Earnest and Young

Hello Friends, Someone recently asked me what the best month is. I think most people are inclined to say the month that they were born, because humans are funny and vain like that. But when I thought about it, I realized that my favorite month is actually March. Weather that starts to look more like Spring, a seemingly-endless slew of college basketball and people who pick teams based on mascots destroying your meticulously crafted bracket, and the return of the dangerously delicious and unhealthy Shamrock Shakes at Mickey D’s. This year, March also marks the return from my publishing hiatus. For those of you who are blissfully unaware, January through February is a special time for accountants. It’s the time where we strap on our pocket protectors, put new batteries into our calculators, and prepare for the inevitable Vitamin-D deficiency that comes from spending endless hours in a windowless audit room.  This time is affectionately known in our industry as “Busy Season”. Mo

I love New Year’s resolutions. They’re great, because they make it socially acceptable to ask people who you don’t know very well about their personal lives. Topics that are normally taboo - fitness goals, lifestyle goals, vegetable goals - become fair game in the world of question-asking. It also opens up a whole new world of conversation topics at work, like how the Instant Pot should be in the running for all-time greatest invention, or how Goodreads will soon eclipse LinkedIn as the premier social media platform for young professionals. Both of these hot takes were my own, but I think at least one of my co-workers is on board. There are a lot of people who don’t buy into the hype of making New Year’s resolutions. I was waiting in line at the library the other day, and I turned to the girl in front of me wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt and asked her if she had any resolutions for the year. Great small talker, I know. After she realized that I, a random stranger, was actually ask

Dearest readers, If you’ve been following along up to this point, then you’ve heard about a college graduation, a move to a new city, the 6-month journey of the CPA, busy-season, and my brother’s engagement. 2018 has been quite the ride. With all that, I imagine you’re probably like that kid from The Incredibles , just waiting for something amazing to happen here. Well, I should probably start by tempering your expectations a bit.  This last month has been marked by routines. And as many of you other recent graduates know, routines aren't always glamorous. For example, I can finally drive most places within a 5-mile radius without desperately relying on Waze. The farmer’s market checkout man and I are on a first-name basis - shoutout to Andre. And most importantly, I’ve finally synced up Alexa to play "You Make My Dreams" and turn on my Christmas lights with my morning alarm. This was a bigger accomplishment than it might seem. Apart from routines, I want to talk abo

My dear readers, After my first entry, where I detailed a chronic inconsistency with journaling and resolutions, I bet you were all pretty surprised to see a Part Two. Shock the world, I guess. It took a little longer than I would have liked, but I’m cautiously optimistic that any of you were truly waiting on the edge of your seat for this to drop.  That being said, I did receive some pretty positive feedback after my introductory entry. One friend gushed, “I didn’t even know you could write, that’s great!” while another praised, “It was actually sort of funny, I was pretty surprised!” You know what they say, low expectations yield high results. If you’re like me, a human being who interacts with other human beings, you've likely noticed that every small-talk interaction starts out with a version of “How are you?” Hopefully some of you can relate. But I've recently come to realize that nearly every time I answer this, I include some variation of the phrase, “I’ve b

Friends and family, Many folks say that Public Accountants make the best bloggers. To clarify, nobody has said that. Yet . But on the off-chance that this thing ever goes viral, I would like the *credit* for being the first to make such a declaration. And for everyone keeping track, please note that it took a mere 3 sentences for the first accounting pun to appear. For much of my life, I have tried to pick up journaling. At the start of each new year, while the rest of the world headed to the gym, I would be rolling up to Borders (R.I.P.) to buy a new notebook. I would get home and passionately start to fill up the pages, bragging to friends and family how I would have a treasure-trove of memories to look back on when I got old and turned 22. But like clockwork, after about a month, I would get busy, forget an entry, and ultimately toss my journal in a drawer somewhere. My aspiration to document the important moments was there, but my committment to keeping a journal was not. And now