Question

Accountant and the Business Owner 2

A young accountant straight out of school applies for a job advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald. He is interviewed by the owner of a small business who has built it up from scratch.

"I need someone with an accounting degree," says the man, "but mainly I'm looking for someone to do my worrying for me."

"How do you mean?" says the accountant.

"I have lots of things to worry about, but I want someone else to worry about money matters."

"OK," says the accountant. "How much are you offering?"

"You can start on seventy-five thousand," says the owner.

"Seventy-five thousand dollars. How can a business like this afford to pay so much?"

"That," says the man, "is your first worry."

After you have a good laugh (or perhaps a few chuckles), share with the group some information about yourself and your reactions to this story. Does this story portray the reality of the accountant's work? Does this joke portray a stereotype? If you agree with the substance of this story in terms of the accountant's role, is this attractive to you as a career? Please post a response, and respond to two other peoples' postings.

Answer 1

The story is a reflection of what the market and society consider in general to be an accountants job. All business owners want to focus on runnning the business and do not want to worry about the sources of cash flow and its utilization. This story is based on the irony of an accountant constantly worrying about the company earning money to earn money himself.

The story portrays the reality of an accountants work to a great extent. A company has to achieve its financial targets for the employees to be rewarded. Thus, an accountant has to constantly worry about the companys financial performance.

The joke does portray a stereotype- bosses burden accountants with financial worries in exchange of a handsome salary. It is a rampant practice.

Even though I agree with the substance of the story, being an accountant is still attractive to me as a career as it is a challenging job. The idea is to not see it as a burden even though others might think so and continue to use my accounting knowledge to the best of my abilities for the betterment of the company.