Possibilities in New Beginnings

I expect that September will definitely be my final month with my current employer. As soon as I arrived Monday morning, my supervisor wanted to meet with me regarding my departure. More specifically, I make very detailed instructions on how to perform my recurring tasks, chiefly to make sure I don’t forget how but they’re also useful for training others as responsibilities get shuffled. My manager wanted to make sure they were appropriately updated, so I presume someone will be taking the reigns from me very soon. I’m kind of excited just finally exit from this company where I was never really happy. Promising myself that I would leave soon only allowed me to keep delaying my departure. Hopefully, I’ll find a much better fit at my next job.

Speaking of which, I’ve finally gotten some callbacks from a few of my applications. I applied for an accountant position with a local upscale auto dealer. The listing was vague and the requirements were a little bit Spartan. The business wants someone with at least 2 years experience and pursuing his or her CPA license. I have 7 years experience and an active CPA license, so I expected it to ignore me on the basis that I am overqualified. However, I have an interview scheduled for next Friday.

I’d feel a little self conscious to tell people I work for an auto dealer. I’m afraid people who knew me way back when might expect me to hold a much higher positions at a huge, international corporation, much like my current employer. However, I’d much rather now have a position at smaller company even if it pays less if I can avoid all the office politics I currently put up with. As an added perk, it’s only 15 minutes from my house. I wonder if a shorter commute will alleviate my problems. I mean, after fighting traffic to get to my office, I don’t quite have the mental stamina to jump right into work and focus. Consequently, I’m not as productive as I could be, which means I don’t get enough done to utilize my vacation time, which causes me to be even more mentally fatigued each day, which makes using my time off even less of a possibility, and the problem snow balls.

I also received a call back about a position in Athens. It’s with a small CPA firm. Like the previous opportunity, it just wants someone with a couple of years experience who’s pursuing his CPA license. The only difference is that it wants someone with experience in tax accounting. However, I submitted my application on Wednesday, and the recruiter contacted me within a couple of hours. We covered the broad basics of my interest like why I wanted to leave my current job (its sucks) and how easily could I relocate to Athens (very easily). He’s going to try to stoke the firm’s interest in me, and we’ll see what comes of it.

I’d really like to move back to Athens; though, if I do so, I probably won’t pursue the special agent position again. For one thing, it’ll add one more location to my background check, and I’ll have to struggle to find some references. The only people I could use would be my neighbors on either side of me, but they don’t know me very well, and I don’t know if their vouching for me would be sufficient. Perhaps much more compellingly, I’ve looked at the kinds of houses I could afford in Athens, and I’m really not going to want to move out of one of those abodes.

My chief concern is that the recruiter said the firm wanted someone who might eventually become partner. I don’t know if that’s just sweet talk to make prospective employees believe they have more room to move up than they really do, but I don’t really want to be a partner. I’d much rather have a less time intensive position. Related to that, busy season hours at a CPA firm are an unknown. I know people at huge firms work 80 hours a week for half a year. I’ve heard from people who went with smaller firms only working 60+ hours a week for a third of the year, but I’ve also heard stories of those hours approaching the 80 hour mark, albeit for not as long as at a big firm. On the other hand, I know this firm offers flex time during the summer, which could be anything from leaving the office at 4pm every day to getting Fridays off. If I get an interview, I hope I get an accurate sense of what this particular firm would be like.

Last updated September 01, 2017