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Abstract

700.I could’ve used that for rent or contributing towards my game studio’s mounting expenses. I was absofuckinglutely not experiencing the prosperity I was promised with these accounting degrees, that were supposedly “safe” unlike that film degree I really wanted, or the game design degree I would’ve dreamed of except I had no idea even existed yet.Hell, I find it so ironic that everyday people treated me with so much more respect when I was so broke and stressed constantly, holding back tears when I looked at my savings that rarely rose above $200, but looking for accounting jobs, while they sneer at me and write off the six-figure income I make as a writer, game dev, and shitposter as “not a real job”. Stay classy, America.But yes, it was a total waste of$ 700. And to be clear, saying it was a waste is not an indictment of the instructor or even the program itself. It’s simply that accounting firms and departments really didn’t care that I was a certified user. They wanted day-to-day experience with the program, which I simply lacked. No certificate would change that, and I didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on intensive training. Then I wound up never using QuickBooks for the next two jobs I worked prior to leaving the financial industry in mid-2014, never to hold a W-2 job ever again.I don’t remember anything from the course content. I have no idea how to actually use QuickBooks, I still use REAL accounting software TYVM. I took it seven years ago at the time of writing. But here’s what I do remember.A very sweet woman named Amy conducted the classes, and she excitedly talked about how much she loved her job.Loving your job was a foreign concept to me. It was as foreign as deplaning in a country where no one speaks my language, I can’t read the signage, and no translation apps will load on my phone.Amy used to be a controller for a series of mid-size corporations until she burnt out and got tired of that environment. But because she was frequently responsible for training in her department, so she parlayed those skills to becoming a QuickBooks instructor with the company that ran their certificate programs.She excitedly talked about how the only chief requirements for her job were that you had to be able to teach, travel constantly, and live near an airport. This immediately got my attention and I was rapt when she discussed how the thousands of frequent flyer miles she accumulated took her to London, Greece, Belize, and all of these other eye-popping destinations. She showed us her travel photos on lunch break and this wistfulness rose up in my throat alongside my acid reflux from the processed pastries the hotel chain provided us.Especially when she showed us her pictures from Cairo, which was followed up by a picture of her looking radiantly at a man in a loose-fitting suit in what appeared to be a judge’s office.“I would never have met my husband if I

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didn’t go to Cairo and just go with it when I was having coffee near the avenue. But I also love being able to fly to Utah whenever I need to so I can see my family. It’s very expensive from my home airport.”<h2 id="5aec">Over a year passed. I was fired from my very last financial job.</h2>I didn’t know it at the time, but my journey was only beginning.The first part of that journey was realizing that I didn’t just want to do people’s taxes for money ever again. Amy showed me that were other options out there, and I thought of her as the rejection emails steadfastly piled up when I applied to firm after firm.That QuickBooks class was a waste of money, but what if I could start teaching and speaking locally? Then eventually just find a way to make money online without having to deal with abusive bosses ever again?Because that was the next pivotal part of my journey: I realized that I simply would never find my happiness with a job. Not even a cool job that entailed lots of travel, with a boss who gave me some relative degree of autonomy. No, it had to be full autonomy or bust. The ability to rack up frequent flier miles would just make it even better.About a year and a half after that fateful QuickBooks course, I attended my first GDC and my studio was turned down by an investor. But it was a positive takeaway that not only told me I’d arrived, it showed me that I didn’t really care to enter the doors that investor money would open. I still respect the guy. But I also didn’t realize this was just another step on my journey.Six years after said QuickBooks class, I detailed how I got both funding for my own indie games and unparalleled personal and professional autonomy on <a href="https://www.nicoledieker.com/2019/11/21/how-i-fund-my-indie-games-habit-with-writing-and-consulting/">Hello, Future</a>.Thanks to my frequent flier miles and not being bound by an employer, I’ve been to Japan and will be returning this year. London for AdventureX, Portugal for Mittens, DC for MAGFest, San Francisco for GDC? These events are either easily in sight for me now, or I’m even a regular attendee. My family is much closer than Amy’s is, but my six-figure amount of True Blue Points enable me to see my family of friends as much as I need to, if I’m not just taking a bus or train adventure for the hell of it.So perhaps that $700 wasn’t wasted after all. Some of these turns of events would’ve transpired regardless of whether I attended that QuickBooks class or not, but it was the final straw in realizing I was wasting my time and money trying to appeal to employers when I could be putting it towards my own brand and positioning. Amy showed me that there were other options thanks to today’s technology, and I’d been duped by both the Boomer-dominated subfield I was in as well as my college’s career services department.I hope Amy’s still having an awesome time as a citizen of the world, I know I am.</article></body>

Maybe I Didn’t Waste $700 After All

It seemed like my credentials didn’t matter regardless of how hard I looked for a job. Here I was, in the financial capital of the world just a few years out from the Great Recession, with two accounting degrees that people licked my ass so hard over, I could hear the lip-smacking all the way from frigging Van Cortlandt Park.

But no one cared about the degrees. No one cared about my Enrolled Agent license. It was known within the tax law field, but good luck trying to explain what this credential is to your mom or the pizza delivery guy. My actual tax and accounting knowledge didn’t even matter despite handling bookkeeping for my scant and scattered private tax clients and my own company, because none of it was in QuickBooks. I was trained on software designed for accountants, not the layman who needs to eventually pay an accountant for help. Here I was bootstrapping a game studio with one shitty financial job off Craigslist after another, you mean to tell me that doesn’t show drive?! I make games and spent years in school for accountancy, for crying out loud. I can easily pick up your stupid fucking accounting software in a few days, Bob, while you can’t even open a PDF without calling your adult children with jobs and kids of their own for help.

So I thought it’d be prudent at this juncture to get some QuickBooks training in yet another effort to make myself appealing to employers that was going nowhere fast.

Hey, I already drained the remnants of my youth on these accounting degrees just for the economy to get cratered and those entry-level financial jobs were just never ever coming back. What was another few hundred bucks I don’t have while I’m trying not to come off as desperate when talking to the interviewer, as I notice that the other people in the waiting room were around the same age as my parents and likely panicking about their own tanked 401Ks and their kids’ students loans they co-signed?

A few Google searches later, and I sign up for a 3-day QuickBooks boot camp taking place at a nondescript hotel chain near my parents’ house in central Jersey because it was so much cheaper than comparable programs in the city. Alright, I can get some family time and free rides and meals while I become a certified QuickBooks user, and hopefully that finally opens up some goddamn jobs I have to practically get on my knees for like I drunkenly opened Facebook and am begging an abusive ex-boyfriend to take me back.

I attended the classes, took copious notes, and a week later arranged for an exam with a testing center near Penn Station that was a byzantine maze where I had to punch in a code to take a piss. I passed the exam on the first try and was now a Certified QuickBooks User.

So yeah, as the title implies, it was a complete waste of $700.

I could’ve used that for rent or contributing towards my game studio’s mounting expenses. I was absofuckinglutely not experiencing the prosperity I was promised with these accounting degrees, that were supposedly “safe” unlike that film degree I really wanted, or the game design degree I would’ve dreamed of except I had no idea even existed yet.

Hell, I find it so ironic that everyday people treated me with so much more respect when I was so broke and stressed constantly, holding back tears when I looked at my savings that rarely rose above $200, but looking for accounting jobs, while they sneer at me and write off the six-figure income I make as a writer, game dev, and shitposter as “not a real job”. Stay classy, America.

But yes, it was a total waste of $700. And to be clear, saying it was a waste is not an indictment of the instructor or even the program itself. It’s simply that accounting firms and departments really didn’t care that I was a certified user. They wanted day-to-day experience with the program, which I simply lacked. No certificate would change that, and I didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on intensive training. Then I wound up never using QuickBooks for the next two jobs I worked prior to leaving the financial industry in mid-2014, never to hold a W-2 job ever again.

I don’t remember anything from the course content. I have no idea how to actually use QuickBooks, I still use REAL accounting software TYVM. I took it seven years ago at the time of writing. But here’s what I do remember.

A very sweet woman named Amy conducted the classes, and she excitedly talked about how much she loved her job.

Loving your job was a foreign concept to me. It was as foreign as deplaning in a country where no one speaks my language, I can’t read the signage, and no translation apps will load on my phone.

Amy used to be a controller for a series of mid-size corporations until she burnt out and got tired of that environment. But because she was frequently responsible for training in her department, so she parlayed those skills to becoming a QuickBooks instructor with the company that ran their certificate programs.

She excitedly talked about how the only chief requirements for her job were that you had to be able to teach, travel constantly, and live near an airport. This immediately got my attention and I was rapt when she discussed how the thousands of frequent flyer miles she accumulated took her to London, Greece, Belize, and all of these other eye-popping destinations. She showed us her travel photos on lunch break and this wistfulness rose up in my throat alongside my acid reflux from the processed pastries the hotel chain provided us.

Especially when she showed us her pictures from Cairo, which was followed up by a picture of her looking radiantly at a man in a loose-fitting suit in what appeared to be a judge’s office.

“I would never have met my husband if I didn’t go to Cairo and just go with it when I was having coffee near the avenue. But I also love being able to fly to Utah whenever I need to so I can see my family. It’s very expensive from my home airport.”

Over a year passed. I was fired from my very last financial job.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my journey was only beginning.

The first part of that journey was realizing that I didn’t just want to do people’s taxes for money ever again. Amy showed me that were other options out there, and I thought of her as the rejection emails steadfastly piled up when I applied to firm after firm.

That QuickBooks class was a waste of money, but what if I could start teaching and speaking locally? Then eventually just find a way to make money online without having to deal with abusive bosses ever again?

Because that was the next pivotal part of my journey: I realized that I simply would never find my happiness with a job. Not even a cool job that entailed lots of travel, with a boss who gave me some relative degree of autonomy. No, it had to be full autonomy or bust. The ability to rack up frequent flier miles would just make it even better.

About a year and a half after that fateful QuickBooks course, I attended my first GDC and my studio was turned down by an investor. But it was a positive takeaway that not only told me I’d arrived, it showed me that I didn’t really care to enter the doors that investor money would open. I still respect the guy. But I also didn’t realize this was just another step on my journey.

Six years after said QuickBooks class, I detailed how I got both funding for my own indie games and unparalleled personal and professional autonomy on Hello, Future.

Thanks to my frequent flier miles and not being bound by an employer, I’ve been to Japan and will be returning this year. London for AdventureX, Portugal for Mittens, DC for MAGFest, San Francisco for GDC? These events are either easily in sight for me now, or I’m even a regular attendee. My family is much closer than Amy’s is, but my six-figure amount of True Blue Points enable me to see my family of friends as much as I need to, if I’m not just taking a bus or train adventure for the hell of it.

So perhaps that $700 wasn’t wasted after all. Some of these turns of events would’ve transpired regardless of whether I attended that QuickBooks class or not, but it was the final straw in realizing I was wasting my time and money trying to appeal to employers when I could be putting it towards my own brand and positioning. Amy showed me that there were other options thanks to today’s technology, and I’d been duped by both the Boomer-dominated subfield I was in as well as my college’s career services department.

I hope Amy’s still having an awesome time as a citizen of the world, I know I am.