WHY ACCOUNTANCY IS NOT BORING

by Mr A. Putey

First let me say how very pleased I was to be asked on the 14th inst. to write an article on why accountancy is not boring. I feel very strongly that there are many people who may think that accountancy is boring, but they would be wrong, for it is not at all boring, as I hope to show you in this article, which is, as I intimated earlier, a pleasure to write.

I think I can do little worse than begin this article by describing why accountancy is not boring as far as I am concerned and then, perhaps, go on to a more general discussion of why accountancy as a whole is not boring. As soon as I awake in the morning it is not boring. I get up at 7.16 and my wife Irene, an ex-schoolteacher, gets up shortly afterwards at 7.22. Breakfast is far from boring and I am soon ready to leave the house. Irene, a keen Rotarian, hands me my briefcase and rolled umbrella at 7.53 and I leave the house seconds later. It is a short walk to Sutton station, but by no means a boring one. There is so much to see, including Mr Edgeworth, who also works at Robinson Partners. Mr Edgeworth is an extremely interesting man and was in Uxbridge during the war. Then there is a train journey of 22 minutes to London Bridge, one of British Rail's main London termini, where we accountants mingle for a moment with stockbrokers and other accountants from all walks of life. I think that many of the people to whom accountancy appears boring think that all accountants are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some accountants are chartered, but very many others are certified. I am a certified accountant as, indeed, is Mr Edgeworth, whom I told you about earlier. However, in the next office to mine is a Mr Manners, who is a chartered accountant and, incidentally, a keen Rotarian. However, Mr Edgeworth and I get on extremely well with Mr Manners despite the slight prestige authority of his position. Mr Edgeworth, in fact, gets on with Mr Manners extremely well and, if there are two spaces at lunch it is more than likely he will sit with Mr Manners. So far, as you can see, accountancy is not boring. During the morning there are a hundred and one things to do. A secretary may pop in with details of an urgent audit. This happened in 1967 and again last year. On the other hand the phone may ring or there may be details of a new superannuation scheme to mull over. The time flies by in this not at all boring way and it is soon 10.00 when there is only 1 hour to go before Mrs Jackson brings around the tea urn. Mrs Jackson is just one of the many people involved in accountancy who give the lie to those who say it is a boring profession. Even a solicitor or a surveyor would find Mrs Jackson a most interesting person. At 11.05, having drunk an interesting cup of tea, I put my cup on the tray and then.... (18 pages deleted here - Ed.) .....and once the light is turned out by Irene, a very keen Rotarian, I am left to think how extremely un-boring my day has been, being an accountant. Finally may I say how grateful I am to your book for so generously allowing me so much space. (Sorry, Putey! - Ed.)