Author: Caleb Newquist

Founding editor, Going Concern.

Does Eating Hours Win at Grant Thornton?

As we trudge towards busy season, there are certain things that everyone gets a little anxious about. Like not seeing the sun for three months. Like putting on an extra 15-20 pounds because you’re stuffing your face with takeout three nights (minimum) a week. Oh! and then there’s the hours. Right, the hours.

For those of you t awhile, you know how the game works. Do you really spend 14 hours a day staring at a spreadsheets, slapping together financial puzzles without nary a drop in your production? Obviously not. Some of you take smoke breaks. Some of you have the audacity to take a lunch hour. Some of you drop by this fine publication to keep yourself abreast of the latest haps in accounting world (and leave the page open all day). Some of you, on average, spend 15-30 minutes watching your your cubicle crush from afar thinking that you’ll just mosey over and say “What’s up? Numbers, huh?” only to snap out of your daydream.

All this non-billable time accumulates into a decent portion of your day. Accordingly, you work a little later to make up for your lack of productivity, charge the appropriate hours (based on your increasingly tighter budget) and you call it a day.

For those newer to the game, you may look up at the clock, note that it’s 6 pm and you think to yourself, “What did I accomplish today?” The answer: not much. But since there’s not charge code for “Fucking Around – General” and slamming it all to an administration code isn’t such a good move, you slip it into a code for a client that you’re supposedly working on. No problem, right?

Well, your managers and partners might have a problem. They look at the billed hours and then try to gauge what your progress is. If there are hundreds of hours and you have jack squat to show for it, people are going to be pissed.

With all that in mind, I’ll share a query from a reader out of Grant Thornton’s New York office:

I would like to know how wide-spread “Eating Hours” is at GT (NYC).

You are put on a project, its a lot of work, and as time progress more and more work piles on you. You end up putting a lot of hours. The manager/partner says that hours will not be a problem, and that you should bill all hours worked.

When the project is just about over, after you had worked tons of hours, when you are least expect it, they pull you into a meeting and admonishing you that there was no way that you worked those hours. (Basically calling you a thief to your face).

After that meeting, you are told to adjust all hours over and above the budgeted 35-40 hours work week.

Even though I am not an hourly employee, I do feel robbed in two ways. First, I can’t really enjoy the accomplishment of the project because I feel so cheated, unappreciated and disrespected by this unethical behavior. Additionally, I feel stress because how can I be expected to meet the already unrealistic utilization goals when those scumbags make me eat hours?

Okay, let me say first that I do not doubt this person’s account of being jerked around by a manager or partner with regard to hours. However, it’s a little bit unbelievable if this meeting where the de-pantsing occured came without any warning. Most of your superiors – whether they are partners, managers, SAs, whatever – are not completely unreasonable people. They don’t all of sudden turn on a dime and say, “Everything I told you was a lie. You should have known that you shouldn’t have been billing all those hours.” If that is the case, then you work for assholes.

Hopefully, if eating hours is expected of you, they tell you up front. I had former colleagues that were on engagements like this where a Senior Manager simply let them know exactly how many hours they were expected to bill but it was pretty obvious that they were going to be working far more than that to get the job done. It’s a fucked up equation to be sure, but at least you know what you’re up against. This has nothing to do with firms or offices but rather the people running the engagement.

As for GTNYC, it’s pretty tough to know how widespread the practice of eating hours is. How widespread is the alcoholism? Or doucebaggery? It’s not quantitative. But our tipster is still concerned:

I have spoken to many of my friends at other Big 4, at regional firms, and at smaller firms and no one had experienced it as bad as some of us here in GT (NYC).

Fine. But you’re very small cross-section of a huge population. Maybe you were just on a couple of bad engagements with bad partners/managers. It happens. Believe it.

For the Purple People Eaters out there, is eating hours at GT a problem? Does Vault have it all wrong? Eating hours definitely doesn’t win, but does it pay? Discuss below.

Accounting News Roundup: Europe – WHEW!; GOP Candidates: Take SOX Off; Questions for KPMG China | 10.27.11

EU Forges Greek Bond Deal [WSJ]
European leaders said they secured a deal to reduce Greece’s debt after they labored overnight and into Thursday morning to find agreement on what they had billed as a blockbuster package to stem the Continent’s debt crisis. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the marathon negotiating session that the leaders had reached agreement with private banks on a “voluntary” 50% reduction of Greece’s debt in the hands of private investors. He also said they had agreed to expand the firepower of the euro zone’s bailout vehicle, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, by four- or five-fold—suggesting it could provide guarantees for around €1 trillion, or about $1.4 trillion, of bonds issued by countries such as Spain and Italy.

Ruth Madoff Says Couple Tried Suicide in 2008 [NYT]
Mrs. Madoff said in an interview with The New York Times: “I don’t know whose idea it was, but we were both so saddened by everything that had happened. It was unthinkable to me: hate mail, phone calls, lawyers.” The situation was “just horrific,” she continued. “And I thought, ‘I just can’t, I can’t take this. I don’t know how I’ll ever get through this, nor do I want to.’ So we decided to do it.”

Decade-Old Accounting Regulation Becomes Popular Target on 2012 Campaign Trail [FoxNews]
Because some people just can’t let it go.

State Tax Haul Jumps 10.8% [WSJ]
States beset by budget travails and high national unemployment notched a double-digit rise in tax revenue in the second quarter, thanks in part to recession-era tax increases and the slowly recovering economy. State tax revenue climbed 10.8% during the quarter ended in June from the year-ago period, according to a report released Wednesday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York. Preliminary data, also not adjusted for inflation, show growth continued in July and August, though at a slower pace, the Institute said. In 41 states that have reported for those two months, tax revenue was up 6.8% compared with the same two months in 2010. The growth was led by 9.8% gains in income taxes and 3.6% in sales taxes.

Bankers, Beware of Auditors Who Blow Off Their Regulator [Francine McKenna/Bank Think]
*cough*Deloitte*cough*

On the Job, Beauty Is More Than Skin-Deep [WSJ]
Don’t be ugly.

Eight Questions the WSJ Could Have Asked KPMG China [Silicon Hutong]
Including: “What does your “risk management” department do, exactly? In layman’s terms?”

Another Hedge Fund Manager Doesn’t Like the Smell of Green Mountain’s Accounting

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. […], maker of the single-serve Keurig brewing machine, fell to the lowest in seven months after hedge fund managing director Whitney Tilson said there may be potential for accounting fraud at the company. Green Mountain fell 10 percent to $58.19 at 1:07 p.m. in New York, after dropping to $56.19, the lowest intraday price since March 10. The shares lost 22 percent in the week before today after David Einhorn, the president of Greenlight Capital Inc., said the company has a “litany of accounting questions” and needs to improve its transparency. [Bloomberg, Earlier]

A Slightly Haggard Tara Reid Says She Was Not Legally Married to That Deloitte Consultant

Back in August, we learned that Bunny Lebowski (aka Tara Reid) had become engaged and married to a Deloitte consultant named Zachary Kehayov in a matter of hours. We were quite happy to learn that someone in the Big 4 was able to grace the pages of TMZ and not because they were found dead in Charlie Sheen’s pool.

ANYWAY, yesterday I was trolling over some incoming links and discovered that the Celebritology Blog over at the Washington Post was wondering aloud if the wedding was legit based on a TMZ video featuring Bunny and also that “some blogs” (i.e. Going Concern) reported that he lived in DC. After peeling my palm off my face, realizing that Tweets, pictures, and all the media hysteria around BL’s wedding could all be BS, I watched the video:

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player


Now there are only a few scenarios that would cause me to look like this: 1) After obtaining leaked financial statements from all the Big 4 firms, I reach levels of paranoia that rival Eric Bana’s character in Munich; 2) 24-48 straight hours of dancing in an undisclosed location; 3) Watching an Oz marathon with Adrienne. Typically in the aftermath of those scenarios, I would probably say anything that would disavow any past reckless behavior. Or, on second thought, I’d probably just own up to it.

That said, I’m not a celebrity and I don’t typically do things that are quite as impulsive as getting engaged and married to a Deloitte hack in less time than it takes to fly from New York to L.A. But that’s just me. Discuss as you see fit.

Form Letters Generated by Pesky Technology Spurred by BS Deadlines Are to Blame for Herman Cain’s Late Taxes: Spokesman

Godfather of tax gimmicks Herman Cain has a bit of tax trouble in his past, reports the Daily Beast. In 2006, while Herm was undergoing treatment for cancer, taxes due to the state of Georgia were not paid in a timely fashion and this resulted in the GOP hopeful being served with a tax lien. It took a couple of years to sort everything which was probably longer than necessary since it sounds like extensions were filed on time but the campaign is using this non-issue to remind everyone that we need to fix this mess that is controlled by computers and deadlines and things that drive the system:

The Republican’s campaign late Tuesday confirmed the lien, portraying the unpaid taxes as an oversight while Cain was undergoing cancer treatment and the state’s lien as an excessive response that shows the need for tax reform.

“The experience serves as an example of how broken our federal and state bureaucracies are with respect to the collection of revenue,” Cain campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon told The Beast. “The entire process is driven by automated letters generated in response to deadlines.”

Right. Because allowing citizens to file taxes whenever it’s convenient, using hand-written letters delivered by carrier pigeon would be a much better way to administer our tax system.

Cain’s Tax Delinquency [TDB]

Accounting News Roundup: Student Loan Easing; More on Perry’s ‘Bold’ Tax Plan; Jack Daniel’s Taking a Property Tax Shot | 10.26.11

Obama moves to ease student loan burdens [WaPo]
President Obama on Wednesday will announce a plan to allow college graduates to cap federal student loan repayments at 10 percent of discretionary income starting in January, two years before the cap was due to take effect under federal law. The accelerated “pay as you earn” program, which Obama will authorize through executive order, could benefit up to 1.6 million borrowers and reduce their payments by as much as a couple hundred dollars a month, administration officials said. All remaining debt on the federal len after 20 years — five years earlier than under current law.

Perry Calls His Flat Tax Proposal ‘Bold Reform’ [NYT]
The plan represents a gamble for Mr. Perry, who is trying to reinvigorate a once-high-flying campaign by capturing some of the energy Herman Cain generated with his flat tax plan and by drawing a sharply conservative contrast with Mitt Romney. But in proposing what he called “bold reform” that may trim Social Security and Medicare benefits for many, Mr. Perry is also advocating potentially sweeping changes in entitlement programs that may open him to new lines of attack from Republican rivals, all at a time when polling shows many Americans want to see higher — not lower — taxes on the wealthy.

Olympus chairman to step down [FT]
The chairman of Olympus, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, is to leave the Japanese optical equipment company after coming under fire over large undisclosed payments made in relation to acquisitions while he was chief executive. Olympus has scheduled a news briefing for 5:30pm Tokyo time. A spokesman said the company planned to announce Mr Kikukawa’s departure but declined to give further details.

Gupta Surrenders to FBI [WSJ]
The 62-year-old Mr. Gupta surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Wednesday on criminal charges of leaking inside information to Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam. Mr. Rajaratnam this month was sentenced to 11 years in prison, the longest-ever for insider trading. If prosecutors are able to prove their case against him, Mr. Gupta would be by far the highest-ranking corporate executive to fall in an unprecedented push by the government to root out insider trading, which prosecutors have said they believe is rampant. Since late 2009, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged 55 individuals with insider trading, resulting in 51 convictions or guilty pleas.


IBM names Rometty as next chief executive [FT]
IBM has named Virginia Rometty to succeed Sam Palmisano as its chief executive from the start of next year, making her the first female leader in the 100-year history of the US computing giant and one of only a handful of women to head a large US corporation. Currently head of sales, marketing and strategy, Ms Rometty is also the first head of IBM not to have run part of its traditional hardware business. At one time she headed the business services unit that accounts for around a third of IBM’s total services division, but has otherwise spent her 30-year career at the company mainly in sales and marketing roles.

Jack Daniel’s distillery facing possible $3.5 million property tax increase [DMWT]
Who needs a drink?

Retired Accountant Who Took Up Bodybuilding Initially Not Comfortable with Skimpy Outfits, Manscaping, Teasing Women in the Crowd

Retirement. Unfortunately for most of you, you’re nowhere near it. And for those of you that are thinking about it, you’ve probably discovered that your savings aren’t quite what you imagined they would be at this stage in life and you’re doomed to a few years of recommending power tools at the local Home Depot. Once you finally do get to retire, you’ll be confined to the shuffleboard court and the senior tee boxes at your local municipal golf course.

This is not the retirement of one Don Ohmes of O’Fallon, Missouri. While most of you think of traveling the world stuff your pieholes on cruise ships, Don is getting ripped. And not just for fun. For competition.

[Ohmes] decided at age 64 that he wanted to compete in body building. This summer he shared that dream with his personal trainer, mentioning his long-time admiration of Arnold Schwarzenegger. To Maida, his wife of 43 years, this was a revelation: Body building? Arnold Schwarzenegger? “Getting on a stage in front of people? This is not really who he is,” she says. “He is a modest person and shy. You have to get up on stage and have a brief on, or whatever it is.”

It’s a “posing outfit” Mrs. Ohmes. And her husband discovered some things about bodybuilding that he hadn’t previously considered. For example, your business casual outfits may fit nicely in a JCPenney shopping bag but that sort of storage isn’t necessary for outfits required by Don’s new hobby:

“It came in an envelope,” Don recalls, burying his face in his hands. “That’s all it was in. I thought, ‘Holy cow!'” Posing costumes are so itsy bitsy that competitors must shave their bodies.

Right. The manscaping. Don eventually got more at ease with the nuances of his new obsession but there was one thing he couldn’t quite get comfortable with:

Don had to pick a song for his one-minute posing routine. He chose “Hurts So Good,” by John Mellencamp. He practiced at home, with [his trainer] and at Gold’s gym. But there was one thing Don just couldn’t do for [her]. She wanted him to point at a woman in the audience — any woman — at the song lyric, “With a girl like you.”

“I can’t act like some 20-year-old kid, because I’m not,” Don says.

So, despite his washboard abs Don isn’t so comfortable enticing the ladies. But considering he finished second in 50 and over division, it probably cost him the title. Which is fine with Don because this isn’t about fun for him, he’s trying to inspire you aging cube-dwellers out there:

“I felt a deep sense of accomplishment,” he says. “And maybe people will think — ‘This guy is 64 and he can do it. So maybe I can do it, too.'”

This means you, Tim Flynn.

Retired accountant morphs into body builder at 64 [St. Louis Today]

Romney Trumps Obama in Accounting Firm Donations to Presidential Candidates

You may have heard that there’s a bit of a campaign going on for the world’s worst job. For whatever reason, the process of electing the leader of our country’s government drags on like Titantic. Right around, erm, now you’re probably ready to gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon every time you see an ad for a candidate or debate. Unfortunately we’re powerless to stop it, thanks tycle.

ANYWAY, one of the more useful things we learn during this process is where the money comes from and who it goes to. Now, you may be screaming, “Koch Brothers!” or “George Soros!” and while they can afford to throw around some cash, these stories are old hat and are best left to political bomb throwers with jostling jowls.

For our purposes of informing you, dear GC readers, we’ll give you the lowdown on what kind of cash people from the largest accounting firms are throwing around and who they’re throwing it to. Accounting Today has a full report out today based on data available from the Federal Election Commission and here are the highlights:


• Ernst & Young – E&Y donated the most cash, with personnel contributing more than $89,000. 18% went to President Obama, Mitt Romney received 39% and Rick Perry 37%. Personally, I feel like this money would be better spent throwing it at people in Albany.

• Deloitte – Total of $57,490 in donations. Mittens received 41%; Obama 37%.

• PwC – $36,520 total donations. Romney received 51%; Obama 48%.

• KPMG – The one Obama stronghold. The President received 47% of the total $15,000 in donations. Romney received 32%; Perry 17%.

• Grant Thornton – Obama doesn’t win. GT peeps gave $23,050 and 97% went to Mitt Romney.

What about the other candidates? Well, Newt Gingrich received a grand total of zero dollars from anyone at these accounting firms. Ron Paul received less money than Jon Huntsman. Yes, I know you’ve never heard of him. It’s this guy. Google Rick Santorum just for fun. And check out Michelle Bachmann’s manicures. That’s about all you need to know.

So who gets your imaginary contributions? I imagine most of you out there in Internetland have no plans to fork over any of your meager bonuses to a Presidential candidate but IF YOU DID, who would it be? And feel free to discuss your firm’s generosity or political leanings as you see fit.

Accountants and Firms Fund Presidential Candidates [AT]

Layoff Watch ’11: KPMG Asking for ‘Voluntary Redundancies’ Down Under

From the land that brought you Michael Andrew:

KPMG is to push ahead with a round of voluntary redundancies following a slowdown in merger and acquisition activity. The privately-held firm launched the cost cutting program this week, offering voluntary redundancies and part-time working options for its 5000 Australian-based staff.

[…]”We’re seeing a tough, uncertain, challenging and patchy market,” KPMG’s Australian chief executive officer, Geoff Wilson, said yesterday. But he declined to say how many staff would be affected by the shake-up. “While we’re experiencing year-on-year growth, we’re seeing some softening in that growth. [We are trying to] create flexibility in response to the patchiness we’re seeing in the market,” he said.

Crikey. I guess by “create flexibility” Mr. Wilson means, “Your work-life balance is going to get a whole lot easier.”

KPMG calls for redundancies amid slowdown in mergers [SMH via Francine McKenna]

Let’s Get to Know KPMG’s New International Chairman, Michael Andrew

Yesterday we learned that new KPMG International Chairman Michael Andrew doesn’t think too highly of second-tier accounting firms. Sure, they might have fancy ad campaigns, or offer Starbucks cards for being tattletales but could they audit a global bank? No. Hell no. Rubes. According to Andrew, those firms are “quite lazy” about investing in their businesses which means you couldn’t trust those audits as far as you could throw them.

But perhaps that wasn’t the best introduction for the man replacing Tim Flynn (who is, frankly, irreplaceable). Luckily, in addition to the FT piece we mentioned yesterday, there was also a much longer profile of MA that will give you a better idea of the man who has to fill T Fly’s shoes.


For starters, being the chair of an international accounting behemoth can be a quite the harried job, it’s important that Drew be afforded the quickest transport possible:

Holding court in a hotel at London’s Heathrow airport, Michael Andrew is boasting about how easy it is to get from his desk to the runway back home in Hong Kong. “I basically walk out of the office and they guarantee me to be sitting on the plane in 45 minutes,” he says.

The new chairman of KPMG International is not trying to rub salt into the wounds of harried air travellers in the UK and US. Rather, the 55-year-old Australian is explaining why he recently became the first head of a major global accounting network to be based in Asia.

And since he is based in Asia, this should put everyone on notice that the House of Klynveld isn’t caught up in the old world thinking of being centered in New York or London like other firms:

The bosses of KPMG’s three bigger rivals – PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young – are all based in New York or London: “We are trying to say we are a much more globally balanced firm.”

Okay, so PwC had over $29 billion in revenue. And Deloitte’s results were nothing to sneeze at. Even E&Y managed to put up a decent number. But do their respective Chairmen reside in the eastern hemisphere? I think you know the answer.

But just because he is the new Chairman of one of the largest accounting firms on Earth, you might expect that Drew is caught up in the high-flying lifestyle of a rockstar accountant. Sure, he golfs like the rest of you but that shouldn’t give you the wrong idea about Mike:

Mr Andrew’s hobby of racehorse breeding suggests he is more unbuttoned than the stereotypical accountant, even though three of his horses are called Discretion, Tactfully and Chatham House – the latter a reference to the famously off-the-record UK forum. But Mr Andrews himself is certainly willing to make punchy comments.

That’s right. This means stomping through shit. Bossing stable boys around. Firing trainers when necessary. Clearly, he’ll get down in the mud if he has to.

An accountant betting on Asia [FT]

Accounting News Roundup: Rick Perry’s Awful, Awful Tax Plan; Audit Firm Talking Points Translate Well; Don’t Hesitate to Shout into a Speaker Phone When on with the IRS | 10.25.11

My Tax and Spending Reform Plan [WSJ]
In addition to giving us a “choice” between a 20% flat rate or their current tax rate, Texas carnival barker Rihis: “ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed and, if necessary, replaced by market-oriented, common-sense measures.” Whatever that means.

Murdochs shunned in News Corp vote [FT]
Just 20 per cent of voting shareholders not aligned with News Corp’s founding family voted for James Murdoch to be re-elected, reflecting concern about the deputy chief operating officer’s response to the UK phone hacking scandal that scuppered the group’s bid for British Sky Broadcasting. He faces a separate re-election battle as chairman of BSkyB next month. Family votes saw James Murdoch re-elected with 65 per cent of all votes cast, but this was down from 89 per cent last year. Given the family’s holding, “a big protest vote would be anything over 20 per cent” against the board, Paul Hodgson of GovernanceMetrics International said before the figures were released.

Olympus chairman lashes out at ousted CEO [FT]
In perhaps the most personal attack, [Olympus Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa] suggested that [Former President Michael] Woodford “did not like Japan” because he spent much of his time as president abroad. “At a time when he was imposing strict cost cuts on frontline employees, director MCW travelled around Europe and to his home [in the UK] by private jet,” he said.

Keynote Address: A Fresh Look at Auditing [PCAOB]
Jim Doty’s keynote from NASBA’s 104th Annual Meeting.

Audit Chief Faces China Risks [WSJ]
KPMG’s top auditor in China sounds an awful lot like a top auditor in the States.

Big 4 Audits: A Thing of the Past? [GOA]
The Grumpies are thinking about the future.

Fairfax neighbors head to court over unscooped dog poop [WaPo]
A dispute between neighbors in Fairfax County over that perennial suburban pet peeve — unscooped dog poop — has grown so big that the case is set to go to a jury Tuesday. A dog walker invested $1,200 in her defense, and a supposed eyewitness will testify. A photo of the offending pile will be admitted as evidence. The fluffy 19-pound Westie-bichon frise mix will stay home. The case is just one flash point in an increasingly sophisticated, expensive and acrimonious battle over dog waste in the Washington suburbs and beyond. Two Northern Virginia apartment complexes have signed on for PooPrints, a service that collects DNA samples from pooches, taking a “CSI”-style approach to find the culprits of unclaimed messes.


The Republican Idea of Tax Reform [Economix/NYT]
Bill Clinton, in his budget for fiscal year 1997, which was released in early 1996, projected a federal budget surplus by 2001. It turned out that the tax increases initiated by George H.W. Bush in 1990 and by Mr. Clinton in 1993, which were strenuously opposed by virtually all Republicans, did exactly what they were supposed to do and sharply reduced federal budget deficits. Nevertheless, Republican dogma insists that tax increases just fuel spending and never reduce the deficit. As the Republican tax guru Grover Norquist put it last week, when taxes are on the table there are no spending cuts. “When taxes are off the table, you get spending cuts,” he said. My friend Grover is factually wrong. Spending as a share of the gross domestic product fell after both the 1990 and 1993 budget deals, in large part because of tough budget controls that Republicans abandoned in 2002 so that they could cut taxes without restraint. And contrary to Mr. Norquist’s theory, the tax cuts of the George W. Bush years did not constrain spending, which rose as a share of the G.D.P. almost every year of his administration (as the raw data confirms).

IRS Reminds Workers They Can’t Demand Turning Off Speakerphone [Dow Jones]
The tax agency agreed to remind its employees that they can’t threaten to withhold telephone help from taxpayers using speakerphones, after the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel raised the issue in its 2010 annual report, released Monday. In one of 30 of the panel’s recommendations agreed to by the IRS, the tax agency conceded that the Internal Revenue Manual does not prohibit the use of speakerphones and will issue an alert reminding its employees who provide telephone help to taxpayers.

BDO Anthem to FIU Includes Tone Deaf MCs, Bad Wigs

As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of videos come through these parts that are of various production quality with the legendary “In a JIT” widely accepted as the best effort to date. While TPTB probably don’t appreciate the creativity, it always seems worthwhile for us to promote the talents (or complete lack thereof) of those willing to put the time into a such an extensive project.

Today in CPA-inspired video is from none other than the most interesting firm in the world, BDO. The mission of this particular video was to serenade recruits from Florida International University. And seeing how it’s a firm-sponsored production, it’s clear the firm is behind it.


Some thoughts:

1. How did the casting director consciously go with the two guys in the office that are completely tone deaf?

2. Will FIU recruits even attend an office visit after this display?

3. “Running through FASBs like Drano.”

4. At 2:35 they are clearly reading the lyrics off the screen. Poor form, gents.

5. Couldn’t they get Captain Jack to throw them out of the office instead?

We will give them an ‘A’ for effort since BDO is typically pretty quiet but they’ve got a long way to go. Feel free to share your own critique below.