The life of an accountant will either be the most boring career you’ve ever had. On the other hand, accounting can also be an extremely rewarding and interesting career. In some ways I think it’s really two sides of the same coin.
Why Accounting Is An Extremely Boring Profession
So picture yourself walking into a room with many cubicles with at least three computer screens on each desk (once you start adding screens, you can never go back!). You see numerous people hunched over their desks, staring at excel spreadsheets. Maybe you pass by a few people flipping through files, and the occasional employee scrolling on their phone, avoiding passing eyes. What do you hear? Nothing much, the room is quite silent except for the sounds of typing fingers on keyboards, mouses clicking, and the occasional sigh, or even curse word under their breath.
The image of that cartoon accountant with a pencil behind their ear, crunching numbers over a calculator isn’t quite an accurate depiction of an accountant these days. But rather, most accountants use an array of highly sophisticated computer software, with some unfortunate souls still stuck in the analog days of paper files. In either case, the life of an accountant really involves long days in silence staring at excel spreadsheets most of the day. Does this sound sexy work to you? Probably not, and in that respect, accounting can be highly boring. Especially if you’re someone who likes a lot of human interaction on a given day.
Also, there’s a lot of repeat work and processes, although this may vary by your specific job, but generally you will be doing the same processes and tasks either every day, or on routine week, month, or yearly cycles.
And let’s not forget about the wow factor! I admit that I’ve gotten this reaction more than once, but as soon as someone excitedly asks me about what I do for a living, after I’ve responded, I tend to get blank stares and crickets in the background. Afterall, who wants to be an accountant?
If I haven’t persuaded you to second guess a life in this profession yet, well, then you might be the other side of this coin!
Why Accounting Is An Extremely Rewarding And Interesting Profession
The language of business, the true nature of accounting. Do you like to learn about different businesses and industries? Are you interested in any kind of investment such as stocks? What about learning about how much money people make? Accounting is simply the recording and tracking of business transactions and being an accountant can be a great way to learn more about these things. One thing that accounts often must do, especially as they gain experience and enter into higher rolls, is they may be responsible for reporting to business owners and other managers about how a company is doing. Being an accountant may give you an opportunity to interact with high business leaders.
There are also a ton of different fields within accounting and you don’t have to just stick with one for your entire career. You can work with taxes, help with business start-ups, work with non-profits, become an auditor for a public accounting firm and review financials for numerous companies, do book keeping, go into consulting, and the list goes on and on. The versatility in accounting can make this career much more interesting and provide lots of opportunities.
What about rules? Yes, you read that right, are you someone who geeks out about rules and loves organization? It may surprise some, but there is very little math in accounting. If you have at least a 4th grade education, you possess the math skills for an accountant. No, what accounting really is about is understanding the rules of reporting transactions, and following those rules. Everything has a place and everything must be in balance. I know a handful of people who absolutely love learning about new accounting standards and love talking about all of the nuances that come with them. If that’s you, then you’ll find this super interesting.
Lastly, if you’re like me, one of the keys to keeping work interesting, is the ability to grow and learn something new. I’m always learning something new as an accountant every single day, which helps to keep things fresh, and keeps me challenged and motivating at work. The ability to always have something new to learn is a huge upside to accounting that you can’t get with all professions.
Two-Sided Coin
So is accounting boring? There are definitely times where slugging through excel spreadsheets and paperwork can seem tedious and soul crushing. It also isn’t always the most interesting job to speak about with friends, but, if you have the right attitude it can be a highly rewarding and interesting career. You’ll learn more about business, sharpen your skills, get to interact with business leaders and influence decisions, and have numerous career opportunities to choose from. It’s really what you decided to make it out to be.