The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN]

Journalists vs Accountants

I went to an end of year function held by an accounting firm in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg over the weekend. I'm not sure what I was expecting, if anything. But I came away very aware that the people I used to work with, and these people, are very different. It boils down to a contrast in culture.

This afternoon I went to Pretoria and had a braai with a school friend of mine [also an accountant] and his family and friends, and I spoke to him about this idea, of cultural differences in different work industries. It's very real.


My friend, for example, is quite a reticent, mild mannered fellow. That modesty shouldn't be mistaken for timidness. You can see in the quality of their home life [dog, pool, trampoline, icecream and TV games for the kids, and the overall relaxed atmosphere] that being a solid breadwinner is a recipe for a calm, stable, happy family.


I think the main difference between people in the media and people involved in auditing and accounting, is that people in the media suffer from AADD [advanced attention deficit disorder]. Put plainly, media people lack the ability to listen. To themselves or anyone else. You can understand why. Each day is a barrage of noise coming in [input] and output. There's so much that the quality suffers. We know this based on the quality and quantity of media we see each and every day. It's no longer a public service, it's a private service pretending to be a public service.
Although some media people, editors in particular, are somewhat savvy to details, and somewhat perfectionistic, it's a schizophrenic quality rather than a consistent discipline. With accountants, that attention to detail is something else. It's meticulous. Because, of course, far more is riding on errors in those balance sheet calculations than a mere spelling error or an error in attribution. Furthermore, accountants are trained to maintain a constant level of attention. They're trained to see the details, and the bigger picture, and extrapolate meaningful insights. What does this information mean? What can I do with this? How can I tie all these details together to inform some new process, to bring the loose pieces together into something new and cohesive that adds value? Editors seem trained to do the opposite. Focus, then jump onto the next train of thought. Hence their schizophrenia.

But it's more than the mental aspect that differs from these two groups. While I worked for the media I also attended these year-end functions. It's probably no surprise, but accountants are a far more polished lot. Everyone in attendance was very neat, well dressed, almost all slim and apparently healthy and well looked after. Media folk always seem to be chronically addicted to something; have that hang-dog hungover look, and stink of either cigarettes or coffee or both. What they do, whether it's eating, or boozing, they do in excess. By excess I mean beyond that point where excess is fun. Yes, I'm generalising.

At our dinner I noticed the accountants ate modest portions of delicious grub. I was one of the exceptions that went back for seconds, and felt like a bit of a piggy between all these well balanced people. Of course I'd missed breakfast so I was particularly hungry, but I did give myself an extra glance in the mirror afterwards. There is something else to mention... I studied accounting for three years [when I did a BSC] and I found it mind numbingly dull.

I don't think you need to be particularly bright to be an auditor, but you do need to apply yourself. It's a commendable grown-up quality. People whocan't apply themselves lack maturity and another word I've used before - discipline. You need a certain amount of discipline to stick with something that is, well, boring. Although journalism is the same, I think the degree of difficulty, and complexity, and the dull factor, is greater in accounting. Hence, earnings are too. KPMG said their profits were up 15% over the past year. I doubt whether there is a media company in the world with comparable figures to those right now.

You might also think that it was a prissy evening filled with well dressed people who don't know how to loosen their ties and have fun. I was surprised at how young the majority of accountants were, and the majority - men and women - were really attractive. I'm talking classy, sexy, sophisticated attractive. At least a dozen of the girls wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of GLAMOUR or COSMO. The men weren't geeky nerds either. There were one or two awkward looking fellas, one or two damsels in distress, but in general, a smart, sensible selection of beddable brides and charming, genteel grooms working the dance-floor.

It is hard to imagine those accountants being addicted to anything, because you'd imagine that would fizzle their ability to think clearly. Journalists, in contrast, those I've encountered, seem particularly susceptible to alcoholism, chain smoking, insomnia, narcissism, pettiness, you name it. They're also less socially balanced because they're so damn unhappy all the time. Thge most miserable people I've met aren't dentists or oil rig workers, they're editors. You'd think they'd beat the accountants on this score, because accountants work so many hours, and it isn't the most stimulating work in the world [something they - accountants -readily concede]. I think accountants work harder, but they also earn enough to play harder, to take those vacations and head off into the sunset. An accountant I spoke to had spent a year working in the US. In New York. Manhattan New York. I'm guessing but I'd say accountants earn enough to reward themselves with an abundance of exotic, life enhancing holidays. When editors go on holiday they either check into rehab or go chasing the dragon.

I don't particularly aspire to be in the media camp or the accountants camp. I admire the media for their savvy, in terms of general knowledge, of having their finger on the pulse, but having said that, knowing the latest detail in the ongoing Mugabe-Tsvangirai saga, and being the first to know has about as much value as knowing the blow-by-blow of a soapie. News is no longer earth-shatteringly important, or even relevant. Insights are, and the media are off the mark, far off the mark in this respect. We no longer turn to the media to learn anything that's significant or valuable in terms of information. When it comes to climate or economics or health, we're fed noise. The media is the mouthpiece of politicians and companies, little more. Which is why we're circumspect of what the media tells us; we suspectwe're being fed what someone wants us to hear.

I admire accountants more than journalists because they're able to do something I know I'm not, and that's apply themselves to mundane but valuable processes. There's a lot of value, for corporations, in someone who can look at those balance sheets, and consult, and push the strategy in a new direction. But they're ultimately just playing chess with money; do they ultimately create anything? They manage numbers, just as editors manage words.

Does the fact that accountants are well heeled, better polished and more balanced than their media peers make them better people? You might say yes, but the way to test this, if you ask me, is by asking this simple question. Which group is more plugged into reality? In the real world? I'd guess it's a dead heat. Accountants might get their noses ahead on account of their media cousins drowning in their own noise and addictions.
We know the people who work at companies like Goldman Sachs, who've run companies into the ground, the people who caused the subprime crisis are essentially accountants, or at least people who studied accounting. These schemes and tricks came from an inbred arrogance, from a sense of being smarter than the system, and too smart for their own good. The ponzi schemer and the TV presenter, or reality show celebrity, or lingerie model, or columnist, suffer from the same vulgar hubris. Too much money is the same as too much attention - it's simply too much.

I see myself as floating beyond both these groups. I'm not sure if it is a good place to be floating in. By that I mean I'm not sure if it is viable, financially, to have personal standards of integrity in the world. To be concerned about absolute reality, because this may be in conflict with a majority of subjective realities. Sure, a basic level of honesty is required by any employer, but there is also a basic level of depravity that gets you hired. You have to be prepared to sacrifice who you are, and transform yourself from thinking human being, sensitive person, to cubicle slave slash automaton who yearns for a paycheck each month. A certain amount of zealousness is good, but a certain amount above and beyond that can get you fired. The word zealous means the same, quite frankly, as caring. Giving a damn about yourself, and about what the hell is going on in the world.

Being creative in how you live means you're your own master, but potentially the master of disaster. Potentially you can be the creator of your own reality, your own prospects. I'm also interested in contributing something real to the world. In the same way that a farmer grows food that can nourish someone, that a builder can build a structure that can enhance, and add value to the human scale of living [as opposed to providing homes and spaces for cars] I'm interested in living out those insights, and introducing sustainable, sensible ideas into the maelstrom.

Problem is a lot of people aren't interested. A lot of people are still chasing their own tails. There's also a lot of noise out there from other people like [but not really like] me. Trying to publish stories, trying to make their mark. Being successful today often means being rich. It's not always, necessarily, a compliment. You may have earned money doing what you were trained to do, doing your job, but perhaps your salary depends on you pretending that the economy is growing when it isn't, or pretending that online advertising works when you know it doesn't. In other words, a sort of win/lose game between buyer and seller.

I'm more interested in finding a win/win, and being the sort of person, and doing the sort of thing that adds to our common experience from the world, rather than the opposite. In other words, you earn money by being honest, by doing honest business, by building something that doesn't only benefit yourself, or your company, but the entire equation. I'm interested in being part of the solution to our increasing troubles, are you?