Author Topic: FU Money  (Read 4096 times)

COlady

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FU Money
« on: September 20, 2017, 09:06:48 PM »
Today the partner I work for yelled at me and slammed files around.  I've been at the job for about a year and it has a lot of pluses and a few minuses.  The pay and flexibility are excellent.  But....I just don't do well with being verbally assaulted. Definitely felt better when I came home and made these sweet graphs from our spreadsheets (see attached). Started tracking savings in January of 2012. We just hit $692k in total overall savings (tax deferred & taxable) as of August 2017 at 33 and 35 years old, respectively. This does not include $60k of 529 plans funded by grandparents for children. I was hoping the graph would look more exponential but we had twins in early 2015 (see graph...it's very apparent when that happened) and we were down ($892) for 2015 year-over-year. It does appear to be a little bit exponential when compared to the linear chart.  Anyway, feeling a bit more secure tonight knowing that if he gets nasty with me and I don't want to take it, I don't have to. FU money is a beautiful thing.

I am certainly not a graphing wizard so if you have comments on the exponential versus linear graphs, please chime in. It would be much more exponential if not for that dip in 2015, correct?

« Last Edit: September 20, 2017, 09:44:32 PM by COlady »

AccidentalMiser

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2017, 09:14:05 PM »
Today the partner I work for yelled at me for something that was not my fault.  I've been at the job for about a year and it has a lot of pluses and a few minuses.  The pay and flexibility are excellent.  But....I just don't do well with being verbally assaulted. Definitely felt better when I came home and made these sweet graphs from our spreadsheets (see attached...it's in open office, hope you all can open it). Started tracking savings in January of 2012. We just hit $692k in total overall savings (tax deferred & taxable) as of August 2017.  I was hoping the graph would look more exponential but we had twins in early 2015 (see graph...it's very apparent when that happened) and we were down ($892) for 2015 year-over-year. It does appear to be a little bit exponential when compared to the linear chart.  Anyway, feeling a bit more secure tonight knowing that if he gets nasty with me and I don't want to take it, I don't have to. FU money is a beautiful thing.

Congrats on that FU$.  Is the partner an asshole or was he/she just frustrated about something?  If you have a generally positive relationship with this person, I'd address it directly when neither of you is emotional.  Tell them that you appreciate the many positive things about your job but you won't tolerate being verbally assaulted again. 

Are you in a field that allows rapid reemployment in the a similar job at similar pay within a month or two?  Sometimes, that makes a difference as to whether or not immediately speaking out is a good idea.

Finally, has this happened before or was it just a one-off?

COlady

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2017, 09:32:56 PM »
My office is weird...no one talks to anyone. I can go an entire week without a single person talking to me with the exception of good morning and good night. I am a very social person but I don't talk at work because I've kind of been given the cue that social catching up isn't cool.  People only have very short and to the point work related discussions. I am a CPA, a tax accountant specifically.

I was laid off last July due to the company I was working for shutting their doors. I sent my resume out to a bunch of firms near me and interviewed with about 5 and was give 4 offers within two weeks. I totally shot high on hourly rate and I'll fully admit that ($60/hour as employee for 30 hrs per week + 3 weeks vaca and 1 week sick prorated for 30 hrs per week + 401k with decent match).  This firm gave me an offer on the spot so I know they were hard up. The demand for senior level tax people is high...so that's a long winded way of answering your question. Yes, I could get another job tomorrow. Would it be at $60/hr, probably not, probably closer to $45.

This is the first time he all out yelled at me. He has been short with me in the past but never yelled.  Back story: I did something on a return and he changed it without talking to me. I had spent an hour reconciling the issue and making sure I nailed it down, all work was in the file. Many times he changes things on returns and doesn't let the preparer know (doesn't fly well with me). I looked back at the return and noticed he changed it. I brought my work to him and tried to explain why my work was right and why he shouldn't have changed it. I told him I wanted to let him know as it is a software issue and the issue will pop up on other returns he is reviewing. He freaked out on me and yelled "why do you waste time on this shit?". You're busy, I'm busy, this return is done. Why are you pulling it out? Why aren't you working on the other 20 returns we have to get done before 10/15. He later apologized and said he is having an exceptionally stressful day. Yeah, I have stressful days too...don't we all?

My review was I'd say a 3 out of 5 back in June. They want me to be faster (i.e. sloppier) as my realization was 75% for my first 9 months. They said I'm too detailed. I said I've never had anyone complain about my detailed and concise workpapers. My realization is closer to 100% for the last 3 months because I'm working on clients for the second time (gained efficiency). I don't think they can argue with 100% billing realization. Anyway that's my story.


mynewchoice

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2017, 09:38:17 PM »
Tried to look at your graph but the file appears to be password protected...

With that said, congrats on being in a position to have that much saved and be comfortable with the flexibility to not put up with that kind of crap at work.  Hopefully it was a one-off situation and doesn't occur again, but it sounds like you'd be able to get something else reasonably quickly (albeit a lbit less pay).

COlady

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2017, 09:43:50 PM »
Tried to look at your graph but the file appears to be password protected...

With that said, congrats on being in a position to have that much saved and be comfortable with the flexibility to not put up with that kind of crap at work.  Hopefully it was a one-off situation and doesn't occur again, but it sounds like you'd be able to get something else reasonably quickly (albeit a lbit less pay).

Fixed!

sokoloff

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2017, 09:59:42 PM »
I am certainly not a graphing wizard so if you have comments on the exponential versus linear graphs, please chime in. It would be much more exponential if not for that dip in 2015, correct?
Change the graph to semi-log (change the vertical axis to be logarithmic and leave the time axis alone). On such a graph, constant percentage changes are constant sized, meaning an exponential growth curve appears as a line.

Dave1442397

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2017, 05:32:38 AM »
They said I'm too detailed. I said I've never had anyone complain about my detailed and concise workpapers.

Too detailed? Is there any other way you should be when doing taxes? I wonder if they'd complain when the IRS decides to audit one of your returns and finds nothing, as opposed to what might show up on the not-so-detailed return done by someone else.


sokoloff

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2017, 05:45:47 AM »
They said I'm too detailed. I said I've never had anyone complain about my detailed and concise workpapers.
Too detailed? Is there any other way you should be when doing taxes?
I can only think of one example of being "too detailed". The IRS allows you to use dollars and cents or round to whole dollars in doing returns. (If you elect to round, you have to round everywhere.)

The first couple years I did my returns (by hand, no software), I did my full returns both ways and filed the one that cost me the least taxes. Utter waste of time (though I imagine with software, that should be nearly free now if you are willing to enter the raw dollars and cents amounts).

Laura33

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #8 on: September 22, 2017, 08:38:54 AM »
Eh, I'd start looking again now for a company with a better fit.  If you are a 100%-type person, you are never going to fit well in a company that thinks 75% is acceptable and pushing through more work is more important than taking the time to get it right.

Usually when one company pays significantly more than everyone else, there's a reason.

AMandM

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #9 on: September 22, 2017, 12:21:52 PM »
I am certainly not a graphing wizard so if you have comments on the exponential versus linear graphs, please chime in. It would be much more exponential if not for that dip in 2015, correct?

In a nutshell, yes.  Think of it this way:  when your twins were born, your balance stopped growing and in fact dropped a bit, then began increasing again.  If you hadn't had the twins, what would have happened?   To approximate this, take out the time period from the birth till your balance regained its pre-birth level (approx Mar 2015 to Feb 2016), and "slide" March 2016 to the left till it butts up against March 2015.  You can imagine visually that the graph would be more exponential--i.e., curve up increasingly steeply.

To make your spreadsheet show this, you could make a dummy file with the baby-dip months taken out and the amounts from March 2016 onward assigned to a year earlier.  An exponential model should be a much better fit than a linear one.

Congrats on the twins, from another parent of twins! Mine are 25 now and it just gets better and better!

COlady

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #10 on: September 22, 2017, 03:04:51 PM »
Eh, I'd start looking again now for a company with a better fit.  If you are a 100%-type person, you are never going to fit well in a company that thinks 75% is acceptable and pushing through more work is more important than taking the time to get it right.

Usually when one company pays significantly more than everyone else, there's a reason.

I really like the flexibility of current job and of course the pay.  I don't know why I give so much of a shit since I don't sign the returns. Has anyone else been in a situation like this?  Anyone from public accounting that can chime in?

mozar

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2017, 03:50:40 PM »
I've worked in public accounting but i don't think that's relevant. If you can get 60 an hour, you can get it somewhere else. If you get a job offer for less just say no. It's never appropriate for your boss to yell at you, not even once.

COlady

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2017, 05:07:15 PM »
I've worked in public accounting but i don't think that's relevant. If you can get 60 an hour, you can get it somewhere else. If you get a job offer for less just say no. It's never appropriate for your boss to yell at you, not even once.

Thanks Mozar. More looking for feed back on questioning changes. How would you feel if someone you supervise questioned your changes?

mozar

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Re: FU Money
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2017, 07:29:01 AM »
The phrase "question my changes" makes me think he is being abusive.  The details don't really matter. You're not happy. You don't have ro rush to quit. Take a few months to apply for jobs and figure out something you like better. You might be able to get into a bidding war and get offered more than 60! 
When I made 65k I thought oh, I'm stuck at this, there's no way I could get more. I started fielding calls from from recruiters and I got an offer for 75! Then after a year started looking again and got an offer for 85! Then after a year I told each recruiter I talked to how much the others were offering,  can you beat it? I bid myself up to 94! After a year and a half i got laid off. The first few offers I got were 75-85k. I turned them down. It took me a few months but I got an offer for 94k and I've been there a month.
You supervise him! Oh hell no, that's insubordination.