Accountant Goes Straight to the Pros

Alex Samuelson has opted to forgo college for the Big Time; he’ll be starting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the fall. “This is my chance to shine,” Samuelson told his aunt Maxine over a pot-roast in his parents home last Tuesday night. He will be going straight to the middle as a (insert job title in middle of accounting firm), making in the vicinity of $42,000 a year.

Alex says he’s ready after doing a Quicken workshop with some college accountants from Bentley and Arkansas Tech. “Some of those guys didn’t know the first thing about Quicken. I saw whole booklets with 2 or 3 categories, and a lot of the abbreviation was quite sloppy as well. In their defense there was some real pressure with all those executives looking over our shoulders.”

Asked if the decision to skip college was hard, Alex non-sarcastically replied, “Sure I’ll miss out on some parties, and business schools do tend to party relatively hard, at least compared to say, schools for the deaf. But Coopers can throw it down from what I saw during my visit, so my opportunity cost is not very high.”

Alex’s immediate boss, Mr. Karl Hendrickson, likes what he’s getting in the young accountant. “Sure he’s not as polished as most college accountants, but when it comes down to the skills: Ambi keyboarding, adding, and excel mastery Alex is prepared for the jump. On a side note I’ll also say I’m impressed at how bad of a dancer he is for such a young guy.”

With his $1,500 signing bonus Alex is planning to buy his mother an LL Bean hammock and some new sweaters for himself.