No regrets

Twelve years ago today a group of around thirty keen and eager university graduates became Accountancy Trainees with the very prestigious Arthur Andersen.  Amongst them were Annand, Peacock, Bertelle, Marriott, Lines and Smithies. Our first day was spent being inducted into the ways of the professional working world, and starting our enthusiastic networking with one another and all of the people we met along the way.  It was a very important day in my career, hence every year I remember the date although the afore mentioned ladies always tell me I am weird for remembering such trivia. It was the first day of proper employment, the first day as a young professional, the first day as a proper grown up.  On the second day, I got thrown out of a strip club for snogging.  Oops.

I became an accountant by accident.  I had spent most of my university days doing placements in Marketing and Category Development for a major wines and spirits firm, and in doing so had developed a love for all things consumer orientated, as well as developing a taste for several dubious ready to drink products including the interestingly named, Barking Frog.  I did dissertations on Consumer Behaviour, and revelled in the Shopper Psychology of putting the bakery products at the back of the supermarket but wafting the smell of freshly baked bread around the front door. I was adamant I was going to have a career in marketing and as I had already done all the basics as a student would be able to go straight into a great job and make a flying start to my career.  However, during my year out in Spain, a friend started talking about internships at law firms and training contracts in accountancy.  Had I thought about it?  Which was I applying for? Did I not want a professional qualification as a solid string to my bow to set me up for life? Well I had not really thought about it, and she made it sound so easy, so on returning to the UK that summer I looked up the firm who had the best starting salary rates, applied, was offered a job in the Assurance and Business Advisory Consumer Markets Division before term even got started in October. Easy.  Looking back I'm not sure I even knew what auditing was and quite why any business would want my advice I had no idea, but once I have made up my mind to do something, I am determined and so on 27 September 1999, I started my quest to be come a Chartered Accountant.

I worked for Arthur Andersen, later shortened to just Andersen, for three and a half years. I must have done something right as I was promoted along with everyone else and had the opportunity to travel, work on interesting projects and still had time to socialise.  It was fun.  A bit like being at university but with a little more work and a lot more disposable income. I met some of my best friends at Andersen's and it was through a friend of a friend of a friend at the firm that I met Mr Man.  And then some idiots in America didn't do their jobs properly, shredded some documents and it all went horribly wrong.

Everyone thinks they know about the Enron scandal.  All I know is that thanks to some underhand behaviour involving certain Texan politicians, some corrupt businessmen and some naive auditors in a country far, far away, my beloved firm was disintegrating.  It did not seem fair then, and nor does is seem fair now, especially as in June 2005, the ruling which had condemned the firm to its eventual dissolution was overturned.  The courts in the US had got it wrong.  Despite front page news and seemingly endless coverage across the world in 2002 condemning the firm and all who worked there as cheats and criminals, when the ruling was overturned three years later very little was said on the subject.  The Economist published an article occupying three solitary columns entitled "Not Guilty After all - try telling that to Arthur Andersen".

So where is today's positive thought?  Well firstly, thinking about all of this reminds me that you should never give up.  It wasn't a change of heart that lead to the truth being unveiled and Arthur Andersen being acquitted of any wrong doing - there were people behind that who passionately believed in their organisation and fought hard to clear their names and in doing so the reputations of the rest of us who were inadvertently tarnished, albeit briefly, by the scandal. And secondly, today also marks nine years since I qualified as a Chartered Accountant allowing me to put the letters ACA after my name and join the ICAEW. This means it is only one year to go until I am eligible to join the ranks of Fellowship of the Institute, and have the letters FCA after my name, and what crazy accountant wouldn't want that? And finally, Annand came to stay last week, and is booked in again for the week after next and Peacock and Bertelle are coming to see me on Friday. Perhaps being an accountant isn't so bad after all.