When I was going to school at night I took an accounting class.
It. Was. So. Hard.
I remember spending hours on a Sunday afternoon doing a spread sheet for homework and could not find my mistake. I felt like ripping it up and stomping on it, but just when I was about to give up I found my transposed number and VOILA……..we balanced Mission Control. Now I have a job doing accounting and often daily it feels hard. It was a failure of my imagination to think that the debit/credit/fixed assets/prepaid expenses mumbo jumbo that made me soooo crazy would rear its confusing head and park itself in my life years later.
If I am keying something in at work and the numbers don’t jive, a big, red WARNING WILL ROBINSON will appear on the screen saying, “Girrrrrrrl, you can’t do that cuz that just doesn’t add up. Now put your thinking cap on and try again.” Then I have to find my mistake. Often it’s an easy fix but if it isn’t I stare at the screen and whisper in desperation, “Come to Mama.”
It is my secret accounting tactic from back in the day.
Prior to my accounting class I took Business 101. Halfway through the semester the teacher missed our weekly class and it was cancelled. For the night school student who has come from work to finish her degree this is like manna from heaven.
When he came back he apologized for his absence and said, “I had a death in the family and that’s why I couldn’t be here last week. It was my father,” he said stopping to control his emotions. “He had been sick for awhile and his death was not unexpected, but now I am an orphan. I am a 46 year old orphan and I’m not sure I know how to find my way now that both of my parents are gone. I’m trying to figure that out so please bear with me for awhile.”
And we did just that while he taught on his wobbly feet.
My accounting background might have gotten me this job and on rare occasions I can recall some of those lessons, but it is the words my teacher spoke that Monday night in Business 101 that have forever been seared into my memory.
It is the only thing I remember from that class.