Maybe Boring Isn't So Bad

I'm currently filling in as the temporary treasurer at our church while the official treasurer is on maternity leave.

I got the job because I have 3 basic qualifications.

1. I know how to use QuickBooks.
2. I have some background in accounting
3. My wife is chair of the finance committee and asked me to do the job.

I'm not sure about the people who have been doing the job before now. But from what I see, they appear to have less of a background in accounting than I do.

When I graduated from high school, my primary consideration for where to go to college was whether or not I thought I could make their football team. I picked a division II school which was 0-10 during my senior year of high school. I figured I had a chance with these guys. When I was filling out my application, I had to put down a major. Being 18, just wanting to play sports, and never really having had a "calling" kind of interest in any class, I had no idea what I choose as a major. I finally decided that since my dad was an accountant and I liked our lifestyle (we were comfortable), I would take accounting as a major. I had no delusions that I would ever have a career in sports so I needed to take something I could use to earn a living afer college.

So...

Time passes. I play 1 year of football and 1 year of soccer. I take lots ( I mean LOTS) of PE classes in addition to my business and general ed classes just to keep school interesting. Then, after 3 years I've just had enough. This was at the same time my parents were divorcing, but I can't remember how much of an impact it was at that point in my life. It just got to the point where I discovered that accounting classes are BORING. So I quit school.

I went from part time to full time at my job and basically had a lot of fun. I was making enough money to have fun. I had a sports car. I went out drinking with friends on a regular basis. I coached high school wrestling. Overall, it was quite a bit of fun. Except for my conscience.

My conscience's name was Joyce. She was the mother of one of my best friends at church. She kept letting me know that I should go back and finish college. After only 1 school year of "vacation", she had me convinced to go back to school. I owe my current life to her. Thank you!

So now that I am ready to go back to school, I have to decide what to take. I know it's not going to be accounting because it's too damned boring. I ended up being accepted by 2 different schools in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science majors. Because some things never change, I ended up choosing EE because the school with the CS major wasn't going to let me play on their soccer team. So, after taking 3 years of accouting, I changed schools and changed my major to something where I had to start completely over.

My mantra ever since has been I chose Engineering over Accounting because I wanted to do something creative and if you are creative as an accountant, you go to jail.

So, let's bring this whole thing back around...

After all these years, I have never had a job where I used my EE degree. A CS degree would have been useful. Oh well. The accounting stuff seems to have always been useful and is actually helping in my current job as a project manager.

Between what I am doing at work and filling in at church, I'm really liking the accounting type of stuff. The rules are defined. There is very little ambiguity, it's either right or wrong. It balances or it doesn't. After taking over a set of books that are definitely in need of some work, I can see there actually IS an art to accounting. While it is doing the same thing all the time, there is enough variation to make it challenging. While it may be a little boring sometimes, I am really enjoying it. There are problems to be solved which creates a mental challenge.

Maybe boring (or safe, if you like) isn't such a bad thing if there is still something in it you enjoy.

I wonder if it's too late to become a CPA?