Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

If the AICPA Offers You a Career In Accounting, Just Say No

An old anti-drug McGruff the Crime Dog poster

With the AICPA making filling the CPA pipeline one of their 2022 primary strategic initiatives (see page 11 of the 2021 AICPA Trends report for the full list of pipeline-filling activities they will be going hard on this year), I thought now might be a good time to dust off the ol’ 1980s D.A.R.E. programming and remind America’s youth that if a suspicious man in a blue button-up shirt offers you a career in accounting, you can just say no.

When you really think about it, there’s a strong parallel between the imaginary drug pushers of ’80s anti-drug PSAs and the world’s largest accounting trade organization. Both want to get kids started young. And while the AICPA isn’t giving out drugs (neither were the non-existent creeps lurking in the bushes outside of elementary schools we were warned about TBH), they are giving out a ton of scholarships which frees up your own money for drugs. Then you have your accounting program professors telling you about how cool Big 4 life is and how you’ll end up a big fat loser if you don’t go there, much like the schoolyard bullies of ’80s PSAs threatening to nuke your social life if you don’t take a little puff of their dirt weed.

Oh, and the peer pressure! One of the tenets of D.A.R.E. is learning how to resist peer pressure; coincidentally, peer pressure happens to be one of the tenets of Big 4 firms, what with low-level grunts pressuring each other to eat hours, stay late, skip family functions, and definitely don’t leave the firm during busy season you big chicken BAWK BAWK. If anyone ever suggests you’re a chicken for washing out of a Big 4 firm, tell them you’re not a chicken, they’re a turkey. You know what … don’t do that. That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. What a dork. I can’t believe that guy wanted to waste his weed on a dork like that.

AND THEN when you finish up your degree and start your career in public accounting, people will offer you actual drugs to help you manage the long hours. Granted these people are usually doctors and the drugs are prescription stimulants.

Look, we’re not saying no one should pursue accounting. But we’re not saying no one should do drugs either. Honestly I don’t know what we’re saying, really I just wanted an excuse to post this radical 1987 relic and remind the kids to JUST SAY NO.

Oh and for any fellow olds nostalgic for the classic “this is your brain on drugs” eggs, here you go. And remember, in most cases providing CPA services to legal marijuana clients is not considered an act discreditable. Suck on that, McGruff.

One thought on “If the AICPA Offers You a Career In Accounting, Just Say No

  1. Maybe the AICPA would find it easier to recruit future CPAs if they would stop trying so hard to devalue the CPA designation?

Comments are closed.