dartsndeacs
THE quintessential dwarf
For example, I've had a boss who needed to send in his personal financial statements to a bank and a large part of his personal net worth (About half) was art, watches, wine and classic cars. I didn't have to sign off on it, but how the hell are you going to value that? I'm guessing he overstated the value some, but I'm not aware of any grossly overstated items.
I've also had bosses who are super secretive about their wealth, and don't want to flaunt it, so on some of their real estate assets they're super conservative in valuing it.
Accounting is fairly easy once you get the logic down. The most difficult decisions I've ever had in my career are balancing the ethical times I've had to tell my bosses no, since usually the person you need to regulate is paying your paycheck, and you're never truly independent. I'm sure there are a few times I should have said no and did not.
The biggest example of disagreement I can recall is a place I worked for 5 years when we had a private equity real estate fund and we were winding down and one boss wanted the fund to pay for the insurance we had to take out in the event any of the investors sued us as part of the winding down costs. I argued we should pay for it personally, not the investors. I can't recall who ended up paying for it in the end actually (so I don't remember if I won or lost), but I was totally checked out (for that and something SEC related we probably shouldn't have done) and spending all my time on the boards/playing games as a result of it I was let go shortly afterwards. Then after I was gone, the guy who wanted me to do it promoted my assistant who he really liked but was completely unqualified. Company was owned 50/50, and I had lunch with the other partner just a month or two ago and the partner who let me go used my assistant to forge some signatures on some documents of the partner I had lunch with to sell some assets behind his partners back. Luckily at the current gig, all there is is internal reporting, so there's no stress. But I don't think I want to get in that public accounting/SEC/stress life again, eventhough it's what I'd need to do to really make decent coin.
I've also had bosses who are super secretive about their wealth, and don't want to flaunt it, so on some of their real estate assets they're super conservative in valuing it.
Accounting is fairly easy once you get the logic down. The most difficult decisions I've ever had in my career are balancing the ethical times I've had to tell my bosses no, since usually the person you need to regulate is paying your paycheck, and you're never truly independent. I'm sure there are a few times I should have said no and did not.
The biggest example of disagreement I can recall is a place I worked for 5 years when we had a private equity real estate fund and we were winding down and one boss wanted the fund to pay for the insurance we had to take out in the event any of the investors sued us as part of the winding down costs. I argued we should pay for it personally, not the investors. I can't recall who ended up paying for it in the end actually (so I don't remember if I won or lost), but I was totally checked out (for that and something SEC related we probably shouldn't have done) and spending all my time on the boards/playing games as a result of it I was let go shortly afterwards. Then after I was gone, the guy who wanted me to do it promoted my assistant who he really liked but was completely unqualified. Company was owned 50/50, and I had lunch with the other partner just a month or two ago and the partner who let me go used my assistant to forge some signatures on some documents of the partner I had lunch with to sell some assets behind his partners back. Luckily at the current gig, all there is is internal reporting, so there's no stress. But I don't think I want to get in that public accounting/SEC/stress life again, eventhough it's what I'd need to do to really make decent coin.
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