is worth its weight in gold.

Lauryn

During any drastic change in life, there is some time that passes where we are still working out the proverbial kinks.  We often label it as an adjustment period which is riddled with frustration and some sense of stepping out of your comfort zone, but ultimately we make the needed adjustments and press on.  For a Staff I Accountant, busy season is the ultimate change and the first few weeks can be a little rocky… not to worry, it’s just a matter of time before you truly get the hang of it.

The first few weeks of busy season were not as hectic and unyielding as I had imagined.  I definitely felt an increased urgency for projects and assignments, but the hours were not piling up quite as high as I had thought.  One could say it was like learning to ride a bike with your training wheels tightly fastened to your back tire, where you know there is room for error, but you eventually work your way towards balancing it all by yourself. 

However, this past week, someone took the training wheels off and did not bother to give me fair warning.  In almost an instant I had compiled an impressive list of open items to tend to with only a limited number of days to complete it all.  I found myself spending countless hours at the office while the work continued to flow in.  I was pedaling faster and faster attempting to balance it all and yet did not feel like I was truly accomplishing anything.  The long hours and difficult juggling act began to take its toll.  I was mentally (and physically!) exhausted, frustrated, and had my fair share of cuts and bruises, but I knew that if I just focused and got back to basics I could overcome the fear of falling and embrace the challenge that busy season presents.  Going forward, I will continue to accept adversity and navigate the trying roads that lie ahead, just like a kid hopping back on their bike after a bad fall. 

Dan

Picture this:  You are strapped into the seat of a rollercoaster that is making its ascent to the top of a vertical drop that frankly, scares the life out of most people.  There is no way out, no room for baggage, just you and your thoughts, and of course the other 25 or so people on the ride going through a similar balancing act of feelings… both panic and excitement.  I have always enjoyed the shot of adrenaline that pumps through your body upon the first drop of a rollercoaster.  That feeling of letting go and accepting that you have no control, just letting the ride take you wherever it is going.  It’s a blissful feeling full of excitement and despair – that leaves you awakened, yet terrified, illuminating synapses that are not often sparked.  While all of this is well and good, typically that feeling is left at the amusement park and rarely finds its way into our lives any other way.

For me, that familiar feeling of anticipation and anguish somehow crept into my mind in the third week of my first busy season.  I awoke early Monday morning from a terrible dream that I had overslept and rushed to work without any shoes on… strange, but telling.  I went through my morning routine and headed to a client’s office.  On my way I felt a growing anxiety, much like the one you get while waiting in line before boarding a coaster, as I thought of the laundry list of open items left to complete in my previous client’s work papers as well as the client before that.  The thought made me nearly lose my breakfast (thankfully I eat light in the mornings).  How was I going to handle all of this on my plate… Three clients with things to “wrap up” and a brand new client, complete with its own task list? 

I arrived at the client shortly after and took those vaulting steps from my car to the clients conference room, just like strapping yourself into a rollercoaster as the ride attendants voice echoes, “We’re all set. Enjoy.”  During my walk I drilled through the list of assignments left to be completed for all of the clients I had worked on thus far, informally prioritizing them and making mental notes of just how much had to be done for each task. 

Whether I liked it or not, I was scheduled on this audit and five others just like it in the coming weeks.  The jobs were going to move forward with or without me constantly worrying about them.  At that moment I decided that being apprehensive was not the best approach because after climbing to the top of the coaster’s tracks, it doesn’t make sense to panic.  Rather, you would be best served to throw your arms up, take it all in, and simply enjoy the ride! (And leave the worrying to the managers).

Dan Asbaty

This week of tax season is a four-letter-word as far as I’m concerned because it is marked by a CPA exam failure. I received a section of my scores a few days ago. They weren’t a 75, and that’s all that matters, really. Through talking with people in the office, I’ve realized that other people have also failed the exam before they’ve passed it and have gone through what I’m going through. However, that doesn’t mean I feel comfortable with the idea. This week, I’m learning to deal with failure.

This may sound…wrong? But I’m not used to doing poorly at things. I don’t think I had ever studied throughout elementary school or middle school. Maybe a bit in high school and a bit more in college, but never the kind of studying where you had to spend hours wrapping your head around something. I always sort of “got it.” It was not until recently I had discovered that although I have been an excellent student, I am somewhat of a lousy studier. If I could help it, I have never allowed myself to do poorly (or even mediocre) at most things. I have always been very hard on myself, possibly too hard at times, in not just academics and athletics, but also in life. My mother, to this day, has kept a note from my kindergarten teacher saying, “Lauryn is doing wonderfully, but she has to learn that not everything has to be perfect on the first try.” I think about that note a lot lately.

I took my first CPA exam section two months after I graduated college and I was blindsided. I had aced all of my accounting classes in school, survived through long nights of Becker at Monmouth University, completed every single question (even the supplementals!), and ordered the outrageously priced extra flashcards. I sat for my first ever section of the CPA exam – FAR – in late July. I remember sitting in the waiting area of the test center and being called in to be finger printed, metal detector-ed and documented via photo. As I opened my testlet, my heart dropped. I didn’t know the first question, which is always a bad sign. I sat through the entire exam thinking I should just give up and run out and live my life being a hobo on the beach. Those thoughts came rushing back after this past week’s failed attempt.

Being good at “failure” is not a trait most of us think of on a given day or even want to associate ourselves with, but it’s a trait we all need to learn. I think a more proper term would be “good sport” or whatever the opposite of “sore loser” is. Gracious, maybe? Humble? We all need to be those things. Through this job, busy season especially, I am learning both the importance of those traits and how to improve myself, as a person. Whether it’s an exam, a tax return, or a workpaper, I am learning that it doesn’t matter if something is not done perfectly on the first try as long as we learn from our mistakes, improve the next time around and continue to improve from there on out. Hopefully, maybe later on this spring, I’ll have a more celebratory post as I learn from my mistakes and failed attempts and turn them around into successes.

Lauryn

A team is defined as a number of persons associated as part of a joint action, cause or goal.  While the New York Giants and New England Patriots were paramount examples of what a “team” truly embodies, the same can be said for an audit or tax team.  We are, in every sense of the word, a team.  We are associated and placed together to achieve one common goal.  Whether you are conducting an audit, or figuring out the best way to save a corporation money on their 1120, there is a goal or joint action in mind. 

Being part of a team can mean many things.  It can mean that we are simply trying to band together to work towards an end, or it can represent something more.  For myself and the other members of the Morristown office staffed to complete the audit of a dental client, being a team meant that each member had trust, admiration, respect and support for one another.

Typically a true team aspect and culture, much like the Giants or Patriots, can take years of bonding, and overcoming adversity to truly gel.  However, our audit team (“Dental Force One” as we refer to ourselves) really came together seemingly overnight.  I’m not sure if it was the ‘cozy’ nature of the client’s conference room, or perhaps the mountains of paperwork to climb, but something about our stay here made our team click and come together much faster than normal. 

Throughout the long days and nights filled with caffeine and a few side stories, we each learned a little bit about each other that we would have never known otherwise.  In just over a week, we had grown to care about one another and understand that although busy season is full of long hours, dizzying spreadsheets and a longing for a good night’s sleep, we were all in it together… as a team.  There was something comforting about that realization; something that made me want to commit to the team and do my part.  There was a piece of me that felt like my team relied on me and I knew, especially as an inexperienced Staff I, that I relied on them as well.

As my first busy season engagement moved forward, hard work turned into sign-offs and review notes and although this particular sequence of actions was rewarding, it left behind a bittersweet sentiment.  On one hand, the hours spent at the client were paying off and the work was getting done, but on another hand my time there was coming to an end.   I knew that in a sense I would miss being here.  Perhaps not the work or the conference room, but definitely my team. 

All in all, I never imagined that my first foray into public accounting would make me feel like part of a team, but over the first few weeks of busy season, I would have trouble describing it as anything else.  Looking ahead I am excited about the prospect of spending time on new jobs, with different teams, and I hope that the hours spent working elsewhere will leave a similar feeling of camaraderie and fellowship.

Dan