And no, that doesn’t mean you should quit your job and wait until one comes along that allows you to sit on your couch watching Netflix for weeks on end.
However, what it does mean is you should find a job that allows you to still do the things you enjoy outside of work – one that allows, and encourages, a work-life balance.
Thankfully, Stephano Slack offers just that, along with pretty awesome staff accountants that give you the advice that marks the first sentence of this blog. I most recently went to lunch with Pat, one of the A&A staff. He definitely imparted some words of wisdom upon me and totally did not ask me to say his lunch was the best of the lunches I’ve gone on so far.
Anyway, I enjoyed lunch with Pat, because though I’ve worked on plenty of jobs with him, I hadn’t had a chance to have a conversation with him one on one.
I mostly let the conversation follow its own flow, and asked him a little about what advice he might have for me based on how he personally maintains a work-life balance. That’s where his line, “don’t change your life for your job,” comes from. For him, that work-life balance means that even in the busiest part of busy season, he plays in a basketball league. He makes time to go out with his friends on the weekends, watch Eagles games, and go down to the shore during the summer. Pat is as hard a worker as any, but definitely made me realize how important it is to make that “you” time to have some fun. He also emphasized trying to live as stress-free as possible, even in the intense environment that public accounting sometimes is. You just have to do your best, learn from your mistakes, and let things go when it’s time to let things go. As he put it, “Don’t worry too much about things. Everything works itself out.”
Pat’s been with the firm for nearly two years, said he enjoys the work a lot, and also said the most important thing is, if I stay on after I graduate, to “make sure I stick with A&A.” (Sorry tax and small business, but so far, I may just agree with him!)
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