disparate.info

In the years since I began high school, I’ve pursued four distinct career paths, each so very different from the last that most people conclude that I’m insane when I list them.

I began high school set on a career in architecture, and I even took numerous courses that taught hand and computer-aided drafting, architecture terminology, and so on. By the beginning of my senior year, however, it was clear that architecture was the wrong career path for me. For one, I despised the tediousness of creating elevations, and I always seemed to struggle with floor plan layout. I would inevitably end up with some odd space that didn’t quite fit into any of the surrounding rooms, forcing me to call upon a classmate to assist me as I reworked the design. At the same time, thankfully, a hobby had developed into a full-time obsession and thus seemed like a logical career path.

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Having recently passed the six-months-on-unemployment mark, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this experience has meant for me. Overwhelmingly, my thoughts turned to whether or not I’m using my unintentional freedom to identify and further my career goals, improve my mental health, and expand my social network. Even though I still find myself without a job, I believe the answer to all three inquiries is yes.

After taking a rather circuitous route to becoming an accountant, I never identified the role I saw the degree playing in my career path. I assumed that at some point I would become a CPA, but beyond that, I had no plan. My intentions were always focused on the near future, on matters such as where I would live and how I would pay the bills. For some months after losing my job, my nearsightedness continued. I was content to travel, put off studying for the CPA exam, and tinker with WordPress.

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Before the vitriol-filled comments begin, let me say that I do not believe that one group’s religious views are a sufficient basis for denying other Americans their civil rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution.

In a San Francisco federal court today (see NPR, The Washington Post), a challenge to the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage will be heard by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, in a that case focuses on the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.¹

The United States Constitution provides the framework from which our civil liberties are derived, yet in the case of same-sex marriage, these rights are ignored and result in the violation of one group’s rights. Opponents argue that marriage is an institution of the church, and thus must be protected, but this argument is at odds with present-day legal realities and simultaneously conflicts with the First Amendment. At an even more basic level, denying one group a right afforded another violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

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While camping over a holiday weekend last year, a family friend noticed I was wearing an NPR t-shirt I received as an intern at the network back in 2005.

He declared, “NPR, they’re pretty liberal.”

Before I could react, my father retorted, “So is my son.”

Needless to say, my family and I don’t always agree on certain issues. But, to be clear, I don’t consider myself a liberal either. Rather, when pressed, I identify as moderate.

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Rarely do I establish New Year’s resolutions because in the past, the holiday held little significance for me. But, considering the innumerable changes I endured over the course of 2009, now seems like an appropriate time to establish a few resolutions to give some guidance to 2010.

So far, I’ve come up with three rather lofty goals:

1. Study for the CPA exam – I’ve been procrastinating for six months already, so we’ll see how this one goes.
2. Find a job – New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is nearly 2% better than Connecticut, so that’s a plus. Besides, I have little interest in moving back to Connecticut. Hopefully there’s something in NH or Massachusetts for me.
3. Try podcasting – I’ve been told I have a good voice for radio (though with the cold I’m suffering through now, you couldn’t tell), so it’s worth a shot. It might help make my longwinded rants a bit more bearable.

Check back in throughout 2010 as I report on my progress.

As New Year’s Eve draws closer and retrospectives of this tumultuous year and decade pervade, I couldn’t help but add my voice to the fray. For me, the past ten years can officially be considered the “decade that changed everything.”

The decade began with the Y2K panic, with doomsday theorists predicting that computers would fail when rolling over to the double-zero year. I vividly recall a Y2K party held at my church, complete with bonfire and prayer, organized to distract from the potential nightmare that some predicted but thankfully went unrealized. A few days later, I received final approval in the process to become an Eagle Scout, and my ceremony was held a few months thereafter at the same church where I had gathered with family and friends on the eve of what was described as a potential technological disaster. My Eagle ceremony proved momentous not just for me but for a family member, whose gift to me launched a career that sustains her to this day.

The following year brought the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, an event that permanently scarred the country and led to a war that continues to this day. In the same way that my father will forever remember where he was and what he was doing when President Kennedy was assassinated, the memory of sitting in Mrs. Fletcher’s math class as an assistant headmaster announced that a plane had struck the World Trade Center will stay with me forever. 2001 also plunged the country into the first of two recessions the United States endured during this decade, though it turned out to be one of diminutive proportions compared to the current crisis the world economy endures. Standing as the final insult to an already pox-marked year was the December collapse of Enron Corporation, a disaster that would have then-unimaginable consequences for my professional career. As this momentous yet forgettable year ended, it led to a year of extraordinary change in my life.

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A new study featured on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times attempts to quantify unemployment’s impact on jobless individuals. As one of those unlucky individuals (though I was not part of the study), I can’t say that many of the study’s finding surprised me. But, for those who still have jobs, it’s an interesting look at what the 15.4 million unemployed Americans are enduring.

The tables below summarizes the study’s findings, which polled 1,650 adults, 708 of whom were unemployed at the time.

The results are organized into seven categories:

• Financial impact
• Emotional impact
• Children and household
• Job market going forward
• Job search
• Concerns of the unemployed
• Outlook on economy/stimulus

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Eight years ago today, I was a high-school senior finishing up his second-period math class when one of my school’s headmasters made the announcement that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like most everyone alive on that day, I will forever remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the 9/11 attacks. But the tragedy of September 11 also had a profound impact on my life from that point forward. 9/11 marks the day the innocence of my childhood ended and my obsession with NPR, world affairs, and all things news began.

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If you’re a fan of Fox’s Lie to Me or generally have an interest in detecting deception, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston did an interesting piece for Morning Edition entitled “Spotting Lies: Listen, Don’t Look.”

For more information on the science behind detecting deception through facial expressions, see Dr. Paul Ekman’s site. Dr. Ekman is the forefather of the study of microexpressions. His site includes microexpression training exercises and a column breaking down the real and embellished aspects of Lie to Me.

I decided one day to write down more or less everything I did at work for an entire day. Here is literally a day in the life of a staff accountant at a small accounting firm:

• 7:30 am: Check email, enter yesterday’s time into billing system
• 8:00: Print draft of compiled financial statements for client review
• 8:30: Update another draft compiled financial statement for client changes; extreme difficulty with formatting because of strange setup by former coworker
• 9:30: Restart laptop due to ever-increasing problems; downtime is killing my productivity
• 9:45: Look into inconsistency in prior year reviewed financial statements
• 9:50: Review for open items a tax return started by a former coworker; thought this would mean lots of time spent familiarizing myself with client and workpapers, but turns out return was never started
• 10: Watch Senior Accountant correct an error in one of my workpapers which prevented the cash flow statement of yet another set of compiled financial statements from totaling properly; yet another one of my stupid mistakes leads me to problems with a statement which has become the bane of my existence; I understand statements of cash flow, I just can’t ever get mine to work
• 10:30: Start again on audit with expectation I’ll be interrupted again on some random project
• 2:30: Still working on audit, with little interruption; no lunch today, too much to do; I hate audit planning, but it’s amusing to me that I’m completing the planning documentation when the audit is nearly complete
• 3:45: Take call from partner working from home; time to update draft financial statements that client urgently needs early tomorrow morning
• 4:00: Attacked by partner about a client I haven’t worked on in six months; return is due 9/15, client is out of town for a few days, then spends two days in town before traveling somewhere else until after the return’s due date
• 4:30: Receive tomorrow’s marching orders from Senior
• 4:32: Prepare PBC (provided by client) list for tax return that former coworker didn’t start; notice I’ve worked on six different clients so far today
• 4:50: Total my time by client to see if I can go home
• 5:00: Out the door