OK, I intended last week’s article (Sexy Accounting–natural coupling or oxymoron?) to be 90% humorous and10% serious–about fraud auditing–and stand alone. Little did I know it would need a sequel.
I did some more research. It turns out that fraud auditors believe their own hype that they are sexy. At one firm, the staff jokes that I.R.S. means, “I’m really sexy.” Who else knew that “I’m a fraud auditor” is the uber pick-up line of the millennial generation? Hmmm, I better get some new business cards printed. Is The Pretender shooting new episodes?
Many accountants think they are sexy, no matter what their friends and acquaintances believe. 11,553 people at the current time have joined the Facebook group ‘Accountants Are Sexy’. Other Facebook groups are ‘Accountants Are Sexy Too’, ‘Accountants Party Like Rock Stars’, ‘I’m Really, Really Sexy’, ‘I’m Really, Really, Really Sexy’, ‘I’m Too Sexy For Words’, and ‘I’ve Got Some Sexy Stuff’. Get the idea?
What’s next? ‘Accounting Professors are Sexy’? Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me be perfectly clear for the record. I am not a sexy accountant or professor. I’m not a sexy anything. My accounting professor friends Bob J. and Ed S. have all the sex appeal.
Being viewed as sexy is important to more than one group of accountants, though. In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), ran a February, 2008, story entitled, Love Between the Spreadsheets. In addition, they sponsor a web site dedicated to Extreme Accounting. A candid comment to its Sexy Accountants forum admits, “I’m not sexy, but I like sex.”
The highly respected magazine for Canadian Chartered Accountants, CAMagazine, published a story by Diana Cawfield about the Sexy Six specialties. Forensic accounting is the sexiest. This is supported in a New Mexico Business Weekly article by Thomas Munro, Forensics: the sexy side of accounting.
Does all of this sexy posturing mean anything? Probably not.
The respected newspaper, Accountancy Age, responded to the sexiness campaigns with, No one fooled by accounting’s ‘sexy’ image. Darn! Next thing you know, they’ll be telling me Santa Claus does not exist and there is no Tooth Fairy.
The good news, though, is that the AICPA won’t be launching either of these two marketing campaigns: ‘Got Sexy?’, or ‘I Love My Sexy CPA’. Thank goodness.
Whatever. I’m still going to fantasize, though. Isn’t that what romantic novels are all about? Shelley Bradley and Kathleen O’Reilly have each written a steamy romance novel centered around a CPA.
In Bradley’s Strip Search, “A sexy CPA goes undercover as a male stripper in the mobster’s Vegas club to nail a Mafia kingpin. The perk? The club’s owner. Sure she’s got some unsavory connections, but how can anyone with those legs be all bad?.” Guess I’m going to have to order this one.
In O’Reilly’s Sex: Straight Up, “How do you do it? How do you make accountants sexy? No offense to any number crunchers out there, especially at this time of year, but the profession isn’t up there on the sexy-job-o-meter. Daniel’s brothers, the lawyer and the bartender, have jobs that could be considered babe-magnets but it takes a special woman to appreciate his talent with an audit and, bless his heart, I’m glad he finds her in Catherine …” I wonder if these are serious books that I can assign to my classes.
So there you have it. Accounting isn’t sexy, no matter how badly we wish it. That doesn’t have to stop each of us from being sexy in our own way. So to SexyCPA, taXXXgirl and all the rest, here’s looking at you, kid.
Over and out – - David Albrecht
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.