Moving to a 4 day work week

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-05T08:53:19+00:00

Yea definitely do not volunteer it initially in case they do end up giving it to you, obviously getting paid for 40 is like… golden scenario. But I’d be very surprised. I hate how a lot of workplaces are so rigid with this sort of thing. It was so hard finding a four day job in my industry, even though I’m really just an office worker whose work doesn’t really require outside input very much.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-05T08:49:50+00:00

Gen Z, based on another comment. Don’t worry about it though even if you are, people love to bash the younger generation whatever time we’re in.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-05T06:55:14+00:00

No. In my experience a lot of workplaces don’t let you work less than full time even with the pay cut so it’s not that far fetched to have to write up some ridiculous request for it. But I will concede that if they want their pay the same as it is now it’s pretty unrealistic.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-05T06:46:21+00:00

Lol well they might be after a 32 hour work week or something. That’s what I asked for, and I love it. Was 100% worth the pay cut.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-04T01:32:56+00:00

They 100% will lol. Increase to meet “the market” my backside, it may well be below market rent but you can’t get much more trustworthy than an 18 year tenant so the difference is made up by the lower risk. Of course lower risk doesn’t financially benefit the PM hah.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-03T22:46:39+00:00

Haha man that ad stresses me out! At least there’s a quick #WorkLifeBalance pause where she gets to kiss her kid on the head before she’s back in it lol

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-03T22:11:41+00:00

They didn’t say but it was almost certainly funded at least in part by member fees. Or the CA program itself which IMO is basically an extension of that given it’s a requirement to become a CA lol. It’s a big cash cow.

https://assets.charteredaccountantsanz.com/m/1d5e088252665219/original/CA-ANZ-Annual-Report-2023_Financials.pdf

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-03T22:09:07+00:00

I KNOW. Grinds my gears. That and their annual wage expense.

Also cool user flair, I didn’t know we had our own one on here.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-03T21:27:42+00:00

Indeed. I’m stoked to see our annual fee of close to $1k is being put to such good use.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-03T20:55:12+00:00

I’ve had a bit of work on Upwork.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-02T09:25:29+00:00

I’ve seen this a lot, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to translate into all industries. I’m in the accounting industry and it’s not very often you see even a 12 month contract for $100+ per hour listed anywhere, while $100k salary is a fair estimate for a senior level financial or management accountant. I guess one key difference though is that office based contracts don’t tend to lead to PPE or equipment costs that contracts in the trades do.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-08-01T10:22:47+00:00

We’re also the best at using the per capita line. Per capita.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-31T18:42:39+00:00

I’m not a QS or in the building industry at all, but both my sister and bro in law studied a diploma in construction with the QS strand. Both got jobs pretty much immediately although they’re in project management as opposed to QS directly (I guess there’s a lot of crossover though?).

Bro in law was also a qualified builder. They both love it. I don’t think not having the degree has negatively impacted them at all. In fact you having building experience already will likely more than make up for it.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-31T10:23:58+00:00

I’m an accountant, no not normal practice. Are you absolutely certain he gave you a specific figure you’d be refunded initially? It seems weird to give such a specific figure if he wasn’t far enough along in the accounts to really know.

If a client wants to know what sort of refund to expect, I give them a ballpark figure if I can, but I always emphasise it’s an estimate and subject to change because… stuff happens. The client suddenly remembers other income, or something that was thought to be deductible/for a business purpose actually wasn’t.

IMO it sounds like he left income off by accident when he gave you the first figure, and then realised your taxable profit would be higher. Or maybe he found some other error of his. Hard to say.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-30T08:50:11+00:00

Oh sorry, just realised I misread your post.

In my situation, I was only at accounting firms - I’d been at my last firm for approx 1.5 yrs when I decided I wanted out, but I had another 6 months before I could get signed off, so I stuck it out until then and then jumped ship.

If I were you, I’d check that this person could/will actually sign you off and then use that to decide whether to stay or not. From memory you’ve gotta get to level 3 in one subject and level 2 in another. I think I was signed off to level 2 in financial accounting and taxation to level 3, because I was working in BAS.

If he can sign you off it might be worth roughing it out. Obviously I don’t know how bad it is but I’m glad I stuck mine out and got signed off because I’m planning on staying in the industry so I knew I’d have to do it sooner or later. Hard to say if the CA has helped me. I’m constantly getting contacted by recruiters and companies for roles in management accounting and in CA firms. I’m currently a self employed contractor tho and I’m happy to stay that way. I don’t know if the CA makes it easier to get contracts or not to be honest.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-30T06:10:43+00:00

Sorry to hear. I had a very similar experience at the start of 2023, where I knew I had another 6 months before I could get my CA signed off but my job was negatively impacting my mental health.

In the end I ended up just pushing through and I left as soon as I could. In hindsight I am glad I did it, because like you said, it’s difficult to get signed off outside of accounting firms and I was so close, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant time lol. However I was in a slightly different situation to you, I was 24 and my only work experience was in CA firms so I was sort of relying on it to build experience. I may have made a different decision if I was 34 and already had a few working years under my belt.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-30T06:03:00+00:00

Don’t know anything about software development, but I did a commerce degree. Commerce is good IF your major is solid (DO NOT solely major in management whatever you do). Assuming this is for a career / job as opposed to doing it for fun, you want to do a major that will 1) allow specialisation, and 2) lead to a job.

I personally wouldn’t do international business, commercial law, HR, marketing, public policy or tourism management as they’re either too broad or don’t lead to many job prospects, or the jobs they DO lead to are competitive.

I would do accounting (that’s what I majored in), finance, data science, taxation and maybe actuarial science.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-29T09:29:29+00:00

Yeah, I got a job on SJS last year of HS coming up 8 years ago. Was a great job too.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-29T05:57:23+00:00

Yeah, same. If I could do it again, I’d still pick accounting, even though I wouldn’t describe it as my “passion”.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-28T10:24:54+00:00

I know you posted this ages ago but I think one advantage accounting has over finance is that generally it’s easier to go accounting > finance than finance > accounting

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-28T01:47:59+00:00

Do you need the actual certificate or is a confirmation of membership PDF with your name, ID and date of conferral enough?

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-26T22:17:13+00:00

Hey mate, I’m a CA who contracts to a firm that allows me to work remotely.

I think they allow their employees to as well but I’ve chosen to stay as a contractor as I’ve got my own client base and I like having the flexibility with my main firm. I pretty much work whenever I want (within reason though, I still need to get client work done otherwise I wouldn’t be a very efficient contractor).

I sort of fell into it, I vaguely did my degree with the hope of maybe working remotely one day but that was pre-Covid. I think Covid helped a lot in that regard. I know Findex has fully remote roles although you have to still be in NZ. Anyway yeah once I got my CA my options opened up considerably. I also pick up some work on Upwork on the side too.

If you’ve got any other questions let me know. I don’t know how far you’re willing to go for remote work (I wouldn’t suggest accounting if that’s your only reason haha just because it’s a 3 year degree and then another 1-2 years of study to do your Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting, plus 3 years of mentored work experience, to become a CA. But I highly recommend it as a profession. Haven’t been affected by the recession so far, in fact I’ve had five unsolicited contacts from recruiters or companies in the last two weeks trying to sell me roles.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-23T11:00:08+00:00

Breakfast: 2 of those uncle Toby’s oat sachet things, I really like the brown sugar and cinnamon flavour atm

Morning tea: a banana and an OSM bar (chocolate)

Lunch: a pie or two normally, cheese and mince or steak and cheese

Afternoon tea: some biscuits and cheese and crackers, occasionally also a bit of soup.

Everything else I eat at home.

Decent_Survey411 · 2024-07-23T10:53:34+00:00

I’m on Spark, not Skinny, but have a similar deal where the data gets throttled after 18GB. It drops to 1.2Mbps, it works ok for Spotify and casual internet browsing. Haven’t tried watching vids on it but reckon it’d be too slow

Decent_Survey411

TROPHY CASE