Is being a CPA all that its cracked up to be?

Sometimes I really love my job. I love the people that work for and with me. I love working in private equity and especially in real estate. I find it extremely interesting and challenging.

At other times I wonder if I made the wrong choice 10 years ago when I thought accounting would be a good career option. When deciding what to major in, I thought about picking finance because my Dad worked in banking and I thought that would be a good idea for me. Then I took an accounting class in high school and found it extremely easy. I ended up helping all the other kids in the class and really liked it. So when it came time to pick a major, I picked accounting.

Fast forward 10 years and I really question my decision. I work for someone that is a micro-manager and wants to be out of the detail until its time to turn something in. Then I have to explain all the transactions for the entire quarter to someone who is supposed to be looking at it from a high level. That reached a breaking point for me this weekend when my boss decided to look all weekend at every transaction. Try cramming that into 2 days and it doesn't equal fun. I am not a big fan of working weekends, being called at home on Saturday night at 9:30, working Sunday, and then being called again on Sunday night while I am trying to cook a rib eye on the grill.

I won't lie, I get paid extremely well for someone under 30. I have worked hard to get where I am at, but I keep going back to my sophomore year at Texas Tech. I had a history TA, Richard, who loved Dave Matthews Band and had worked for years in the real world in business. He decided it wasn't worth it and wanted to go back and teach his real love, history. Anyone who knows me, knows that history is something that has always fascinated me and how much I enjoyed that spring semester teacher and his history class. It didn't hurt that he also worked at Tom's Daiquiri and gave me free drinks at a time when I didn't have much cash to spare.

Why can't we do what we love for a career?