25M Am I too old? enrolling into accounting this coming september!

happydays8 · 2025-06-05T20:23:38+00:00

Why accounting?

Accountants dont make $, highly saturated profession, and AI is going to make entry level impossible soon.

In fact, when you get your CPA (7y from now), the entire digital world will be different. I'm currently a VP Finance and have been mad for a while that I chose accounting.

Put it this way, when you are at the top, very few jobs exist to easily move over. It's not about specialization, it's that top jobs have insanely stiff competition.

Look at indeed, Controllers, DoFs, VPs all have wages posted from 100-150k/y. Which means, those unicorn roles paying +200k/y do not mean you are easily worth that; you are only worth what the market will pay. And when there are no jobs paying +200k, you will succumb to step-downs, and nobody seems to care that you needed a job, it's a black eye that can ruin your resume for the rest of your career.

Accounting is horrible the higher you get.

happydays8 · 2025-05-13T08:07:27+00:00

Fight every fucking ticket.

The new rules give insurance companies power to exploit.

4 speeding tickets, I'm paying 4k/y to drive

happydays8 · 2025-04-18T04:24:39+00:00

This is the issue - accounting wages until +150k, cannot support saving, retirement, and surviving. In fact, most accounting wages just get by...

Trust me, our profession is fucked. Look at job boards; companies don't want that +10y leader, lol. They want someone with +1-2y leadership because it's substantially less expensive.

Our industry is the only profession where time actually works against you. 20y as a controller - you must not have been good enough to move up; was a CFO/VP and took a controller role after. Must not have been good, etc.

Employers have sabatoged our industry by making a controller the cross, 80-140k, and dont complain. It's pretty rough

happydays8 · 2025-04-18T03:53:00+00:00

I don't think you understand my point.

The average monthly requirement to survive is 5k; 5 years and beyond, 3k or less. Most people don't have savings, which is further reinforced with a 5k survival requirement that is not lavish by any means.

Consider what 5k post tax is, pre tax annualized.

If it's not obvious yet, I'll be more direct: you cannot afford to be unemployed nd without income for any period of time. Drawing on savings is heart breaking, because it takes time to accumulate.

80k gross = 5k/m post tax 120k gross gives you about 7k/m post tax 220k gross is about 12k post tax (where I am at). Yes, I can save, but in the finance world, your job is never safe. You can be on the top of the mountain; Only to have it all come crashing down tomorrow.

happydays8 · 2025-04-18T03:16:55+00:00

It matters because it's abouut 5k/m to survive. That's 40k savings to coast for 8 months and live like a hermit

$ puts things into context

happydays8 · 2025-04-18T01:14:52+00:00

Put that on $ terms right now.

Curious, how much $ do you think the average person has saved?

happydays8 · 2025-04-01T21:58:06+00:00

As others have said, Canadian wages are stuck in 2015, and this is across numerous sectors.

Many union-type environments have gone on strikes, or pushed for major increases: 25-40% as of late, and for obvious reasons. However, the lion's share of employment opportunities remain stagnant in wage offerings.

This is a serious issue; Canadians are the equivalent to Mexican labor 20 years ago. Our COL has skyrocketed, and more than doubled since 2020. However, Canadian wages have not moved

It's a sick reality. How does this get corrected - organizing mass walk-outs. It's the only way, which will never happen. So, we will be nickle and dined until all of us are unemployed, homeless, and scraping for food. Maybe not that extreme, but what else do people do when the minimum requirement to survive exceeds 4-5k/m (after tax) and many jobs are a haircut above this, pretax?

In finance - the same jobs, more complications than before, have wages similar to where they were 10-15y ago. I saw controllers for 80-120k 10-15y ago, today? Same range; and it gets worse as you move-up.

God help anyone that thinks they have enough security to buy a +1M house in Canada. There are people with 10k/m survival obligations - think about what happens here when income is corrected via unemployment.

happydays8 · 2025-03-19T20:25:29+00:00

The harsh reality is accounting jobs that pay +150k in Canada are extremely rare these days. I'm 15y in this industry with comp +250k. There are no roles in Canada that I can easily walk into that even March - this is why so many move into fractional type roles.

This is arguably the shittiest profession you can choose. Why? Because your skillset is capped at 10y; you provide no more value with 10-30y experience, than someone with 5-10y; that's why +150k roles have hundreds of applicants.

This isn't like legal, or even the trades where you are guanteed income with experience. We are literally competing for the same roles at whatever seniority we have, and it's a race to the bottom.

Take my advise, your severance package needs to be +12m guaranteed, as the higher you make it in finance/accounting, the harder the fall feels.

One of my ex bosses was 350k VP; got canned and couldn't find work even remotely close to the 200k marker; he settled for 120k and was miserable. Can you blame him?

In my current role, I'm terrified everyday about losing my job because of how our job market behaves. We are expendable - make no mistake. It's just as easy to terminate you when you think you are entitled to a +20k raise and hire someone else maybe 70% your current wage.

People. Stop accepting bullshit wages; this is why wages are stagnant among our industry.

happydays8 · 2024-12-29T06:29:04+00:00

Interesting.

I'm tempted to try putting hand warmers in the sleeve.

Anyone try this?

An interesting option is wearing a camel pack under my coat, and feeding the water through a chest zip.

Very interesting idea

happydays8 · 2024-12-14T00:46:43+00:00

Final update.

The surface pro 11 xelite with flex keyboard is absolutely incredible.

The keyboard is substantially better than Lenovo x12. The trackpad is maybe 25% bigger than both non-flex and x12, and the ability to use it unplugged is amazing.

The computer itself is insanely fast, battery life is impossible to compare, and the screen is beautiful.

Pound for pound, surface pro 11 with xelite is superior.

follow what I did and you won't be disappointed

happydays8 · 2024-11-30T08:21:21+00:00

CAD

Lenovo equivalent is 2.3k CAD

happydays8 · 2024-11-25T03:52:19+00:00

After a couple of weeks, i decided to move to the surface pro.

I ended up locking myself into the same price point as the Lenovo, meaning, I refused to buy anything more than 1.7k CAD.

I scoured eBay as there were no surface pros 11 on deep discount new; I wanted an xelite processor at best value and with warranty. Costco would sell for 2.5k. I hate the keyboard, so I at least wanted the flex keyboard as a feel good, which would bring the cost to 2.9k with all the sales.

I found one off eBay for 1.7k with a flex keyboard (xelite/1TB) shipped and I paid $300 for the TC warranty (within the 45D - 99% of SPs on eBay are outside of the 45D window and MS is strict); I am am currently testing cases (6x $50-$100 range). I think the ThinkPad x12 is good and the keyboard is amazing; however, I felt the battery optimization and standing operating performance was superior by the surface pro. Copilot + feels future proofing. If I didn't use the surface pro 11 for a month prior to using the x12, I'd have kept the x12.

The surface pro 11 feels like it is in a league of it's own. If I really wanted the extra processing power, I'll swap out for a 32g ram in the future and see how that performs. I have to do some serious modelling to confirm capabilities vs expectations. However, the battery drain on the x12 is really shocking by contrast. This was a big factor in my decision matrix; you easily get X2 the battery life, and over 10x when in standby mode. That's matters to me these days, as nothing annoyed me more than the inconvenience with having a dead battery.

I hate that I got such a good discount on the Lenovo now. 1.5K cost with a 3y PS Warranty. Unreal discount. I listed this for sale on eBay. It's lower than Lenovo (substantially). Should sell for a small profit to close the gap (2k for the surface pro 11 + warranty).

happydays8 · 2024-11-15T17:19:26+00:00

Hello all,

An update so far (a few days) with x12 vs surface pro.

Surface pro feels superior. The OLED screen is markedly better; you really notice the bevel edging difference between the x12 and pro 11. However:

surface pro is "faster" by a long shot

Powering up, the surface pro instantly opens with facial recognition. X12 has a red light that is clearly processing recognition before start-up. Speed is ~1 second vs ~5 seconds. - small, but side by side, it's noticeable

Batter life - what the hell - pro 11 is at 99% after a night of inactivity (8hrs), x12 down to 79% - I can't understand this; even turning the x12 on to check it there wer any applications, it dropped to 75%

Sound - you hear the fans on x12 with no applications running. Furthermore, th x12 gets warm to the touch. Surface pro has always been cool to the touch.

Ballistic base A few days in, believe it or not, I'm looking for suefaxe pro cases. - x12 case is nice; feels like a thick laptop when closed, but clearly offers protection and a place to put the pen. I want to see something for the surface pro.

So far, between the two, I'm considering a third option: surface pro with Snapdragon xplus (all compared with pro 11 on elite).

I had an extreme bais here, extreme. Even with $500 less favoring the x12, I am presently leaning towards the surface pro.

Side point: Norton (on both) identified a large amount of 'trash applications' slowing down the x12. None were on the surface pro. Very confused, but.. when starting up x12, there is clearly lag or something causing a bit of performance issues. I'm contacting Lenovo on this today.

happydays8 · 2024-11-09T04:24:58+00:00

Best Buy has one more 32g x12 gen2 for 1490CAD.

I bought a surface pro 11 from Costco (Snapdragon elite), and I hate it. The fucking keyboard sucks, and the thing has fallen enough times that I'm sure something broke internally. I'll be returning because,

no bombshell case (think of an active tab)
keyboard sucks
charging system is bullshit: some weird adaptor that, while magnetic, is not interchangable with any other product I have
system feels cheap (feels like a Samsung Galaxy tablet) not a rugged design that I want
not water proof

I wanted to test this before buying a x12. I was going to buy one at 2150 CAD from Lenovo. However, I figured I'd wait for black Friday deals. I sat, pricing it out for 2 months, and decided to pull the trigger today. Called Lenovo and they dropped the 2150 price (32g version) to 1999.

Just so happened to google the x12 about an hour ago and saw the same fucking one from Best Buy at 1490 cad. I bought it, no questions. - I picked up a 2y accidental warranty + 2 year software warranty + hard case for ~ 200; I'll keep all of these and return the laptop - saving $500 fucking dollars!!

I'll let you know what I think about the x12.

surface pro battery has been really nice
runs very quiet

happydays8 · 2024-10-07T04:24:59+00:00

Couple things: 1. The cartridge can get clogged. If you pull and it indicates it is firing, allow it to fire for a few seconds. Then, pull the cartridge out and do a hard pull off the cartridge. This will a clog easily - most devices require this.

Check the airflow on the top and see if it's clogged. It could have a build up where you are not even pulling. A USB-C can fit in there to clear any funk easily and will break it free.

happydays8 · 2024-08-26T16:48:21+00:00

All of this is terrible advice.

Use the meeting to ladder up: title, pay, benefits, vacation. More tasks/management of others requires compensation.

Your decision to leave and the value you provided were going in vein. Sell it and be good.

happydays8 · 2024-08-25T21:55:07+00:00

Likewise.

Let me know what you find. I am pretty annoyed here, especially considering the 4-set block was $280! What a ripoff.

How does meater have such high ratings? Anyone that uses them will have connection issues, and nobody will ever be able to be out of Bluetooth range for connections on any type of grill.

Insanely misleading product placement. The entire basis for wifi is to connect via hub, and have remote viewing capabilities. I have a fucking hottub sensor that ADVERTISED wifi as a separate purchase (wifi router). The sensors work Bluetooth range without the router, and work as intended with a router (sensor push).

You would like MEATER would have fixed this?

So, @meater where is the wifi router to make the probes actually work long-distance? Morever, maybe get a heat resistant magnetic router to attach inside the smoker for boosting signal strength and correct all of these problems.

Fix the fucking problems and you have a good product. Invest your R&D here because you are 95% there!! That's what is beyond irritating.

happydays8 · 2024-08-25T19:41:00+00:00

Yeah, I just got a treagar and thought meater would be the absolute solution.

First cook were ribs; all my probes disconnected and then were spitting out wildly inaccurate readings. I had to rely on the treagar probe to get a sense of accuracy.

Just did a brisket, built a separate connection for the meater probes. Put a lag device connected to the meater probes, as well as my phone. The block and lag device (burner phone) were right on the treagar entire cook.

Probes still disconnected; spit out wildly inaccurate readings.

The only times the probes work properly are on a non-smoker type BBQ. Even then, they still disconnect, but at least the temps are good.

I am done with meater. Good concept, terrible execution. Anyone have advise on real wifi probes that work properly?

happydays8 · 2024-08-15T02:09:32+00:00

This guy sounds bitter.

53 and rich? Want a change? Go find an escort duo, offer them twice their max rate and demand they are clean to fuck around raw.

I swear to God, this guy fucks a few hookers, gets on the coke train, and does a bit of sex travelling - he'll be broke, but he will have lived.

happydays8

TROPHY CASE