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“Just do whatever they did in the prior year”
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Seniors still don’t know shit, sorry. We just tryna get by and vest on that phat 401K and peace out.
It is also frustrating when a staff goes rogue and tries to completely redesign the process, spends significantly more time on it, and in the end just comes to the same answer (or a wrong answer). Bonus, it also takes longer to review.
If something seems inefficient or incomplete by all means bring it up, and if your senior brushes you off go to the manager, but odds are it is that way for a reason. PS your senior or manager probably created the process in it's current state.
I get that but I'm usually just trying to understand. "Because that's how it was last year" isn't a good explanation.
Unfortunately super strict budgets create perverse incentives for people to to follow SALY. Being creative or trying to go about things differently = extra budget that you don't have and won't be given.
100% agree with Deloitte 2. The culture makes it so that you just have to get the work done, so people won't try to go above and beyond in their current tasks. Also, it's much quicker for a staff/senior to do the same work and then get 1-2 comments on it (as opposed to trying to go above and beyond, especially when the reviewers don't notice).
I mean I had seniors blaming me, even though I am an inexperienced staff and I followed last year and they did it wrong last year lol
I didn’t know it’s wrong. The senior pointed out though they signed off on it last time lol
Why did the auditor cross the road? He looked in the files and that's what they did last year.
You be the change you want to see in the world
Reach out to your manager. Don't put it in a way that makes your senior look bad but see if you an sit in on their meetings, get copied on relevant emails, etc so you stay in the loop and try to learn from that. The reality is that a lot of seniors don't give answers because they don't have answers because they're still learning just like you are. But I personally don't know any managers who would be unhappy with a staff who was clearly making an effort to be more involved in the project
Absolutely don't do this.
I like to use the phrase “use PY as a guide” by no means is PY the Bible
Try and get staffed on new clients. I just finished working on one, and I learned so much more than I had with any other client. It took me forever to understand the process, and I had to research a ton.
I was the senior manager auditing a public company that about $5 million in income before taxes. There was a return to provision adjustment that was creating a $20 million dollar gain. Me and the EL were trying to figure out what it was. No one on the Tax team knew, the tax senior told me they tied it out to the tax return but didn’t know what it was.
The client from Accounting Manager to CAO couldn’t tell me. They had me call their 3rd party expert. The expert tells me it’s due to a subsidiary in bankruptcy that is deco solid taxes for GAAP but consolidated for tax that resulted in a gain once the bankruptcy was complete.
I am late to the final Audit Committee meeting before filing and the CFO tells me no one told him about it. I pointed out it was on page 35 of the financial statements of the footnotes everyone reviewed. I am still amazed to this day we didn’t stop the filing and give them a MW.
Trust me, it happens to all level. I once worked with this SM that just refuses to accept any changes from last year, even though it was obviously wrong. Well what can I say, he keeps being promoted.
Critical thinking is lacking across the board.