Following up yesterday’s article covering the most-read stories of 2025, today we bring you the editor’s picks. These are the ones that may not have gotten the most eyeballs but they probably got a chuckle out of me as I typed the headline. I definitely did more than just chuckle when I smashed the publish button on this one:
Ohio to the AICPA: Suck It, Losers
As we reach the end of 2025, almost half of CPA jurisdictions have eliminated 150 hour-only pathways to licensure in their state. Back in January this was still an emerging trend that the AICPA was actively fighting against and so we took the opportunity to let them know that they’re losing (a month later they conceded and took the L).
Effective tomorrow, people who sit for the CPA exam in Ohio will have two options for licensure:
- A bachelor’s degree with an accounting concentration and two years of relevant experience, or
- A master’s degree with an accounting concentration and one year of relevant experience
Pussies at the PCAOB Have Backed Down on Firm Metrics Rules
Sometimes I can’t believe this is my job.
TIL Deloitte Almost Didn’t Do the Green Dot Because It Was ‘a Bit Silly’
If you didn’t know, I have a background in graphic design. I very nearly became a full-time designer and illustrator instead of a, uh, whatever it is I do here. Just think of all the dick jokes about Big 4 firms that wouldn’t have been made had fate saw fit to steer me away from accounting and into slaving over vectors all day for a living.
While graphic design didn’t become my career, it’s something I continued to study and practice over the years that followed. Every now and then I get to shit out an article at the intersection of professional services and design, this one is exactly that.
In March I happened to come across an article Deloitte itself published about the background of the inimitable Green Dot, thus giving me an opportunity to shove some design lore down the throat of practitioners who probably never gave it a second thought. Said Deloitte in Becoming the Green Dot:
Initially, there was some concern that the Green Dot was too unusual and perhaps a bit silly—that it had too much personality. Some said they were reluctant to give out business cards with the Green Dot on them. But over time, the iconic symbol became embedded in Deloitte’s thinking, used as a byword for initiatives that span across Deloitte and providing the basis for Deloitte’s visual identity: a look that is distinctive, consistent and a 360-degree representation of Deloitte’s highly connected offer.
Now, Gylfe said, “if we told people we were getting rid of the Green Dot, they would probably cry. It’s that embedded in the culture.”
Yes, I’m sure Deloitters all over the world would stop crying about work and start crying about the Green Dot if the firm took it away.
In April, PwC revealed it was completely changing its branding just as we predicted it was plotting to. See: Pink and Yellow Get Laid Off From PwC’s Logo (UPDATE).
A Top Ten Firm is Frustrated Their Gen Z Staff Don’t Know How to Use Phones to Speak to Other Humans
Gen Alpha should be hitting the workforce soon yet we’re still trying to figure out how to teach Gen Z to interface professionally. I’m starting to think locking everyone inside five years ago wasn’t healthy for them.
This is an ongoing issue, one we just covered the other day. See: From ‘Think Like a Manager’ to ‘Please Make Eye Contact’: PwC Adjusts Expectations. Call me a softie but I have sympathy for the younger generation, they didn’t get the robust communications training we did through chatting with creeps in AOL chatrooms and hours-long phone calls with the bestie.
Florida May Find Out What Happens If We Replace CPAs With Fantastic From Fallout New Vegas
Fallout references abound on this here website (mainly because I run it and no one is above me to say “Adrienne, do you really need to handfist another Fallout reference in here?”). So that’s why this one is on this list of editor’s picks.
If you haven’t played New Vegas then you don’t get the joke. Basically the Florida Institute of CPAs was warning that a bill to eliminate all professional and occupational licensing boards, including the Florida Board of Accountancy, would have catastrophic effects in the state. Duh. We don’t need theoretically licensed Fantastic practicing accounting in that state or any.
Big 4 Firm Discovers That Bragging About AI Efficiencies Leads Clients to Expect a Discount
This one was based on a story we saw in Bloomberg that quoted a PwC bigwig admitting that clients are pressing them about efficiency discounts:
“Clients would hear us talking about using AI and and say, ‘We want our fair share of those efficiencies,’” PwC Chief AI Officer Dan Priest said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We certainly, as appropriate, give our clients the pricing benefit of the efficiencies we’re achieving.”
Notice they don’t brag about how much money offshoring saves them. We know why.
EY Janitorial Staff Are Protesting the Firm’s Shitty Treatment and Looming Layoffs
Hello, toilet pun.
India Is Tired of the Real Big 4 Bogarting All Their Talent, Gets to Work on a Homebrew Big 4 of Their Own
This isn’t a particularly funny story nor is the headline that great but the story itself rules because we’ve been warning people about this for a while now and we want India to try it so, so bad. Please do it, it will be so funny to watch.
Accountants Across America Stunned to Find Themselves Nodding Along With JD Vance
In October, JD Vance specifically mentioned American accountants competing against H1-B visas and accountants everywhere (except the big H1-B country) found themselves strangely conflicted. This is their story.
Firm That’s Firing Talent Acquisition People Says It Can’t Find People to Hire
If there’s anything we love here as much as Fallout, janky Photoshop, and mentioning cats for no reason it’s schadenfreude. That’s exactly what we got in this story about PwC struggling to hire, news that came just two weeks after PwC US went on major housekeeping of its in-house design staff.
As we said then: Smithers, fetch the tiny violins!
Did you notice what’s missing from these handpicked stories? Articles specifically about layoffs! I hate those. They get a ton of views and it’s important news to publish but I HATE THEM. I hate knowing how many of you are stuck at a shitty firm, eating hours, going to bed late every night with a pit deep in your bowels knowing you have nothing to look forward to but another day of this shit.
On that note, I’m afraid 2026 will be full of more layoff stories. Private equity buys the rest of the top 30, offshoring hits 80%, “AI” gets shoved even harder than it already is. You know what, we’ll do predictions for 2026 in the next article. We’ll be running a quick survey for that but if you want to let me know your predictions early you can do so via email or text.
If you made it this far thanks for reading and Happy New Year!
