#i'm 27 and employed so you would think i would have figured this out by now

[carolyncaves]

Hey op, I was wondering if you could give me some advice? High school senior here and I have no idea what to do with my life. Is accounting really as painfully boring as it's reputed to be? I'm a perfectionist and a good student and I feel like that might be helpful, but I've also nearly fallen asleep many times in math class. (I'm more a science and humanities person.) Is accounting actually as tedious and unfulfilling as people say? Do you like your job? Do you have any career advice??

Oh, no, advice ...

I've been sitting on this because I wanted to do your ask justice, and then it ended up extremely long - I'm apparently constitutionally incapable of giving advice without giving all the advice, just to be thorough. I started with my impressions of the accounting field and why I went into it (in case any of that resonates with you either way) and made it all the way to a probably-too-abstract meditation/ramble on careers, work, and purpose. Since I'm just a dumb 27 year old who is not entirely successful (yet) in any area of my life, you should maybe (definitely) take everything below with a grain of salt. But here are some things I think I've learned:

I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life either. I went to an engineering high school, but decided it wasn't for me because I didn't really care about it and wasn't spending my spare time tinkering with robots like some of my classmates. I almost majored in physics, but switched to accounting at the last second because I decided I probably didn't want to spend my whole life in a basement fine-tuning lasers.

I went into accounting because I thought math was boring but I was good at it, and I figured accounting might straddle the math-type-brain with the people-stories-humanities things that were more interesting to me. This is somewhat true - financial accounting is not math (thank goodness), but someone who is good at one will probably be good at the other and it is quite satisfying the way balance sheets always balance. (You can get into more math-and-statistics-intensive applications, but base accounting is just adding and Microsoft Excel, which is unironically one of the greatest tools humankind has ever created. How you feel about that opinion might tell you a lot about whether it's the right field for you lol.)

'Accounting' is really (at least) three entirely different types of job:

‘Industry accounting’ is the accountants who work for a business and keep track of its numbers. They record everything, analyze the data, and organize it into reports called financial statements, which are then given to the CEO, the board of directors, the shareholders, etc. to tell them how the company is doing.

‘Public accounting’ (as in Certified Public Accountant) has two main subclasses:

Audit, where you get hired by businesses to independently examine their financial statements and provide some verification that the managers who prepared them aren't lying or mistaken.

Tax, where you do taxes for people and businesses.

(+1: If you're a tech-savvy person, there's a huge amount of potential for crossover into technology work - data science, financial software, etc, etc. Though IT work has its own delights and frustrations.)

All three flavors of accounting require not only technical accounting knowledge but also at least some degree of business acumen to be truly good at (you'll develop this over time; I barely have any, the partners at my firm are very astute), and any of them can can put you literally anywhere, because everyone in every industry and lots of individuals need an accountant. (There are cross-state licensing issues that can affect how literal 'anywhere' is, so if you want to work somewhere specific that's a good thing to research in advance when planning out your degree, but even these are for the most part eminently surmountable). So particularly on the public side of things, it's a field that can expose you to a lot of different people and situations, and that's interesting. I like getting a glimpse of someone's life when I prepare their tax return. (I think I prefer individual returns to business returns for this reason, among others.) And if you're someone who likes business, it is a fantastic field from which to study it and could position you well for a more generally-businessy position down the road. (I have frankly found that I ... do not, so much. So keep that in mind when considering the rest of this opinion piece.)

All three types of accounting are, by their very nature, repetitive, in the sense that they're cyclical - you do the journal entries and close the books on one month, or you do a hundred tax returns and get through tax season, and then you do it all over again. Accounting isn't a field that really makes or does things - it measures what other people are doing, over and over and over again. It's a keeping-the-lights-on-and-wheels-running kind of field. It matters, because all three of those functions above are important in the context of our current economic arrangement. But some people are going to be happy doing that and some people are not.

Public accounting also has pretty punishing work schedules during crunch times. I can attest to that for tax (my current field), and have heard it's at least partially true for audit. This can be a good thing in some ways (I happen to like it), because it means there are some relaxed times as well - but again, some people are going to like the up-and-down rhythm and some people are going to want something more steady. (If you find this one isn't for you, you can always leave public accounting after a year or two and go into industry - that's what many people's planned trajectories are from the get go.)

In all three corners it's a field about developing expertise. You're doing something complicated for people which they don't know how to do for themselves, and you do sometimes get to come up with crucial information and/or creative solutions to help them. And in the broad societal scopes of public policy and the health of the economy, people having that expertise - in tax and its ramifications, in business, in financial accounting, in principled and accurate auditing - is important.

In a world where most of us regrettably have to do something for money, accounting is a pretty okay thing to do, and it pays money.

Being in the workforce for a few years has made me come to imagine a lot of things are tedious in some ways and important and interesting in others. Our incredibly complex global civilization goes because different people become experts in the minute, tedious details of their own different things, and then they all work in their own corners of the huge, infinitely complex machine. Tinkering with robots and living in laser-filled-basements are not that dissimilar to reading discourse over the minutia of the United States tax code. (These are all examples from relatively technical/'professional' career areas, because I don't really have first-hand experience with anything else (yet) - but maybe someone will chime in on that front in the notes.)

The extremely good news, which I can't emphasize enough, is that you're going to have a lot of opportunities to pivot, or change direction, or try different things, to eventually find the thing that at worst you don't mind becoming something of an expert in, and at best you absolutely love. I've already had three extremely different jobs, all of which have been very informative in terms of what I Do and Do Not like. It's surprising how often that doesn't line up with what I expected when I was younger. You might of course have a different experience - the point is you have plenty of time to experiment and find out.

But if I don't LOVE my career, isn't that terrible? Time for a confession, or something: I've always been an achiever-type, and in my youthier youth I would've answered the above question 'yes' - but in my first few of years out of school, whenever anyone would ask me what my future plans were, my answer was always '... I don't know? Try to get promoted, I guess?' I was really leaning on the external validation of what a 'good career' was without running that past whether it was what I wanted to achieve with my life. And over time that had a noticeable effect on my wellbeing. You're right that perfectionism will help, no matter what you go into - but you should be careful to keep an eye on whether it's really mostly helping your boss, and whether it's doing it at your expense. Don't get me wrong, this will make you a fantastic and therefore valued (read: employed) employee. Just be wary of it getting out of hand. (You might find you need to practice figuring out how and when to prioritize yourself even if it's inconvenient for others. I'm still practicing that now.)

Anyway, after a lot of reflection, I began to refine my idea of my capital-P Purpose, and it has little to do with working in a shiny fancy office or having a successful-sounding job title next to a well-known employer's name or really anything to do with accounting. Those things were only superficially rewarding. I'm working on rearranging my life to abandon some of the more costly ones to make room for my Purpose as I've come to understand it, and my license keeps me in overpriced coffees and, like, a house. It means even an occasionally disastrous person like me is doing reasonably okay (so far).

Some people love careers like that, though. Some people love living in basements full of lasers. It's really so individual. For me, it became clearer when I connected the dots between the things I kept coming back to time and time again, even in my most difficult moments, even years or decades apart. For other people, it might be very different.

But at the moment, you may not have all the information you need yet to make determinations about Purpose. Why would you, you're a baby; heck, so am I. It might evolve over the whole course your life. My main advice for you would be to just try something, or several things - whatever seems most interesting, or most practical, or ideally both! - and see how it goes. Like I said above, that will give you experiences instead of guesses, which will help you know. And you really do have so much time to work with. The most important thing, the thing I would tell my younger self, is to make sure that every so often you pause and honestly look. How do I feel about what I'm doing? Does it feel good because I like it, or because other people like it? Am I actually interested in building on and using the things I'm learning? Do I have a plan for the future? Is there anything about it I want to change, or add, or that doesn't actually matter to me? (And perhaps "What would I be doing right now/want to be doing in five years if I didn't have to make money?", because that might give you hints to what you want your money-career - if it isn't the same thing as your Purpose - to give you room for.)

Did I mention I think it's very individual? I think it's very individual. I invite anyone to add their own numerous-cents to this post - alternate takes on the accounting field (do you love it passionately? please tell this person why), additional career or life advice, etc. I'm just one person who's walking my one narrow path through the world with its particular terrain. Everyone's is going to look different.

P.S. Ask a Manager is imo an indispensable resource for getting a job - resumes, cover letters, interviews. Literally it has gotten me all my jobs.

It also gives a lot of great advice about what to consider in an employer and potential red flags - and I can attest that the culture of the company you work for and the management skills and style of your supervisor(s) matter more than almost anything when it comes to your day-to-day happiness in a job. This is part personal fit, part objective competence. It's not the end of the world if you take a misstep here either - it's something you figure out, just like everything else. You can do almost anything for a year - and you are NOT COMPELLED to even stay that long if it's really not working out.

P.P.P.S - and this is way out there ... I was exceptionally good at both reading/English and math as a young person - and it’s interesting that when that’s true, the careers people throw at you are all STEM-related. It’s almost as if people are predisposed to thinking STEM fields are more important, and that smart people belong in them. I have come to feel strongly that isn’t the case.

A lot of people (at least in my western/US culture) feel the humanities are an afterthought, but when I think about it, I think there are and have always been two main sources of human suffering in the world: nature and its limitations (hunger, health and disease, weather and environment, etc.) and other humans (war, murder, racism/sexism/all oppression and hatred, conquering and imperialism, poverty/socioeconomic inequality, and also elements of the way societies are organized that affect hunger, and health and disease, and weather and the environment, and so on).

STEM work is hugely important to making improvements in the first category, and helps with the second (it gives us the internet and weapons to defend ourselves from evil people who want to destroy us, for example). But a lot of the fundamental root issues in that second category are in the sphere of culture and the humanities - law and politics, sure, but those are derived from history, sociology and psychology, literature, cultural studies, philosophy, ethics, education, journalism, literature and the arts and pop culture (which informs and is informed by all of the above). The world needs smart people in those fields as well as STEM and business.

STEM fields often offer more money, or more certain money. Business fields offer sometimes significantly more. That’s a practical element to consider. And if you like a STEM thing, or a business thing, and want to go into it, please do and do fabulous things with it. All I mean is that if you find yourself considering a career in a humanities field, don’t be dissuaded only because people seem to think you’re too smart for it and would be better off doing something else.

#replies #accounting #careers #personal #p.p.s. if it somehow doesn't go without saying #my bullet-point AU is a highly cariacturized version of the accounting field #much the same way every TV show or movie set in a high school is a highly cariacturized version of high school #if any word of this has been helpful to you i'm glad #if not i apologize lol #you're going to have a great future! #there have been some very rough patches in my twenties and regardless i would never go back and redo high school if given the chance #it was fine it's just that even with all the tribulations #becoming a progressively adultier adult is better #if you have any follow up questions or like #ever need excel pointers lol #you know where to find me! #(seriously excel is legitimately delightful getting to do powerful things with it sometimes is literally my favorite part of my job) #(in another life I might've been a software developer) #(that life might be this life five or ten years from now who knows!) #(i'm going to stop and post this before I keep coming up with additional pieces of advice this is already so long) #(oh gosh i added another one it must end) #(also the read more got messed up and I can't fix it I do not know why) #(thereby validating that I am only a dumb 27 year old whose opinions you should not take very seriously)

[femmociraptor]

Hey so I'm 27 and refer to myself as "not straight", mainly because I struggle to define demisexuality that I think puts me in trouble to interact with girls I like. Also even if I try to enter lgbt spaces I always end up in a place full of guys and in other activities more guys and straight girls. So I really don't know what to do because dating apps don't work either. And there's of course this demi stuff that I see as a barrier because I realize I like someone way too late. So Idk what to do!

I've read this several times over and still don't quite know what you're asking, but I'll give it a shot.

So, I think you’re overthinking this one a bit.

Online apps are certainly not the only way to meet women (see this post for suggestions), but they can be a great way to present yourself in a cool, calm, and collected package without worrying about getting tongue tied or making the mistake of hitting on a straight girl (most of the time). Yes, gay men definitely do tend to dominate gay spaces, but there are plenty of women out there if you know where to look.

Dating profiles are all about being succinct, interesting, and a little flirty. Have fun with it! Work out first what the heck it is you want and figure out a way to convey that in as few words as possible.

I tend to loosely employ a 3 x 3 rule when it comes to dating profiles. Try to give them 3 things about you, at least 3 things you like (aka interests), and 3 things you’re looking for. It gives them enough to go on and start a conversation with (especially if they’ve employed it on theirs as well) but doesn’t overwhelm them with too much information too soon.

So, for example, your profile might look something like:

Local lesbian grad student extraordinaire looking for the Tara to my Willow.

Into: spelunking, cheesy sci fi marathons, baking, and Norman style architecture.

Looking for friends first with the possibility for more. Attracted to Butch cowbois, especially ones with really big… belt buckles. ;-) You should know I have a weakness for brown eyes. If you have a cat, definitely message me.

And that’s it.

Keep it light. Keep it easy. Keep it fun. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t be on a dating app at this point in your life anyway.  

It doesn’t matter how hot someone may be in their pictures. If they sound like they’re exhausting to be around or that they don’t have their internal house in order, personally, I’m going to swipe left (or keep scrolling, whatever).

Remember, you can only meet people as deeply as you’ve met yourself. If you don’t know who and what you are yet, then they won’t either, and they also won’t be able to tell what they’d be signing up for if they went out with you (and the ones for whom that wouldn’t matter [read: desperate] are really not the ones you want to be going out with in the first place…).

Really take some time and think about what you’re offering to the people who date you. Ask yourself what you bring to the table and how their life would be bettered by having you in it, and if you don’t like the answers you’ve come up with, take a break, work on yourself for a bit, and try again. People respond to the energy you’re putting out there and if you’re feeling confused or disorganized or a little off your game, they’re going to pick up on that and respond in kind (or not at all, in the case of online dating).

If you’re not getting the response you want, I’d wager a guess that it’s less because of who you are (I firmly believe there is at least one lid for every pot) and more to do with how you’re presenting it. Being angsty or apologetic about yourself is death in the dating world. People want to feel like they’re getting a catch… and they are! You just have to help them see that.

After you take stock of what you offer to someone in the big picture sense, get out a pen and notepad and write down everything you can think of that is good about you. You’re using pen and not pencil, paper and not a computer because I want you to really think long and hard before you scratch something out, and if you do, you should still see evidence of it and see how ugly it is that you don’t think it’s worth listing. Put every stupid little thing down you can think of, especially if it makes you embarrassed. Then sit with that list for a while and think it over. Then keep adding. And adding. And add some more. You should have a minimum of 100 things on your list within a week and if you don't, it's because you're talking yourself out of them, not because those things don't exist. Then keep that list somewhere private but accessible to you and never stop adding to it. Try adding at least one thing a day and at the end of a year, look back at that list and see how different your approach to dating and all of your other relationships has become.

Keep going until you stop seeing any one aspect of who you are as a barrier and start seeing it as just one of the many, many things that make you exactly who you are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the core of who you are and if, for whatever reason, you don't like some of the changeable things, just remember that you are always evolving, even when you can't feel it. And when the timing is right and your phase of evolution matches up with someone else's, you'll see then why it never worked with all the others who came before.

#Good luck. #Also also and this goes for everyone... make sure you're smiling in at least one of your photos. #And go easy on the filters! #This is just good practice for everyone involved. #Online dating doesn't have to be hard. Just have fun with it. #You're all in the same boat anyway. #Don't overthink it. #Dating advice from Isla Nublar #my answers #asks

[dailymoneydiary]

The Beginning

Hello there! I'm H, a 22 year old living in Michigan. This blog will be a daily money diary where I keep track of my life and spending habits. I do not have the best money habits and am struggling to figure out how to cut costs. I figured if I started being organized about it, it will get easier! Y'all might need a background as a baseline. The goal is to update daily and reflect each week on how I did and how I can do better!

Age: 22

Location: Michigan

Occupation: Student. I am finishing my second to last semester of my degree and will be graduating in December. I was working at a bank up until last week but quit to focus on finals and take a breather. School full time, working, taking care of the house, and having three dogs was taking a lot out of me.

Income: $0.00 an hour. It was $15 an hour but no longer lol.

Checking Account: $48.44

Savings Account: $187.63

Credit Card Debt: $6353.79 ouch. This comes from bad spending habits in 2021, buying a sectional when our couches were dying, and various household expenses. My first goal after getting my next job is paying this down.

Student Loans: $37,000 estimate. I am still in school so am not paying on these. I also plan on going to law school in 2023 or 2024 so this will grow

Other Income: I live with my boyfriend J who works full time. He makes around $27 an hour (not exactly sure) and covers a majority of our expenses. I plan on fully supporting us as a lawyer so he can go back to school and finish his engineering degree.

Expenses

Rent: $0. We live in a home owned by J's mother after her grandmother gave it to her in her will. This is super helpful and I am very grateful. We plan on buying a house next year and I think she is excited for us to leave lol

Utilities: Around $250 each month. Sometimes J pays it all and sometimes I pay half. This goes to J's mom as her name is on the utilities

CC payments: Average around $250 a month. I will be making minimum payments with J's help until I am employed again.

Netflix: $19.99. I pay for this and my family uses it with me

Peacock: $4.99

Apple Music: $4.99

Gym: $10

Sweepy (a cleaning app): $2.99

Any other payments: I pay tuition each semester which is around $2,800.00. I made my last payment three weeks ago which decimated my savings. I should not have to pay out of pocket next semester after federal loans but we will see.

Car Payment: $0. I drive a '99 Toyota that gets me from A to B

Car Insurance: $0. J pays this.

Internet: $0. J pays this.

Health Insurance: $0. Riding that sweet parents insurance until I'm 26

Phone: $0. Parents pay for this.

I am incredibly lucky to have J and my parents. I don't know how I would do it without them.

J and I struggle with budgeting and each time we set a budget something breaks on our cars or in the house which throws the budget out the window. Now that I am unemployed for a bit, I am taking charge of our finances. I am joint on his accounts and am getting the online log ins for them so I can keep track. He also has some CC and student loan debt so he has personal goals I need to work into the budget as well. It is a "our money" mindset but I hate spending his money. I cannot wait to be employed again.

We have three dogs who require food, vet visits, medicine, toys, and other needs. We do not budget for them but the typical spend per month is around $100. All three are big dogs and we try to buy quality food for them. We have timed it out where we typically only have to buy one bag a month (they all eat different foods) and they are healthy.

Okay that seems to be everything! See you tomorrow for the first update!

[dnd-5e-homebrew]

In your experience, is there a good check list of tasks one could employ to aid in the homebrew creation process? I'm running a one-shot in November that's set in an original world of mine and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to start with it. Thanks for the help!

I suppose you want help with your homebrew world?

Who live in your world? There are a few things you’d like to think of. First off, who inhabit your world and how rare are the races, where do they live? It could be the regular Humans are most common, dwarves and elves are a bit less common. The rest is fairly rare. But in your world Dwarves and gnomes could live together in one country while humans live in another and elves are elusive people who are only spoken of in legends. You can also add a race of your own but in that case you’ve got to think of if there is need to create a whole new race and what aspect they’d fit and maybe you can just reskin an existing race.

How do races/countries interact? Think of relations between races/countries, or at least the country your campaign is set in and some adjecent countries. Like if there’s a good relationship with the neighbours or if they’re at war, maybe just strained? Who knows. You really only need to work it out well if it’s of importance to the story. Otherwise it just helps with an overal idea of how people in your campaign would react to people of different countries.

How common is magic? Third think of the place of magic in your world. Is it outlawed in your country or are mages seen as natural born leaders? Maybe in your world there are no gods anymore so there are no clerics or paladins. Maybe it’s the other way around magic doesn’t exist or is banned unless it’s from a divine source. These type of things can result in some great roleplaying opportunities or character builds. Could also be that in a neighbouring country of humans and halflings magic is outlawed this could prompt spellcasters to move to another country causing it to have a lot of spellcasters so magic is commonplace there while it is outlawed in the country adjecent to it.

What era is it in? Timewise most people go for a setting in the dark ages but you could also have it set in other ages such as the roman ages, ancient egypt, ancient middle east or mesopotania, ancient china or the renaissance. If your world is more modern there are some rules for that on page 267 and onwards in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

What world shaking event is there? Think of something important that has happened, the DMG calls this a ‘world shaking event’. This tells you what people are occupied with, usually higher ups that is. Farmers and commonfolk probably don’t care much about political things or monuments unless it’s close to them. Examples of such things could be the rise or fall of a leader, a disaster, an invasion or rebellion, the loss or discovery of something. You name it. This thing you choose can affect the whole country or it could just be small scale and affect a city or village. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a lot of suggestions starting page 27. 

What’s up with your gods? Gods are a kind of necessity since cleric and paladin magic is based on gods. If you create a pantheon try to have gods that fill all the cleric domains, this can be 8 or more but it could also be just one or a few. Also think of how religions in your world interact. Maybe there is only one religion and all the others have been wiped out except for a few small ones. Maybe there are full on holy wars between two dominant religions which is tearing your country apart. Maybe a new one is on the rise, maybe religions are disappearing. You decide.

#not dnd #worldbuilding #creative writing #writing #guide #Anonymous #Ask