Part I
Well, it’s been 4
months since I got back to work with my former employer. 4 months since I decided that it’s more
practical to have a full time job than make it on my own in the ‘outside’ world.
These past 4 months
reminded me what I liked (and didn’t like) about being an employee and what I
liked (and didn’t like) about working on my own or being self-employed.
Let’s start with
what I like about being employed. Needless
to say, the opposite of these are the ones I dislike about being self-employed:
One, the amount I
will receive on a monthly basis is a sure one.
I don’t need to wonder whether I have enough money left over for my
personal expenses, which was my constant concern when I was still
self-employed. Being employed means my
salary is all mine. Of course, that’s
assuming my salary is enough to cover my own expenses in the first place.
Second, it’s not
all about me, me, me. I don’t need to be
the jack-of-all-trades, to know everything and anything that has to do with
accounting or auditing or tax, etc. When
you’re working for an accounting firm, and a big one at that, there are people
you can go to and consult when you run into problems that have nothing to do
with accounting or auditing. Heck, even in
accounting, you can still consult with other people, whom we sometimes refer to
as “subject matter experts”. So you don’t
need to be an expert in everything, you just need to be an expert of ‘knowing’
to whom you can go to when you want to ask some questions.
Third, training is
free. Now this one I had to admit could
eat into your funds when you’re self-employed and you need to update your
knowledge and you need to attend all these trainings, seminars, etc., etc. In an accounting firm, especially in the Big
4, trainings are free. They had to. They had to update you, as their employee,
because you will use your (updated) knowledge to audit their clients. If they train you right, you will serve the
clients right. If they don’t…
Fourth, and I’m not
really sure if this is really under the category of ‘likes’ but I’ve included
this anyway – you get to encounter (more) complex accounting and auditing
issues. Being in a big accounting firm
(we’re like 2,000 plus in our office alone) means you get to audit really big
clients with accounting issues that are so complex, you’ll rack your brains on
how to resolve them. Hint: Want to avoid
this (or lessen the ‘rack your brains’ part)?
See like number 2 above.
