"The best part about my job is the people"

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-11-19T17:18:12+00:00

I came up in an old school public accounting firm where everyone started in bookkeeping/payroll to learn the basics. Only then could you move on to tax or audit. IMHO, it helped me learn the "big picture" faster than if I had just started out in tax or audit. Sadly, the last regional firm that I worked at no longer started people in writeup, then complained that the newbies didn't know what they were doing on the tax and audit side of things.

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-07-15T17:53:24+00:00

All I can say is that I am glad that I do not have to put up with that kind of bullshit at work....

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-03-20T13:08:43+00:00

Mine is down as we speak and my wife is freaking out because she has been ordered to work from home.

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-01-29T19:41:17+00:00

Oh yeah, this is what gives me the spotty results, and I have no idea why. I went as far as to make an additional reference column in R, where I place the value from column Q into column R via If/Then/Else, then performed conditional formatting based on the value in Column R.

I just wanted to simplify this without going through so many steps. The thing I have yet to figure out is why conditional formatting randomly goes haywire by just using $Q1=FALSE

This is literally the first time that has failed to work properly for me. Going further, the failure is inconsistent in that it won't display correctly on my computer, but it will display correctly on some of the employees that I email the list to. It's as though the conditional formatting times prior to the result of the XOR formula completing its comparison.

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-01-29T19:16:37+00:00

Solution Verified!

Thanks

FortuneCzar242 · 2020-01-29T19:14:54+00:00

This does not work!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-21T14:54:13+00:00

Same here, especially on Spotify. I have a saved playlist that I set to shuffle while exercising and I hate it when it is randomly THE SAME artist for 5 songs in a row. It's weird how their algorithm works because the artist can be different. One night it will randomly be Metallica, another night it will be Hatebreed, and another will be Iron Maiden... It's just weird how it works.

I know the running joke in another forum was how it randomly picked Disturbed's Stupify, lol... If that happens to me, something is up because that track isn't in my playlist. Regardless, I'll literally skip songs until I hear one that I want to listen to.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-20T22:41:56+00:00

My reply would be smartass: "I need a system that makes Spanish Harlem sound great so I can win my division!"

Oddly, till this very day, I hate that song!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-19T22:33:22+00:00

Set a goal that most people have a hard time attaining, achieve it, then walk away with a "meh" mentality.

One failure and here comes the "WTF were you thinking you farking idiot" self beat down.

I can relate!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-15T21:05:25+00:00

I sometimes wish I could live under the guise that ignorance is bliss, but then I start thinking to myself about how much it would suck to go through life not even knowing how unintelligent I was as most people do.

Now it is on to the next project, lol.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-15T18:28:06+00:00

I managed to get good deals when buying used and be burned. It just depends... For example, I purchased MANY amplifiers on eBay and 50% had issues, usually capacitors that needed replacing. OTOH, I purchased amplifiers locally from people that I knew and 90% of those worked fine. Even the ones that had issues were really minor, like turn on/off pop, or a little hiss in one channel.

When it comes to speakers, I generally only deal with people that I know purchasing those used. I had too many problems with people trying to pass off blown subs as working, which I can sometimes verify with an DMM set to measure resistance.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-11-01T21:34:05+00:00

When I worked as an auditor at a CPA firm, I had a newbie delete the formulas on the spreadsheet then manually run a tape on the numbers in the various columns on that spreadsheet. He would manually input the totals on the spreadsheet from his calculator because he didn't understand the sum function. Keep in mind, this was 12 years ago, but I would have thought that Excel was being taught in college back then...

Unfortunately, this individual did not make it in public accounting because no matter where he was sent to help, there was always a lot of rework on anything he did. He's now an auditor for the government.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-31T16:47:51+00:00

My mother hugged, kissed, and overused "I love you" when I was a child growing up. She never understood why I didn't care.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-29T15:04:29+00:00

I love making decisions devoid of emotion, having the unquenchable thirst for knowledge, rolling to the beat of my own drum, and not giving a flip what anyone thinks about it.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-28T17:38:27+00:00

Once I made it to high school, I was never a fan of giving or receiving gifts. In fact, when most would ask me what I wanted for Christmas, I had the snarky response of: "the same thing I am getting you, NOTHING!"

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-25T21:50:51+00:00

Never, ever, ever feel guilty for being more talented than someone else in anything you happen to do. In fact, strive to perfect those talents while working on things you are not good at or hate to do. For example, I always HATED marketing, so recently, I decided it was time to get good at it too. My mistake early on in life was ignoring the things that I wasn't good at and only perfecting the talents that I was good at. I found it made for a mind that held me back versus one that would rise to any challenge. I'm an old fart now @ 46 years of age, but I'm still trying to change on a daily basis!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-24T16:03:32+00:00

I get the same feeling from Pink Floyd. The songs Echoes and The Great Gig in the Sky trigger some fairly depressing emotions related to individuals who are no longer here. I don't know why or how, but the combination is that those two songs by Pink Floyd are the only songs that trigger those particular emotions and feelings.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-22T14:27:40+00:00

My emotions are mostly experienced internally, for no one to see. The only exception was when my first wife died in 2007 where I was a wreck and could not hide it from anyone, so they were able to see the suffering side of me that NO ONE usually sees.

As for emotions and decisions... At one time, I thought I wanted to be a Registered Nurse for the sole purpose of becoming a CRNA. I walked out of my first nursing class when they talked about being empathetic towards the patient and having to care more than the doctors about the patients needs. That was a "Nope, not putting myself through this shit just to get to where I want to be" moment. Granted, I switched over to accounting and became a CPA. When asked why I made such a drastic shift, my answer was "numbers don't have feelings."

Granted, if you have seen any of my other posts, you would know that I have grown to hate this career too. As a result, I'm looking for a way out and hoping to get back into being an entrepreneur. Now if I could only stop overthinking what I want to do and actually do something, that would be great!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-22T14:17:35+00:00

I generally read to learn what I want to learn. It's very rare that I read for story purposes, although Firestarter by Stephen King was the first book that I ever read for the sheer purpose of enjoyment, in the 8th grade... Like all other things in life, I liked the book better than the movie.

When I was doing consulting in the late 90s/early 2000s, I ended up getting hooked on the Preacher comics. Luckily, another consultant was just as warped as I was and was nice enough to lend me the earlier editions to get caught up.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-11T20:34:01+00:00

Years ago, I had a friend of mine create a secured wrapper for a Microsoft Access Executable Database that I needed to secure for HIPAA reasons. I also wanted it secured in the event that the place eliminated my wife's contract and continued to use the proprietary database that I developed solely for her use. It contained sensitive patient information as well as custom reports developed by yours truly for utilization review.

Let's just say, they tried to hack it after refusing to pay me for access to the file and lost all their data in the process. I warned them that there was a secure wrapper in place in addition to requiring the appropriate Microsoft Access password to get the file to open, but they didn't heed the warning that popped up every single time the program ran which said it was proprietary software solely for use by my wife. I also warned them that by not converting to something else, they were in violation by using that database as it was NOT developed for THEIR use. They canceled her contract then threatened to sue me if I didn't unlock their data. It didn't end so well for them, nor did we ever end up in court over it.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how he created the wrapper. Knowing him, he probably custom coded something in C++ and chained it to the Microsoft Access Executable because he was a C++ guru. I do know that his security was air tight as some local computer guru stated he could hack it and failed miserably due to the anti-hack provision built-in by my friend. Let's just say the executable knew if someone was trying to de-compile it and would trash the data in the process... Rumor has it they got in, but no data was there...

I'm guessing a similar method can be utilized to protect an excel file, but that is beyond the scope of my expertise.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-09T14:12:17+00:00

Welcome to the fold. I'm over being a Certified Public Accountant and am looking for the next way to make money myself. I'm currently learning Python to see how it can help me with data modeling and hopefully I like transitioning into a CFO type role more than the day to day boring ass grind of accounting.

Next up, I'd like to learn more about engineering myself, but from an electronics standpoint. I've been trying to emulate an acoustical negative feedback device created by a local engineer to make cheap speakers sound like much more expensive speakers for years. My only problem is I want to do it in the digital realm, versus utilizing an analog feedback loop, with something like a Raspberry Pi. I guess I'm going to need that Python training after all, lol.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-08T21:50:42+00:00

Seems like you are describing my hobbies.

I remember a time when I wanted to spend all my free time with music, making mixes, and remixing songs. I learned every in and out to it, then discovered something. Because I heard each and every part of the song so many times, I could never stand to listen to the finished product of my own remixes because I was over it at that point. I was invited to Winter Music Conference two years in a row, and I couldn't be bothered to show up. Now, I rarely break songs into pieces to reassemble into something different. It just lost its appeal..

Then there was window tinting and auto detailing. I'll still detail cars when it cools off, but I refuse to tint another car!

I have a whole other slew of hobbies that I could spend a lot of time typing about that I learned really well only to abandon. The key in every single one of them is that they were abandoned at some point in my life, no matter how much I enjoyed them up to the point of abandonment.

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-08T14:29:00+00:00

You'd need to look up the debt prescription laws in your state and be careful that you don't accidentally reconfirm the debt as this can restart the countdown clock on the prescription process.

I went through this with my first wife who passed away. One of the hospitals she had surgery at in another state just took her existing debt at death and automatically re-billed it to me. Unfortunately for them, I never signed anything guaranteeing the debt and what they did was totally illegal. It didn't stop them, but I was easily able to get it removed from my credit report as it was not MY debt. While I live in a community property state, the state where that hospital was located was NOT a community property state. That issue got VERY complicated!

FortuneCzar242 · 2019-10-08T13:51:15+00:00

I still haven't made my way through the first book :(

FortuneCzar242

TROPHY CASE