I have been meaning to tell this story for a while. I wanted to give people an idea of what it is really like to work in a big silly accounting firm. I wish I had known more about it before I started. Anyway, I still haven't made a final determination about it, but this is one instance of what makes it all a little crazy.

A couple months ago when I was still working on my favorite consulting job, I got a call one morning. I was trying to show everyone that I was not a lazy deadbeat punk who always shirks his duties, so I was the first one to arrive that day. And lucky for me, a very special project came in. It seems that the head of our office brought the wrong suitcoat to work that day and he had a big meeting to make. I just happened to be working at a client in the suburbs which was near the boss's house.

You guessed it. I had to take three hours of my time to drive over to his house, pick up the coat and take it downtown. It was a little absurd, but simple enough for me. When I arrived at his house, his ten-year old daughter was standing outside waiting for the school bus. The boss's wife came out and asked me if I was "the carpet guy?" No, I am the suitcoat guy, thank you. She brought the BLACK suitcoat out and I was on my way.

Now being an accounting firm, we are very particular about keeping track of who does what for how long. We have to "charge" all of our time to the job we are doing that day. Well, I was given a special charge account to take care of this special errand. I charged in three hours at about $70 an hour, plus $20 in gas and mileage. Not bad. I would have charged in some parking too, but they let me use the executive garage undernearth our building.

That's the story. To top it off, the secretary (er, executive assistant) gave me a pair of movie tickets to further compensate me for my trouble. This is just one example of all the wacky stuff that goes on at a big corporation. All kinds of money gets thrown around for flashy meals, hotels, golf outings etc, and our clients pay for it all. Wacky.