Like used car dealers and lawyers, accountants have always been figures of fun, albeit for radically different reasons.
The used car dealers, hugely unfairly, are portrayed as crooks. The lawyers, with some justification, as shysters and accountants as the epitome of wetness.
Most likely to go to jail and the lawyers win hands down, followed by accountants with the much maligned used car dealers scarcely figuring in this statistic.
Conscious of their figures of fun imagery, the larger accountancy firms try to dilute this by labelling themselves management consultants. The likelihood of anyone seeking an accountant’s advice on a management issue is zero. My company employs professional accountants backed by support staff in all of our offices but we’d no more seek their advice on say whether to buy a building than ask the receptionist. It’s not their role and thus they’re unqualified to comment.
That said, one of the big four, namely PWC should issue their current 1,700 New Zealand staff with life-jackets for fear of drowning, following their CEO Mark Averill’s recent public declaration. Specifically, in a tidal wave of woke wetness he announced, in the interest of diversity, the intention to increase his maori and Pasifika staff. But what of Asians who number twice as many as Pasifika and are almost as numerous as maori? This blatant racial prejudice is alarming.
Mark; You’re a decade out of date woke-wise. Diversity today means a quota of homosexuals, trans-sexuals, bi-sexuals, dwarfs and cripples. So let’s have an announcement re your quota intentions of that lot, specially the sexually confused who are hypersensitive about such omissions.
The prospect of a herd of shrieking sodomities protesting outside PWC’s Auckland office at Mark’s appalling prejudices would certainly provide much entertainment in these gloomy times.
POST SCRIPT – The photo of Mark issued to the media with his announcement showed him be-suited, but, to demonstrate he’s “with it”; tieless. He appears middle-aged so it’s odds on he’s got a Harley Davidson, these days an essential acquisition by every middle-aged corporate type, sensitive to their dullard’s imagery.
7 Comments
I’m currently looking for a short cut to my company’s diversity plan. I need to quickly employ a trans-gender cripple who has Maori, Samoan, Asian and ‘Other’ heritage and is a Muslim Hindu converted from Buddhism, and fluent in Te Reo. Full knowledge of ‘3rd wave feminism’ is essential. And no ‘toxic masculinity’ practises allowed. If you know of anyone let me know.
You just need someone who “identifies as,” perhaps even one of your current staff could step up.
You have neglected to mention sexual orientation. You could find someone who is ‘questioning’ and that could potentially tick a variety of boxes depending on which kind of diversity the company was lacking at any given time.
Have Maori and Pacifica expressed any desire to work as accountants? I haven’t seen that mentioned in a Treaty claim.
My money is on PWC not wanting to upset the CCP – money in place of freedom. But for sure PWC will be up to throwing the 23,451,000 citizens of the Republic of China under a bus.
I flatly refuse to use any accountant that isn’t a dwarf, gay, black, ex Jewish redheaded muslim preacher. With a lisp.
I refer of course to “Hafun Goldberg” who graced this comments page several months back.
From memory, Mark rides a Triumph