"Accounting is easy! It's just debits and credits!"

[culturejam]

BULLSHIT

Just got out of a meeting with somebody from the Budgeting/Forecasting group. Apparently, I've been tapped to handle budget forecasting for my department (the person who did it previously has left the company). Should be a real interesting process, especially considering that I have never even seen my department's budget before today.

Now to wrestle with  Longview...whatever that is. 

[midwayfair]

"I was an English major" is the proper response. And I believe true in your case, right?

Of all the things I've ever been threatened with as a responsibility, accounting is the one that I'm certain I couldn't do right. Of course, I'm a serial screw up of minor things at work, so I think I would be safe.

[culturejam]

"I was an English major" is the proper response. And I believe true in your case, right?

Oh, they are well aware that I have an English degree and no prior accounting experience. But to be fair, I won't be tasked with making decisions about anything, just making sure that all the numbers are in the system on time and everything matches the top-line budget forecast numbers. It's more clerical than anything else. But, I suppose it's a positive sign that the group VP chose me for the task.

[juansolo]

Make a complete balls up of it, repeatedly if they ask you to do it again. Eventually they'll stop asking.

/Juan's work survival guide

My tips on teleconferencing are golden also.

[bcalla]

Make a complete balls up of it, repeatedly if they ask you to do it again. Eventually they'll stop asking.

/Juan's work survival guide

Depends what you mean by survival.  This could get you out of accounting at the cost of your job.   

IMO, better to play the hero.  Save the day, learn a little about accounting and budgeting.  Hell, you might even like it.   

[GermanCdn]

Make a complete balls up of it, repeatedly if they ask you to do it again. Eventually they'll stop asking.

/Juan's work survival guide

My tips on teleconferencing are golden also.

This ^ ^ ^ ^ ^.

Same approach I took when Bonnie asked me to paint the laundry room in our first house.  Has never asked me to paint anything again.  Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

But back to the topic at hand, if you actually have to do it and you want to do a good job of it, don't start on the conservative side.  I just got off the phone with some of my co-workers overseas, and I'm pretty sure they're about $1.5M short of where they need to be, yet they are convinced somehow/somewhere there's money elsewhere within the job that covers it.  Only problem is, I've now heard that idea about a dozen times.

As far as teleconferences go, inadvertent tourettes attacks can be triggered by the beeping of a Polycom system while waiting to be patched it.  At least that's what I tell people.

[insomniac2295]

Going off the binomial distribution of student test scores in all my accounting classes, either you get it or you don't. There is no middle ground. Goooood luck! 

[culturejam]

Make a complete balls up of it, repeatedly if they ask you to do it again. Eventually they'll stop asking.

No can do. At work, if my name is on a project or some kind of deliverable, I put forth maximum effort. Can't help it. It's the only way I know how to operate.

And besides, I'm hoping that I got thrown this task as way to "try out" for something a little higher up the food chain. That's the vibe I'm getting anyway.

[Droogie]

I don't know anything about your line of business, but your department needs a bigger budget. Always. And spend every last dime or go over just a little bit.

My two cents.

(ducks)

[GermanCdn]

I don't know anything about your line of business, but your department needs a bigger budget. Always. And spend every last dime or go over just a little bit.

My two cents.

(ducks)

Actually, this is pretty close to spot on.  Monies not spent in one fiscal year (or whatever timeframe you're working with) will disappear back into the communal trough, and getting them again is the same hassle or worse.

[culturejam]

I know what you guys are saying, and I agree. But I'm not really in a position (yet!) to influence the size of the budget or how it is allocated. My new task is to collect accruals from my department and make sure they are entered properly into the accounting system. It's really as "simple" as that. But frankly, even that small task is fairly complex for a guy like me who has never had to deal with anything related to budgeting in a corporate setting.

[AllenM]

1 + 1 = 3

So says the Beatles...

[juansolo]

Make a complete balls up of it, repeatedly if they ask you to do it again. Eventually they'll stop asking.

/Juan's work survival guide

My tips on teleconferencing are golden also.

This ^ ^ ^ ^ ^.

Same approach I took when Bonnie asked me to paint the laundry room in our first house.  Has never asked me to paint anything again.  Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

But back to the topic at hand, if you actually have to do it and you want to do a good job of it, don't start on the conservative side.  I just got off the phone with some of my co-workers overseas, and I'm pretty sure they're about $1.5M short of where they need to be, yet they are convinced somehow/somewhere there's money elsewhere within the job that covers it.  Only problem is, I've now heard that idea about a dozen times.

As far as teleconferences go, inadvertent tourettes attacks can be triggered by the beeping of a Polycom system while waiting to be patched it.  At least that's what I tell people.

Teleconferencing...

If you're a techie, you'll be invited to many teleconferences that get in the way of the work you're supposed to be doing. But you'll be invited by people who are professional time-wasters. ie; they use powerpoint, make up random dates, fill in spreadsheets and go to meetings. They don't actually do anything but waste time that you should be building/creating/writing or whatever it is that you do.

As such the meetings will be vacuous and self serving for that type of manager. You know, the one that's going to take all the credit for the work you're supposed to be doing. However, we're above all that and this is how I dealt with meetings that are unproductive (ie: not technical meetings with other techies).

- Never attend in person. You will have a reason that they will accept, use it. This initiates the teleconference.
- Make sure you have an IP phone. Unreliable, patchy and easy to blame...
- Never introduce yourself before the beep. That way if you need to leave, it doesn't tell them who is leaving.

This has set you up for being able to get some work done. So sign in, hit mute and get on with something productive instead.

They will inevitably ask you something. It'll go quiet, and they'll say "Juan, what are your thoughts on that?"

There are several courses of action on this one. Mix them up so no one gets suspicious.

- Say nothing.... They'll ask the question again. Appologise that you were chatting away on mute and didn't realise.
- Ask them to repeat the question again because the IP phone was dropping out and you missed it.

This works wonders. You can ignore 98% of the meaningless nonsense they're wibbling on about and just answer the stupid question they ask. It'll inevitably be something like "can you make it so it does all the accounting (which you'll be fully aware of anyway) and fellate me at the same time?" or something else equally impossible. Just agree and carry on with what you're doing. It's much easier to do this and when you deliver the product mention at the end that there was not enough time to implement the fellatio feature, but it could be added later. Knowing full well that whatever goes live is how it stays. No one ever goes back to a project, so they won't care at this point.

If you're really busy and CBA with it all, this is where you get 10 mins in and just disconnect. It doesn't say you've gone and they'll wonder who it was. As you're the technical bod on the call and they don't particularly like talking to you, you'll probably go unnoticed. However, if they do want you and ask what happened afterwards, blame the IP phone and ask if there was anything pertinent that came up in the meeting that you need to know. They'll tell you afterwards, thank them and tell them that you'll get on with it.

All in all, dealing with these people is a game. A game they've won for the POV of amount of work done vs credit and financial remuneration. But karmically, you're winning.

[atreidesheir]

My teleconferencing tip.  eat crunchy tacos.  If they asked you a question, ask them to repeat it.  You were obviously eating a scrumtrulescent taco.

[juansolo]

I did use the Raikonnen answer when in a teleconference long before he used it.

I was asked, "John, it's really echoey, where are you?", I replied; "I'm taking a shit"...

Multi-tasking