do accountants enjoy their job?

keep if they keep getting paid.

Your toilet is earning its keep too, or it wouldn't be there.

But it is the salesmen, engineers, and strategic planners that bring home the bacon and make the company rich.

Toilets and accountants are cost centers. Salesmen and engineers are revenue centers.

keep if they keep getting paid.

Oh, and entrepreneurs/engineers/marketing types are never a cost centre? They never want to bet the farm on frankly ridiculous schemes? Their "creativity" usually makes the company rich? Do me a favour!

We are the accountants. You are the morons. We're all about reality. You're all about hype. And we're here to cut your budget. Deal with it!

I like reading the history authors who know about grocery lists. One can tell a lot about how people lived and economic pressures and trade by reading grocery lists and inventories.

No. Our cost center managers did that work.

/BAH

don't forget the movies...sheeze, what kind' of accountant r u??

Amateurs read about wars, scientific revolutions, great mean, and the rise and fall of empires. Real historians drool over accounting records in clay tablets, because that helps them learn about and interpret wars, scientific revolutions, great men, and the rise and fall of empires.

It is the nature of the profession, the fiduciary dynamic. However, in the last four decades a great many of the profession have made the headlines because they under took very risky behaviors. So I would say that this is no longer a reliable attribute.

Same thing, versus the opposite behavioral dynamic which is anal explosive. Although radical expletive behavior can be entertaining in performers, most people don't care for it in those who are responsible for reporting or safe guarding their assets.

Not necessarily. Audit types (sub group of accountants) are frequently the people who are most keenly aware of their surroundings.

if the salesmen don't bring home the bacon, how do the leeches ... er accountants get paid?

if accountants are so fascinating, when was the last time you read an autobiography of an accountant? or told your son that you wanted him to grow up to be one?

keenly aware of their surroundings.

the word "paranoid" comes to mind.

i bet they are also the ones with secret split personalities on the internet, because the pressures of their job drove them to it.

My dad did accounting and was one of the more fascinating men I've known in my 60+ years. Accounting was what he did, not what he was and it provided him the framework to be pretty much who he wanted and provided us a pretty darned good life as well as an education. He wouldn't have thought of telling us what he wanted us to grow up to do but I know he wouldn't have tried to disuade us a bit if it was accounting.

Bob

Biographies usually aren't done of *any* businessmen except those at the top of a large company. Not even many CEOs get their life stories read.

Forest ranger is probably a more exciting job than whatever it is that you do, but not many of them get their autobiographies read, either. Not to mention that they're paid a lot less.

writing a book or being interviewed about accounting seems to have enjoyed his experience.

[etc]

The demographics of the field have changed a bit in recent years: it's in the process of becoming female-dominated (as is the entire managerial sector, itself).

Going down in category, sub-category, sub-sub-category, field, in the United States, by year:

2003: Million Female Black Asian Hispanic 47.929 50.5% 8.2% 5.4% 6.1% Management, Professional & related 19.934 42.1% 6.9% 4.2% 5.9% Management, Business & Financial Ops 5.465 55.4% 9.3% 5.6% 6.2% Business and Financial Ops 1.639 58.6% 9.6% 8.8% 5.6% Accountants & Auditors

1983, 2000-2003: Category: Managerial & Professional Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 42.482 50.5% 8.0% 5.8% 2001 41.894 50.0% 8.3% 5.1% 2000 40.887 49.8% 8.2% 5.0% 1983 23.592 40.9% 5.6% 2.6%

Sub-Category: Executive, Administrative & Managerial Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 20.581 45.9% 7.6% 8.3% 2001 20.338 46.0% 7.9% 5.6% 2000 19.774 45.3% 7.6% 5.4% 1983 10.772 32.4% 4.7% 2.8%

Sub-sub-category: Management-Related Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 5.182 58.2% 9.0% 6.5% 2001 5.139 58.6% 9.7% 5.7% 2000 4.932 56.5% 9.5% 5.4% 1983 2.966 40.3% 5.8% 3.5%

Field: Accountants & Auditors Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 1.702 59.4% 9.0% 6.0% 2001 1.657 58.8% 9.5% 5.4% 2000 1.592 56.7% 8.9% 5.1% 1983 1.105 38.7% 5.5% 3.3%

From:

2003 -- Table 597, 2005 Statistical Abstracts of the United States 2002 -- Table 615, 2004 abstracts 2001 -- Table 588, 2003 abstracts 2000 -- Table 593, 2002 abstracts 1983 -- included with the 2000, 2001, 2002 tables

For the natural sciences, again going by category, sub-category, etc.:

2003: Million Female Black Asian Hispanic 27.995 56.4% 9.1% 6.3% 6.2% Sub: Professional & Related 1.375 53.0% 6.3% 10.3% 5.9% Sub-Sub: Life, Physical & Social Scientists 0.112 46.1% 5.1% 13.3% 2.3% Field: Biological Scientists 0.101 50.5% 4.8% 21.0% 4.9% Field: Medical Scientists 0.140 36.4% 5.9% 19.8% 6.4% Field: Chemists & Materials Scientists 0.185 65.8% 4.0% 2.3% 5.9% Field: Psychologists

Sub-Category: Professional Specialty Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 21.921 54.7% 8.3% 5.3% 2001 21.556 53.7% 8.6% 4.7% 2000 21.113 53.9% 8.7% 4.6% 1983 12.820 48.1% 6.4% 2.5%

Sub-Sub-Category: Natural Scientists Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.545 35.1% 4.1% 2.9% 2001 0.582 34.3% 4.8% 2.8% 2000 0.566 33.5% 5.4% 3.2% 1983 0.357 20.5% 2.6% 2.1%

Sub-Sub-Category: Social Scientists & Urban Planners Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.457 59.6% 8.3% 4.5% 2001 0.454 58.0% 8.6% 3.3% 2000 0.450 58.9% 7.8% 4.1% 1983 0.261 46.8% 7.1% 2.1%

Field: Chemists (except Biochem) Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.130 29.8% 8.6% 3.8% 2001 0.165 31.0% 8.7% 3.1% 2000 0.153 30.3% 11.0% 2.2% 1983 0.098 23.3% 4.3% 1.2%

Field: Biological & Life Scientists Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.119 44.0% 2.3% 2.4% 2001 0.126 44.0% 3.0% 4.5% 2000 0.114 45.4% 4.0% 6.0% 1983 0.055 40.8% 2.4% 1.8%

Field: Medical Scientists Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.089 60.4% 6.1% 3.8% 2001 0.095 51.5% 4.3% 3.2% 2000 0.084 49.5% 4.6% 4.6% 1983 (Under 50,000 people)

Field: Economists (under Social Scientists) Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.123 55.0% 6.2% 4.6% 2001 0.135 52.3% 9.6% 3.6% 2000 0.139 53.3% 6.3% 4.4% 1983 0.098 37.9% 6.3% 2.7%

Field: Psychologists (under Social Scientists) Year Million Female Black Hispanic

2002 0.277 65.9% 9.5% 3.8% 2001 0.268 61.7% 8.3% 3.7% 2000 0.265 64.6% 8.1% 4.0% 1983 0.135 57.1% 8.6% 1.1%

Toffler had plenty to say on this general attitude ... which also seriously plagues the ex-Soviet Union due to the legacy of the infatuation of its former Communist regime (now long-past) with all things of the Industrial Era (also, now long-past):

Excerpted from Toffler (Powershift, the 1990 sequel to Future Shock): "The manufacture of goods -- autos, radios, TV sets -- was seen as male or 'macho' and words like PRACTICAL, REALISTIC or HARDHEADED were associated with it. By contrast, the production of knowledge of the exchange of information was typically disparaged as mere 'paper pushing' and seen as wimpy or -- even worse - effeminate" ...

"What all this added up to was [...] a self-reinforcing, self-justifying ideology based on a kind of macho materialism -- a brash, triumphant 'material-ismo'!" ...

"There was a time when material-ismo may have made sense. Today, when the real value of most products lies in the knowledge embedded in them, it is both reactionary and imbecile. Any country that, out of choice, pursues policies based on materialism [i.e. the infatuation with the manufacturing sector and the material-ismo attitude] condemns itself to becoming the Bangladesh of the 21st century."

And let the US stand warned ... along with the rapidly diminishing male numbers in the most of the respective fields profiled in the previous article.

The Third Wave Unmasked

Throughout the ex-USSR, as a consequence of the growing divide, the gap in life expectancy along gender lines is as high as 12 to 13 years; with (the male) half of the population still stuck in the 20th century with the life expectancy of that time; and the other half advanced to

21st century levels.

wow, he provided your whole family with just ONE education? damn el cheapo.

if accounting is so great, why did you not become an accountant given your inside information into the occupation?

of a large company.

So you admit it! accountants are not at the top of companies.

what's the difference between an accountant and a paper pusher? nothing.

i'm sure the accountants create the intellectual wealth you speak so highly about by pushing numbers around on their speadsheets. NOT!

[pssst...hey Bob]

[grin]

p

How close to the top is the Controller or the CFO? If you Google around, can you find any CEOs that started their careers as accountants? I can.

"Accounting" is a pretty broad job description that goes from the entry-level bookkeeper right to the top.

of a large company.

That what's good about accountants though.

If you put an a scientist at the top of a company, nothing happens except morons and Buddha.

If you put an a engineer at the top of a company, all you're doing is building a faster car, so it's not a company anyway, it's an additional parking lot in outer Disneyland.

If you put a lawyer at the top of a company, all you're doing is turning The Forbes 400 into a Japanese Ginshu Knife factory.

If you put a philosopher at the top of a company, you might as well sell short to Exxon and take a vacation forever.