Unforeseen Self-Preservation: A Corporate Gratitude Practice

 Aloha & Happy Saturday!

During my recent gratitude practice, I was considering not only what I was presently grateful for, including a warm cup of coffee, ear buds and sunshine (to name a few), but also thinking how I could reframe all those years of corporate handcuffs... and wow, the generated list was long!

Many of you can relate to this partially-shared list, inspired by spending 25+ years with comrades in the corporate world. Many classic corporate events and office politics have been spoofed in movies (think, Office Christmas Party - a hilarious 2016 film or Office Space 1999, a classic) or sitcoms (The Office, for one!) But here's my personal experience... which is why you visited my blog, right?

1. Lack of Sunlight - While, yes, this led to a Vitamin D deficiency, where I wouldn't see daylight nor experience the rejuvenating feeling of sun on my face for many years (whether studying for the CPA exam or working from windowless office space), as a nutritionist, I learned the best way to include a supplement in my diet for optimal health. But what was the greatest gift from this time period? Lack of wrinkles. Yeah, I got 'em, but as I've joked often in the past, when Doug Flutie signed my BC Football hat in the early 2000s, I thought he was aged 60+ years (instead of his chronological age, which was 20 years younger) because his skin had so many wrinkles from all that time in the sun playing football. This item actually inspired today's blog article: "Unforeseen Self-Preservation". You better believe, I am ready to absorb some sun and maybe a few wrinkles - ha! For the record, Doug was attractive in person and I treasure his signed #22 hat to this day, remembering the moment I spun around in my stadium seat and asked him to sign it.
   
   
2. Corporate Christmas Parties & Other Gatherings  - Last Christmas, although I deeply missed my son, I felt grateful I wasn't mingling with fake people at expensive Christmas parties. While, yes, I enjoyed the rare opportunity to rent a fancy dress & sip free cocktails, I spent so many fruitless hours mingling with boring people. Funny thing is, I used to be slightly embarrassed to have a 'boring' career as a CPA that when I became a nutritionist, I was so relieved to introduce that as my profession to one of the most boring questions at corporate events: "What do you do?" Oh, goodness. That question was fine 30 years ago or so, asking a Baby Boomer, because many held long-term jobs with pensions, but not a Gen X/Millenium versatile, hustlin’ soul like me. On a positive note, through these numerous events, I met some very interesting, innovative people and I'm grateful for those experiences.
   
   
3. Over-Prepping for Meetings - Although my acquired skills have served me well of the years, I was always the type to meticulously prepare for meetings - some of which didn't happen in my nutrition business - lost collaborations, call it. (If you want extra real talk/personal insight, you can also call it: triathlon coaches using my good, generous nature to get what they want for their business, and peace out when it came to including me!) In the professional setting, I was coached early on by my mentors (including Robin Finn in Boston, MA) to always bring a physical notepad to a meeting. When I tried to bring this traditional practice to the West Coast in 2007, they laughed at me, as well as for wearing pantyhose (haha!). On a “Enron-inspired” note, in San Francisco I was initially hired by Ernst & Young, LLP then WTAS, LLC and although there were a lot of professionals with integrity, come on, this is the accounting and tax field, offering plenty of opportunities for corruption! We can be real: accountants, with what they've seen, can put more white collar criminals behind bars than the police and the FBI, combined! Still, at this time, I remained true to my professional integrity and not only brought a pad, but also showed up 5-10 minutes early, out of respect for the meeting's start time. 
   
   
4. Irrelevant Continuing Education - As my CPA license expired last July and I have no current plans to renew, gone are the 8 hour plus days sitting with old men wearing Hawaiian shirts in stuffy conference rooms to maintain my accreditation. I did wrap that career, working with wonderful, interesting clients, so I am thankful for that. Many of my CPE hours obtained over my years practicing as a licensed CPA, I consider to be irrelevant because the content rarely applied to my clientele. Wasted hours, indeed, but we can thank the overly, complex legal system for that! You’d be hard-pressed to find a licensed CPA to disagree with me on this wasted time (& company’s funds) on obtaining credit hours, even those consulting on small business transactions and filing low wage-earner’s tax returns. Eventually, rather than take an 8-hour course on how to write a constructive email (ridiculous, huh!?), I decided to take a self-study route, purchasing an unlimited CPE package. From a financial perspective, this cost my company less than $100 a year, plus my hourly rate & other associated employment costs. Not only was this a time-saving educational opportunity, it was practical and relevant to my job. By taking this route, I also learned in-detail about interesting topics, including the emerging, exciting cryptocurrency field and didn’t feel my time was wasted. It felt good to boil my self-study time down to topics that not only appealed to me, but relevant & applicable to my client base.

As I've learned to view all of life's challenging encounters as a win (whether it's a learning lesson or a full stride step forward) this concept can get challenging at times. In a sense, this list has taken me over two decades to foster and become fully aware of not only my former employer’s immoral actions, but those of many parties in the public accounting industry, including both federal and state regulatory bodies. And to think my 18-year self chose accounting over law as a career path, because at surface-level, it seemed like a more integrity-filled profession than becoming a lawyer. Go figure! I’m not afraid to admit when I’ve made a bad decision. Are you? Feel free to comment below.

May you have a lovely Saturday!

With Aloha, 

Heidi