Tag: You’re fired

Former McGladrey Employee Rates Experience at Firm as Below Average; Cites Stress Level, Getting Fired While on Vacation

On Tuesday, I brought you a rundown of a survey I recently took on my Big 4 experience scoring it a 5 – on a 1 to 5 scale – for the days spent inside the House of Klynveld. Today, from the mailbag, a former McGladrey tax pro who pegged his experience at Mickey G’s a bit lower than that:

Per yesterday’s newsletter [Ed. note: which you can subscribe to here], I worked at McGladrey from 2002 – 2009. I would rate the experience as a 2 on a scale of 1 – 5 (with 1 being the lowest).

On the positive side I was able to complete the [Midwest University] MST (distance-learning) which they fully financed, as well as gain valuable tax experience which helped me get my next gig as a Tax Analyst for a private company.

On the negative side: getting laid off on the following Monday after busy season. Even worse, I was taking my first vacation day in 4 months and was informed via courier who delivered the information to my house. It took a while for me to get over that extremely cold termination but I now realize it was a promotion in disguise!

Also, the stress level in my office was very high leading several in the tax department to have health issues (chest pains, high blood pressure, etc.).

The Bell Effect: City of Riverside Won’t Renew With Mayer Hoffman McCann

If you’re a small city in California, you probably won’t be looking to Mayer Hoffman McCann to do your audits. If you’re already with them, it’s time to go auditor shopping.


Following the debacle that was Mayer Hoffman McCann’s completely blown city of Bell audits, the city of Riverside has joined the angry mob and will not be looking to renew with MHM any time soon. Riverside’s CFO Paul Sundeen said “given that the firm’s five year contract with the city is at its end and the controversy at the city of Bell, we will not include them [when seeking proposals for an auditor]”. Sorry, MHM, don’t wait by the mailbox for that invitation because you aren’t invited to the party.

Now that’s not nearly as harsh as getting fired by the client but sends a clear message to MHM (and any other questionably-equipped-to-do-their-job auditors out there) that ineptitude will not fly with the client. Unless, of course, there’s a conspiracy at work to defraud TPTB, in which case ineptitude is totally welcome if not encouraged.

Once again, it comes down to scope. No audit firm should be expected to look at every receipt and every statement but in the case of the Bell audit, auditors obviously missed some very large accounts either on purpose or because the firm sent a bunch of fresh-faced neophytes down there (this rarely happens) to actually perform the audit (Note to MHM: $8.89 million is significant unless you’re auditing the King of Saudi or the Federal Reserve). What happened to the accountability SOX promised us?

Said Riverside city controller Jason Al-Imam, “They want to do the right amount of work because they don’t want to lose their license, but they can’t audit everything. Sometimes something might go wrong and that just might be an area that they didn’t look at.”

Scraping by isn’t doing it anymore for the profession, so Riverside is more than welcome to go track down some new auditors but who wants to bet the kids doing their next audit will be just as fresh-faced and clueless as the last bunch MHM sent to fetch the client’s bank recs and invoices?

City of Riverside to drop Bell’s financial auditor [The Riverside Press-Enterprise]

Area Man Under the Assumption That Firing an IRS Examiner Was Within His Powers as an American Citizen

Mining obscure tax court cases for blog posts during this slow time of year, Joe Kristan discovered this little gem:

In the April 4, 2008, letter petitioner stated that respondent [IRS] had repeatedly refused to answer his questions regarding Code sections that define income and property received as income and establish respondent’s “Delegated Constitutional and Legislated Lawful authority”. The letter contained meaningless language, for example: “I do hereby give you notice that you, and all you are, are Fired from any and all representation of my private affairs without recourse“.

University Officials Not Impressed with Accounting Professor’s Demonstration of “First in, First Out”

Since many of you are current or former accounting students, you undoubtedly, at one time or another during your depraved days running around the quad, had the thought creep into your mind, “What would happen if Professor Johnson decided to drop trou in the middle of class while discussing accounting for bonds?”

Unfortunately for students at Kennesaw State University, they now know the answer to that question:

Raymond Devaughn Taylor, 57, is accused of taking off his clothes during a class he was teaching, according to an arrest warrant obtained by the AJC. […] Taylor, who worked in the business department on a contract basis, taught an accounting class during the fall semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays, according to the class schedule posted on the university’s website.

“He will not be teaching again at KSU,” interim Provost Ken Harmon told the AJC.

Now, why this particular professor thought that pulling a Brett Favre on the entire class was a good idea is not entirely clear, as this particular method of impressing a target of your lust many years your junior has an abysmal track record. But as we alluded in the headline, maybe this was a unique teaching method on display. Or then again, perhaps students were showing their lack of interest and rather than scream and yell, Taylor figured this would hold the student’s attention better. OR simply, in the words of Cosmo, “Maybe uh, it needed some air. You know sometimes they need air, they can’t breathe in there. It’s inhuman.”

The theories are endless, really. Yours are welcome below and for the love of everything good and uproariously hilarious, if you were in this class, email us immediately.

[h/t TaxProf and The Summa – neither of whom would ever do such a thing]