Still on an accounting high, need gift suggestions
I'm still having an almost unconscionably good time with my year-end accounting work. I've become much better at working from home this year, in particular at figuring out the right amount of effort to put in for the results available. Double-checking is good, triple- and quadruple-checking absorbs all my free time for virtually no value to the client! No one is ever going to find every typo in a 100-page report and I've finally dealt with that and started aiming for 99.5% rather than unattainable absolute perfection.
Reading the newspaper this morning I see that I live in the very best place in Australia for the kind of work I do. From an article in The Australian:
Perth overtook Sydney as the country's largest centre of listed entities in 2007 and has been widening the gap ever since.
There are 716 listed companies in Perth, compared with 645 in Sydney, 388 in Melbourne, 199 in Brisbane and 85 in Adelaide, according to figures supplied by the Australian Securities Exchange.
Most of the WA companies, of course, are small miners and explorers, meaning Perth remains well behind Sydney and Melbourne when measured by total market capitalisation.
(Listed means it's on the stock exchange, which means it's subject to every accounting standard there is. Small means they often can't hire permanent staff who know all those accounting standards and instead have to get someone like me to help them once or twice a year.)
It's a real bonus when something you didn't plan for at all just happens to go your way. I moved back here to be closer to my mother after her divorce and September 11 and to take a year off for a career change, and accidentally ended up in the best part of the country, or possibly the world, for my old line of work.
I have however lost three clients this year because they've gone with more professionally set up service providers who can take over their full accounting and company secretarial functions. I've picked up another three, so it's not a problem, but it does make me think that perhaps I should get myself organised a bit better. I could get more serious about it, find a bookkeeper and a company secretary and open my own firm. I doubt I want to give up my current semi-reclusive lifestyle to do it, but it's something to consider. I'll be 40 in six months - what do I want my work life to look like when I'm 50?
I want to buy a gift for the person who has referred me to most of the extra clients I work for. Man, mid-30s, one level below partner in a big accounting firm. I got him some wine a few years ago, but I don't really like giving alcohol and I can't think what else might be appropriate. I don't know him well enough to have any idea about his interests. Any suggestions?
Reading the newspaper this morning I see that I live in the very best place in Australia for the kind of work I do. From an article in The Australian:
Perth overtook Sydney as the country's largest centre of listed entities in 2007 and has been widening the gap ever since.
There are 716 listed companies in Perth, compared with 645 in Sydney, 388 in Melbourne, 199 in Brisbane and 85 in Adelaide, according to figures supplied by the Australian Securities Exchange.
Most of the WA companies, of course, are small miners and explorers, meaning Perth remains well behind Sydney and Melbourne when measured by total market capitalisation.
(Listed means it's on the stock exchange, which means it's subject to every accounting standard there is. Small means they often can't hire permanent staff who know all those accounting standards and instead have to get someone like me to help them once or twice a year.)
It's a real bonus when something you didn't plan for at all just happens to go your way. I moved back here to be closer to my mother after her divorce and September 11 and to take a year off for a career change, and accidentally ended up in the best part of the country, or possibly the world, for my old line of work.
I have however lost three clients this year because they've gone with more professionally set up service providers who can take over their full accounting and company secretarial functions. I've picked up another three, so it's not a problem, but it does make me think that perhaps I should get myself organised a bit better. I could get more serious about it, find a bookkeeper and a company secretary and open my own firm. I doubt I want to give up my current semi-reclusive lifestyle to do it, but it's something to consider. I'll be 40 in six months - what do I want my work life to look like when I'm 50?
I want to buy a gift for the person who has referred me to most of the extra clients I work for. Man, mid-30s, one level below partner in a big accounting firm. I got him some wine a few years ago, but I don't really like giving alcohol and I can't think what else might be appropriate. I don't know him well enough to have any idea about his interests. Any suggestions?