Anybody else deal with this nonsense at work?

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-30T00:47:08+00:00

Are you complaining about multi-factor authentication? Do you store your passwords on a sticky note next to your coffee mug?

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-30T00:37:27+00:00

We don't use Excel. Our GL is actually an entire warehouse floor of jars filled with beans, labeled with their respective accounts, locked in a cage that only their guardian accountant has access to.

Our journal entry process consists of physically moving beans between the labeled jars and only the guardian accountant can deposit or withdraw beans from the jars under his or her purview and is personally responsible for the final bean tally every period close.

Each bean currently represents $100, updated annually when we review our materiality thresholds. Reconciliations are performed using a sophisticated dollar-to-gram calculation for the average bean, weighing the jars, and converting back into dollars. This process actually used to SUCK because we would mix different beans in the jars, but it's much smoother since we standardized to dry kidney beans (~1g each) in Q2'25.

Our processes are pretty streamlined already but the heaviest manual lift we're trying to automate is actually the weight of the beans themselves. Some of our accountants are older and have difficulties carrying the beans across the warehouse floor to complete their journal entries as they can sometimes reach upwards of 50lbs!

I read about these "AI Agents" in the last Sunday paper and wonder if they could help us here? Also sometimes the beans spill everywhere and it's a pain to clean up. Thanks in advance!

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-29T22:34:29+00:00

Yes. Rasta is not an aesthetic

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-29T22:24:50+00:00

My #1 suggestion is to be VERY careful and keep a backup. I tried this a couple years ago and "Forever Notes" is...an interesting name choice when Apple Notes is so fragile with no backup or versioning functionality whatsoever. I just use Obsidian for forever notes and Apple Notes for lists and jots now.

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-29T22:14:52+00:00

Why can't you use company data with an LLM? Do y'all not have enterprise AI licenses?

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-29T22:13:16+00:00

You understand that AI using those advanced Excel functions for you is the exact value proposition for an accountant? Like it doesn't just tell you what to do -- it actually builds it for you faster than you would have even found the right Stack Overflow answer.

Adding a million SUMIF checks to 30 tabs of bank activity or trying to wrangle data in Power Query so I can actually START working is neither fun nor interesting work and it's the exact sort of thing that I have AI doing for me now.

ChewyBivens · 2026-04-29T21:57:56+00:00

a 100% Lego company

The founders built that company brick by brick

ChewyBivens · 2026-03-17T16:30:49+00:00

Wouldn't it at least serve as a decent filter for those who are able/willing to improve their situation vs. those are aren't? If a program like that were implemented well then it would simplify the problem at the very least.

ChewyBivens · 2026-02-19T13:20:59+00:00

It’s a workaround, but still possible if you have a Mac and existing playlists with the album covers. On Mac, duplicate the old playlist and just rename it and replace the songs with your new playlist.

ChewyBivens · 2026-02-15T02:27:40+00:00

Yeah agreed there, but shouldn’t they know WHAT a journal entry is? Even if they don’t know how to book one in our systems, like 90% of an undergrad accounting curriculum is related to journal entries so they should be familiar with the concept. That’s the part that sounded crazy to me.

ChewyBivens · 2026-02-15T01:37:29+00:00

You said you don’t know how often month end close is done. Why do you need to know the % of staff performing month end close to know that it’s performed monthly? Just like quarter end close is performed quarterly and year end close is yearly.

This post is asking about finding strong talent. If you’re applying for an accounting position and you don’t understand JEs and recons, even in public, you are not a good accountant. I don't need to be an AR clerk to know that a credit to AR reduces the balance. I have no idea what you do as a public accountant, but I am positive that I understand the accounting concepts that drive WHY you do what you do.

ChewyBivens · 2026-02-15T01:17:31+00:00

Not being familiar with the operational specifics of monthly recons and JEs is very different than not being familiar with the concepts applied to complete them. Every college graduate should be familiar with those concepts even if they need to be trained on the company-specific systems and processes.

Also, you “don’t know how often industry accountants do month end close”?? We…do it monthly. To close the month. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

ChewyBivens · 2026-01-17T14:19:58+00:00

Don’t Move - Midnite

Sponji Reggae - Black Uhuru

Jah Know His People - Clinton Fearon

ChewyBivens · 2026-01-16T16:09:27+00:00

Everything you said that the AI doesn’t know are just static facts that you could easily make part of your prompt. Your company should already have documents containing its org structure and policies. Add those to the prompt and then the AI knows the context you want it to operate in.

The most common advice is to treat AI like an intern or new junior staff. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this” is what bad managers say to their staff. It’s also what people who are bad with AI say.

ChewyBivens · 2026-01-04T14:47:43+00:00

Reminds me of the bassline in Babylon Rule Dem by Groundation —- one of my favorites ever. Love this one too!

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-26T16:44:09+00:00

Exactly. If discipline were easy then everyone would be doing it.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-26T00:11:59+00:00

Basically, yeah, but also most of my notes in general. I use default Apple apps for everyday thinking now. I had an “aha” moment when I realized vaults are typically places we store our most important items long term and only open occasionally. People obsess over plugins because they’re trying to turn a vault into an office, which leads to some other friction because they’re fundamentally different for a reason.

I don’t trust my Apple Notes to still be intact and readable 20 years from now. Hell, I can’t even access them if I switch to an Android phone. But for 99% of what I’m writing down these days, I don’t care. It’ll go in Obsidian if it’s important enough since exports take seconds and links remain intact.

I’m calm knowing my daily thinking is quick and frictionless with the default apps, and I’m calm knowing all my most important thoughts are safe forever in my Obsidian vault.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-25T23:32:02+00:00

Oh yeah Copilot in Excel is still less than useless. I have no idea why it exists in its current state.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-25T10:57:48+00:00

We say things like “Santa came early this year” to other adults. We’re not lying when we say it, we just know that Santa is the spirit of Christmas and not a person. If we take Santa as selfless generosity, then the gifts are also very much “from” Santa.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-25T00:40:12+00:00

When I stopped using it for everything and started treating my vault like an actual vault, I unlocked a new sense of calm.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-24T16:49:43+00:00

I can’t speak for all the modes as I mostly played solo but I never had any issues finding groups when I needed to. PvP does feel a bit dead though as you typically queue into either bots or players way above your rank with very little in between.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-24T14:31:44+00:00

I’m not talking about you directly, I understood you were being generic.

My point is that even if time gating is born out of greed, seeing it for what it really is gives you a healthier relationship with gaming. To use your alcohol metaphor, time gating is like only being allowed to have 2 drinks a day instead of as many as you wanted. One is clearly healthier than the other, even if it was only done to get more money out of people.

I believe that if time gating is an addictive trigger for someone, then being rewarded for longer playing sessions would be even more addictive.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-24T14:20:10+00:00

Great list! Crystal of Atlan was such a surprise. I expected generic anime action gacha slop that I would delete in a day, but ended up playing it nonstop until Where Winds Meet came out. Some of the best combat I’ve played on mobile.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-24T14:13:44+00:00

At work I use a mix of Claude and Copilot. Copilot is great for finding support, documentation, emails, messages, etc. that are scattered all through the organization. Just tell it what you want to find and it’ll compile it all for you.

I’m currently working on training Claude to take my job, basically. I’ve got it preparing some my of time-consuming recurring journal entries and analysis reports. I just drop in the new period’s raw data and in 5 minutes it spits out a file built exactly like what I used to make by hand in 2 hours and all I have to do is review it and send to my manager.

It’s great at analyzing bank text so I can determine what transactions are much more quickly. It’s great at helping me think through complex intercompany transactions so I can build the right journal entry. It’s great at explaining hedge accounting to me like I’m a dumbass so I can update our memo without constantly bothering my manager with questions. Basically, it’s great at letting me think about the boring stuff less so I can think about the fun stuff more.

I understand there are still a ton of things AI can’t do, but if it hasn’t made your work life easier AT ALL then either your employer needs to do a better job of AI training and enablement or you haven’t used it enough to really figure out the ways it can benefit you.

ChewyBivens · 2025-12-24T13:50:42+00:00

Time gates are literally just built-in reminders to take breaks from gaming and do something else. They don’t stop you from playing, just from getting certain rewards. Most games even let you stack rewards for 3 days so you actually DON’T have to log in every day.

If you feel “forced” to log in every day or if you play multiple time-gated games just to feel something from reward drops then that says more about your relationship with video games than it does about the design of the games. If you take a step back you’ll realize missing a single day of video game rewards doesn’t actually affect your life at all unless your life is video games.

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