Lately since things have been picking up at work I felt OK to be there. For the other five months that I've been there I have been kicking and screaming about my time in the office. Finally, it was just okay to have to go to work.
In my heart, I will always love and miss my last firm. Those people accepted my goofy blunt self and encouraged it. But I do need discipline, I need exposure to different clients, and I need to be challenged. My current firm gives me all of those chances. This is not the place I want to stay though. The culture is full of lies and deceit, and I think there are borderline shady things going on that make me worry about job security. That's a whole different post.
As much as I whine and groan about my co-workers, I don't want anything bad to happen to them. If my blog (which they know I keep but haven't found yet) hurts them in anyway, I will be the first to show up at their doorstep and apologize with a bottle of liquor. The way my firm treats them, and myself, infuriates me. No one deserves to be treated like a second class citizen with how much of our lives we spend in the office instead of with friends and family. I can throw out many examples of how they shit on their employees, but this is the most recent happening:
At the firm, they offer money for a very specific CPA review course. You have to sign a promissory note for one year and if you leave before then you pay back a portion of the money you borrowed. You can purchase a multitude of review courses, but they give you just enough money to take a local CPA course and if the one you want is pricier (they all are) you have to pay out of pocket. They highly encourage taking this local CPA course to the point where that's the only information on the courses they provide you with.
Many people choose this course rather than shelling out extra dough. Some people are only aware of this one course. This local course has been active for eight years, I believe, and doesn't have a great success rate but it is affordable.
My coworker Tina, and 6 other tax people were enrolled in this program. They had paid $1,500 for four classes upfront and each time they pass one exam, they signed up for another class. Tina wanted to start her next class this January so she could take an exam. She started calling the review center, but the phone number was disconnected. She began to send emails to an address that used to respond timely, but she received no response. Tina then contacted our HR manager who had encouraged her to spend $1,500 on this course. The HR manager told her she would look into it.
A month later, Tina comes in at dinnertime with a depressed look about her. She tells me that the review course shut down when the main teacher retired around New Years. Hundreds of people had put hundreds of dollars into this course and they weren't getting their money back or ever taking a class again.
I asked her what she was going to do, was our firm that encouraged her to take this review couse going to give her more money to find another one? Yes, but she has to sign a TWO YEAR promissory note this time to borrow the money. And she will have to pay out of pocket over their miniscule amount because all the other courses are more money.
"I'm never going to be able to leave this firm," she said in a defeated voice.
So now my hatred for this place is refueled.