Barclays have f*cked up...help required

[stek]

Indeed but there is a halfway house. Considering yourself as a business and using the correct terminology such as not using the word employer or getting the sack is essential. If you don't think like one you won't act like one. Not every business needs marketing plans, sales projections etc but they do need to you understand what you are and how you operate. A builder can be a business but doesn't need any of these things.

Agree NLUK but the halfway house is self employment - but we can't do that. Well we can - but that would involve being a 'real business', ie picking the phone up and getting told to eff off 99% of the time and at the same time not being on any PSL's....

I think we should consider ourselves artisans, come in, do job, eff off, which is not normal permie work, it's a nebulous demi-world of half and half - like you said.

I am not a permie - as I am not (at heart) a Limited Company either. It's a facade.

[stek]

What's 51 squids between friends?

Agree with the above about irregular and varying dividends, it's not a salary payment.

When I was trained as an Accountant (yes, I know!!) Dividend was always drummed into me as 'The Reward For Risk' - let's face it - to all of us it's a salary top-up. Risk is negligible.

[Sally@InTouch]

When I was trained as an Accountant (yes, I know!!)

mmmmm, excuse me, some of us have personality

[jamesbrown]

When I was trained as an Accountant (yes, I know!!) Dividend was always drummed into me as 'The Reward For Risk' - let's face it - to all of us it's a salary top-up. Risk is negligible.

It's partly about perception, of course, and it shouldn't appear like a salary payment. But it also isn't a salary payment because the payment is directly tied to success whereas a salary payment is unconditional (insofar as you are working ).

[stek]

It's partly about perception, of course, and it shouldn't appear like a salary payment. But it also isn't a salary payment because the payment is directly tied to success whereas a salary payment is unconditional (insofar as you are working ).

So you could say that if one is benched for say six months - that's not success, it's failure so no divvy....

[stek]

mmmmm, excuse me, some of us have personality

I was ICMA tho - we didn't do much personal tax or any tax really - but we had to plough through it....!

We did Widgets! Ad infinitum!!

[Sally@InTouch]

I was ICMA tho - we didn't do much personal tax or any tax really - but we had to plough through it....!

We did Widgets! Ad infinitum!!

Widgets and costing, the BANE of my life! Luckily time heals all wounds, and thank heavens for this industry

[stek]

mmmmm, excuse me, some of us have personality

Oh yeah?

First let me say how very pleased I was to be asked on the 4th inst. to write an article on why accountancy is not boring. I feel very very strongly that there are many people who may think that accountancy is boring, but they would be wrong, for it is not at all boring, as I hope to show you in this article, which is, as I intimated earlier, a pleasure to write.

I think I can do little worse than begin this article by describing why accountancy is not boring as far as I am concerned, and then, perhaps, go on to a more general discussion of why accountancy as a whole is not boring. As soon as I awake in the morning it is not boring. I get up at 7.16, and my wife Irene, an ex-schoolteacher, gets up shortly afterwards at 7.22. Breakfast is far from boring and soon I am ready to leave the house. Irene, a keen Rotarian, hands me my briefcase and rolled umbrella at 7.53, and I leave the house seconds later. It is a short walk to Sutton station, but by no means a boring one. There is so much to see, including Mr Edgeworth, who also works at Robinson Partners. Mr Edgeworth is an extremely interesting man, and was in Uxbridge during the war.

Then there is a train journey of 2 2 minutes to London Bridge, one of British Rail's main London terminal, where we accountants mingle for a moment with stockbrokers and other accountants from all walks of life. I think that many of the people to whom accountancy appears boring think that all accountants are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some accountants are chartered, but very many others are certified. I am a certified accountant, as indeed is Mr Edgeworth, whom I told you about earlier.

However, in the next office to mine is a Mr Manners, who is a chartered accountant, and, incidentally, a keen Rotarian. However, Mr Edgeworth and I get on extremely well with Mr Manners, despite the slight prestige superiority of his position. Mr Edgeworth, in fact, gets on with Mr Manners extremely well, and if there are two spaces at lunch it is more than likely he will sit with Mr Manners. So far, as you can see, accoun- tancy is not boring.

During the morning there are a hundred and one things to do. A secretary may pop in with details of an urgent audit. This happened in 1967 and again last year. On the other hand, the phone may ring, or there may be details of a new superannuation scheme to mull over. The time flies by in this not at all boring way, and it is soon ,when there is only 1 hour to go before Mrs Jackson brings round the tea urn.

Mrs Jackson is just one of the many people involved in accountancy who give the lie to those who say it is a boring profession. Even a solicitor or a surveyor would find Mrs Jackson a most interesting person. At 10.00am, having drunk an interesting cup of tea, I put my cup on the tray and then...( 18 pages deleted here - Cojak .) .. and once the light is turned out by Irene, a very keen Rotarian, I am left to think about how extremely un-boring my day has been, being an accountant. Finally may I say how extremely grateful I am to CUK for so generously allowing me so much space.

[stek]

Widgets and costing, the BANE of my life! Luckily time heals all wounds, and thank heavens for this industry

Contribution! Marginal Costing, mkvdev and vfcmap on AIX VIO is SSSSOOOOO much more interesting!

[jamesbrown]

So you could say that if one is benched for say six months - that's not success, it's failure so no divvy....

Right, but I'd still be taking a salary (or directors fee, if you prefer) during that period. Size of the divvy is also going to reflect the profit in my account and my anticipated expenses over the coming months - like the new workstation I needed yesterday goddamnit - not just tax.