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Confirmed: It Sucks To Be The One Wake Forest Grad Who Failed BEC

Remember my post earlier this week that covered the top five CPA exam schools in the country? I’m sure you do. But do you remember the reference I made to the one person from Wake Forest who failed BEC? Probably not, right? I suspect not a single one of you actually read that line, and if you did, I doubt any of you stopped and thought “yeah man, what a loser,” since most of you have failed at least one CPA exam section once (if not fifteen times) in your lives.

Well it turns out the person who failed BEC did read it and was so hurt by my snide comment that the following email ended up in my inbox last night:

Adrienne,

I wanted to write because your article on Going Concern about CPA pass rates based on schools upset me. I was actually the Wake Forest student that didn’t pass BEC – yes it did suck to be me. I didn’t like how you singled me out in the article. I also didn’t like your comment about the FAR exam – no, I did not fail FAR and am not a slacker.
Had your article roasted students from other schools, I might not be offended, but as it turns out, I was the only actual person you chose to call out in your story.
Overall, I hope that you can consider things like this in the future when you write. It was terrible to pass three sections of the CPA exam and fail the easiest part. It was terrible to see all my classmates at Wake passing and know that I didn’t. And it was terrible to find that an online writer was indirectly poking fun at me about it.
I’m not sure where to start with this so I’m going to start with the obvious: this is the INTERNET. I’m paid by Going Concern owners to rile people up, get pageviews, talk shit and give all of you a place to drop your constant bitching.  In other words, I’m a troll. A professional troll but still a troll. The Internet is a cold, harsh, angry, offensive place and if you can’t handle that, you need to remove yourself from it immediately. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been around it since the screeching AOL chat room days so maybe you should acclimate yourself to the hostile environment a bit more before jumping head first into it if some side comment I made vaguely about you (anonymously, mind you, no one knows it’s you) hurt your feelings. Sorry I’m not sorry. I get my feelings hurt constantly. It sucks. That’s life. Get over it. You’re in one of THE most butthurt professions possible, I’m not sure why you aren’t a bit more tough-skinned about this.
I can’t possibly know what kind of sheltered life you lived on the plantation there, kiddo, but here in the real world, people say things that hurt your feelings, especially (bitter, angry) strangers on the Internet. You don’t realize this yet because you’re just starting out in your professional life but partners are going to call you a lot worse than “a slacker,” and they’ll do it to your face, while staring right at you. I did it from my keyboard in the DC slums, it’s not the worst that can happen to you. So if anything, I did you a favor by prepping you for the constant bullying you’re going to face once you actually start working and realize that you aren’t nearly as special as your parents told you when you were growing up.
Let me define “singling out” for you. Singling out would be publishing your name – which I now have thanks to your email – and saying “hey everyone, look at this loser, he failed BEC.” But see, that was never my intention (trust me, even if they published your name in the candidate performance book I wouldn’t have done that, what would be the point?). My intention was to make a very accurate comment about how much being the one person at Wake Forest who failed BEC must feel, and obviously I was correct to assume that as you yourself said “yes it did suck to be me.”
Why would it be OK for me – as you said – to roast other students at other schools but not you? Why are you that much more special than anyone else who also has feelings? Don’t you think the losers from DeVry (no offense intended to said DeVry losers of course) read this site constantly and go “Damnit, why won’t she leave my school alone? I’m $50,000 in debt with no job and NOW I’m being made fun of by this loser on the Internet too! FML!” Since you want me to consider things like this in the future, do I need to email you in advance before any article I write goes live just to make sure I haven’t said anything in it that hurts your feelings? I say really assy things often. It’s kind of my job.
Did Ben Bernanke get upset and write me an emotional email when he discovered I Photoshopped dollar bills coming out of his ass? No. I’m sure he’s a really nice guy. I’d have a beer with him, all name-calling aside, and that’s what this is all about. It’s not personal, kid, it’s business.
Congratulations on passing FAR. Hell, congratulations on passing the other 2 sections too. Are you any less of a human being because you failed BEC? Please. Life is bigger than that, but I don’t expect you to have a good grip on that reality yet.
Just wondering… what did you do when kids on the playground picked on you? What do you do when girls turn you down for dates? I assume you don’t spend much time commenting on blogs as I can’t even imagine how personal you might take the off-color comments of heartless trolls just looking to get a rise out of you.
83,818 BEC exams were taken in 2010 when you failed yours and 47.3% of those were passed. Do you realize how minuscule and unimportant your BEC failure is in the grand scheme of things?
Something tells me you have absolutely no clue.
10 years from now, you won’t remember the annoying accounting blogger who anonymously called you out on the Internet. Remember that. Only you and I know who you are (I would hope), outside of your close friends who you may or may not have told about your failure. But in the BIG picture, NO ONE CARES. I know you came from Wake Forest so you don’t quite understand what I mean when I say that but believe me when I say NO ONE CARES. You are the person who gives the biggest shit about your BEC failure. I doubt even 500 people read that line I wrote and actually stopped to think about you, and even if they did, none of them know who you are.
Why does it matter? And more importantly (since this data is a year old), have you passed BEC now and what are you doing?
I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I never meant to do that. Maybe I go too far sometimes or maybe you got extra butthurt, who can say? Get over it, it’s BEC.