The first few months of the year are pretty hectic for auditors and are generally known collectively as "busy season." (It is not the same thing as tax season, which most people seem to think of when they think about accountants, though there is of course some overlap.) Audit busy season is not driven entirely by a deadline as it may be for one's personal taxes, though there are similarities. The frenetic time is primarily driven by the simple fact that the majority of companies have a fiscal year that is the same as the calendar year. So they close their books in early January and then expect the auditors to be immediately available to audit said books. Publicly traded companies do indeed have deadlines by which they must file their audited financial statements, so they generally get priority. But any way you look at it, everything needs to get done before 31 March because then you are in the midst of first quarter financials and the cycle just keeps on going.
The practical impact of this is that auditors work like dogs during these months, working late into the night and on weekends and generally are not allowed to take vacations (and if they do, they risk the scorn of their colleagues who are still slaving away at the office while they are on the beach or hitting the slopes). This time of year also coincides with cold and flu season, so add sickness to the mix and it can be a really miserable time of year.
The firm does try to ease the pain as much as possible, though. In our Chicago office, for example, free lunch was provided in the office on Saturday. Generally, our professionals are out at the client during the week, but the clients aren't wild about us roaming about their premises unsupervised, I suspect, so the teams often work at home or in the office, so this is a nice perk.
In Frankfurt, I don't recall any perks other than the monthly cocktail hours held on Friday evening at the office, which happens throughout the year. And let's be honest, who wants to spend a Friday night drinking at the office rather than spending precious hours with friends or family?
Our Moscow office, though, takes busy season seriously and demonstrates it through a lot of feeding. It starts in the morning. First, a plate of sliced lemons is delivered in each kitchen area to be used with the tea (which is the preferred drink here, rather than coffee, which is difficult for me to get accustomed to). Then, somewhere around nine, a huge basket of fruit is also delivered to the kitchen areas. You can tell when it has arrived as a swarm of people is making its way towards the kitchen. Same fruit every day - bananas, apples and oranges. And finally, at 8 PM, pizza or some other type of dinner is delivered, though it's not clear to me where the feast occurs - I just see audit colleagues bringing some of the spoils back to their desks. All in all, though, a very nice gesture that improves morale, might strengthen immune systems through the healthy fruit and lets our people know we do care about them. Well, and their productivity. ;-)
Good to see you back on the blog!
ReplyDeleteKeith