I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: CPA

  • Sleepless in Seattle – Part 3 (from Not Quite the Same)

    Sleepless in Seattle – Part 3 (from Not Quite the Same)


    When Adrian and I arrived in Seattle at the end of September, 1968 we rented a cheap motel room for a week in a sketchy part of the city south of the downtown area. The Buick Skylark seemed as relieved as Adrian and I were to be stationary for a few days. My Exxon credit card was in flames, but I couldn’t call my family for any financial help – unless I needed money to come home. That was the deal I made with my dad. Both Adrian and I needed desperately to find jobs; we combed the newspaper help wanted ads but apparently no one wanted our help.

    Then I had an inspiration. The motel had a telephone directory with tons of yellow pages. I decided to call every CPA firm in the area in alphabetical order to try to get an interview with someone, anyone. When I got down to the “s‘s” and called Simonson & Moore, I spoke with a woman named Becky who was their office manager. Unbelievably and with whatever good karma swirled around me, Becky said she was from San Angelo, Texas and added her bosses liked Texas people. That turned out to be true; Chuck Simonson and Tim Moore interviewed me, had me meet with Becky, and hired me on my first interview with this local two-partner CPA firm in Bellevue, a suburb east of Seattle across Lake Washington. What I learned from this process was that Chuck and Tim not only liked Texas people but especially liked Texas people who had experience working for one of the largest CPA firms in Houston, even if I had only been with that firm for a year. Plus, Becky needed extra help in the upcoming tax season, and here I was having passed three of four parts of the CPA exam with confidence I would pass the fourth part in November. I had landed a trifecta and more importantly, landed a job.

    Adrian and I rented a furnished two-bedroom apartment in a large complex in Bellevue not far from my new office. The cost was twice what I paid in Houston, but we planned to share the expenses. She continued to look for a job for several weeks but her degree in sociology wasn’t as marketable as mine in accounting. Finally, she accepted a position as a topless go-go dancer in a neighborhood bar near our apartment. I was taken aback by this turn of events on several levels but kept my opinions where they belonged.  She worked long hours at night and came home in the early morning. I woke up when she came in and had trouble going back to sleep. Often, I got up early to get dressed for work, and I would meet a strange man coming out of her bedroom – a man who raced me to the bathroom.

    Somehow, Adrian wasn’t the lesbian I hoped she would be, but we continued to share expenses and (to me) a disappointing platonic friendship.

    On weekends we returned to my Buick Skylark to explore our new surroundings. We drove up the narrow winding roads to see the glorious Mount Rainier, rode ferries in Seattle across Puget Sound to visit the Olympic Peninsula, discovered new grocery stores, gas stations, watched as the green leaves on the non-evergreen trees gradually turned gold, red and brown while the massive evergreens remained evergreens. I began to develop a new social life with Becky and her husband Karl who couldn’t have been kinder to me. Becky invited me to go to church with her at the Mercer Island Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church with expatriate southern members from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. I found kindred spirits in the church who were the lesbians Adrian wasn’t… with a few complications Adrian didn’t have like being married to the pastor. The lines between right and wrong weren’t as clear when you stepped off the sidelines into the grey areas between black and white.

    On the Wednesday afternoon before our first Thanksgiving in Washington, Adrian came to see me at my office to tell me she was moving to California with one of the men she met at the bar where she worked. She was packed and on her way out of town. Seattle wasn’t the place for her. She’d send me her part of the rent for the month. She’d had a great time with me, but she was restless and needed to move on. I stared at her and tried to process what she was saying. I had no prior clue she was thinking of leaving. I didn’t have an emotional attachment any longer, but I did have this sinking feeling of financial abandonment. I stuttered and stammered goodbye. She waved to me from the parking lot as I watched from my office window while she drove away with her new boyfriend. I never saw or heard from her again.

    Thanksgiving Day Becky and her husband Karl invited me to eat with them. I was grateful for the company and the turkey with the trimmings Karl made. The conversation turned to our families we missed in Texas. When I got back to my apartment, I called my family collect – my dad accepted the call as he had promised. I was a long way from home and my grandmothers’ cooking. I could smell the aroma of my favorite pineapple fried pies while I watched football on my tiny RCA portable color TV by myself in the living room of my now too expensive apartment. I was in real trouble without Adrian’s financial support and had to figure out a new plan to live on my own by the end of the next month. The reality of where I was, what I was doing, being truly alone now struck me that first Thanksgiving in Seattle; but by Christmas I was living in an inexpensive one bedroom garage apartment on one of Seattle’s seven hills with a view of Lake Union and the Space Needle plus a commute every day across beautiful Lake Washington to my job with my new friends at Simonson and Moore in Bellevue.

    Hormones continued to rage inside the relatively safe comfort zone of the Mercer Island Baptist Church, a familiar refuge whose language and music I knew well. Let the church be the church, let the people rejoice. Hallelujah.

    My grandmother gave my dad the money to fly me home for Christmas. Life was good.

    ***************************

    To be continued. Please stay tuned.

               

  • what’s in your wallet?


    Quick, quick – let’s get the US economy rolling again. The stock market has hit big money where it hurts most – in the pocketbook. The number of people unemployed is 30 times higher than the number of people infected with the coronavirus. Let’s reopen everything right now! Hm. Let me think about that. Meanwhile, nine years ago in August, 2011 I published this post about my love affair with numbers, money and financial mayhem. It seems strangely relevant today.

    CONFESSIONS OF A FINANCIAL ADVISOR

     Forty years is a long time or a short time, depending on your perspective.  For example, if you’re talking about your work, career, job, employment, occupation, profession—it’s a long time.  If, on the other hand, you’re talking about life expectancy, it’s definitely short.  Context is everything.

    In order to spend forty years in some variation of giving advice to people about their financial futures, I had to be in love with numbers.  The love affair began at an early age when in elementary school my mind grasped the concept of “1 + 1= 2.”  Imagine the simplicity and order and, yes, the comfort of that equation.  Consider, then, the possibility of “2 – 1 = 1.”  Astounding.  Okay, maybe not astounding, but certainly intriguing to my young mind.  Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.  Numbers could be manipulated and re-arranged in combinations that hid secrets or unlocked them.  Context was everything.

    At some point in my educational process, numbers were combined with dollar signs.  Dollar signs represent currency values, the medium of exchange for goods and services, or “must-have’s” and “can’t-resist’s.”  We become accustomed to seeing numbers with this “$” in front of them.  We learn that good news for us is a dollar sign followed by a large number, if it indicates what we have.  Bad news is a dollar sign followed by a big number, if it signifies what we don’t have.  Again, context is everything.

    Eventually, the numbers and dollar signs blur with the addition of a comma and several zeroes, which means the numbers are so big you don’t even want to discuss them.  Millions become billions that grow into trillions, and then someone wins the lottery.  Someone else loses her retirement savings.  A national election is won or lost as a result of the number of zeroes in the unemployment levels.  New words are discovered for numbers with dollar signs.  Net income before taxes, and net operating losses before moving corporate headquarters overseas.  Deficit—a nice, neat word for spending more than we have.  Surplus, a term of endearment.  Generally accepted accounting principles, a floating lifeboat in an ocean of corruption.  Stock markets that run up like bulls when greed has a green flag, or down like bears when fear chases them to their dens.  Ratios, which have something divided by something else. Price/earnings ratios.  The words melt in your mouth, not in your hands.

    Once upon a time, numbers were written by hand and manually checked for accuracy.  Checked and cross-checked to make sure that “1 + 1” still equals 2.  Long ago and far away, hamburgers with all the trimmings cost $0.25, and a gallon of gas was the same price.  Silver quarters and silver dollars were the currency of choice.  A penny saved was truly a penny earned.  And a copper one, at that.

    In the midst of those days, I consummated my love affair with numbers and became an accountant.  Not just a plain old accountant, but the ultimate—a Certified Public Accountant.  It wasn’t easy.  Professions rarely admit new members graciously, and it took three attempts for me to pass the entrance exams.  But, I knew my numbers wouldn’t disappoint me, and they didn’t.  They welcomed me into a world of debits and credits and spreadsheets that generated financial statements and the obligatory returns of the Internal Revenue Service.  It was a world I inhabited and embraced for twenty years.

    During that period, from 1968 to 1988, my faithful adding machine with the little spool of white tape that could be checked, torn off, and stapled to paperwork as a record of accuracy was my constant companion.  Regardless of the task, numbers were printed on white tape and preserved.  How could there be a shred of doubt about anything when numbers supported your position?  Need a bank loan?  Net income must be high.  Paying income taxes?  Taxable income must be low.  Which brings us to another new word—reconciliation, a word commonly used in domestic disputes but also invaluable in financial circles.  Numbers must be “reconciled” to tell different stories to different audiences.  Their historical framework must be plainly visible to the untrained eye.  Context is everything.

    And then one day towards the end of that time of long ago and far away, the numbers were swallowed by a machine called a computer.  They were devoured and simply vanished from their connection to the people and values they represented.  All control of reality was relinquished to a keyboard attached to a screen.  As I watched those screens over the next twenty years, numbers with dollar signs zoomed through cyberspace and into a Twilight Zone of futuristic projections with reckless abandon.  New Age economics clashed with Old World mathematics.  Did “1 + 1” still equal 2?  No one really cared.  Numbers were about possibilities, and the hopes and dreams of financial freedom with a few chronicled trends tossed in for good measure.

    By the year 2008, hamburgers with all the trimmings, in the world of the here-and-now, up close and personal, cost twelve quarters, and they weren’t really silver ones.  A gallon of gas cost more than the hamburger, and the price was determined by a four-letter word group called OPEC, which was run by men who lived across the Big Water and not just down the street.

    Since it’s impractical to carry enough quarters to buy hamburgers today for a family of four, we traded our coins for paper currency that is lighter in weight, which makes it easier to transport, and also encourages a whole new industry of manufacturing wallets and pocketbooks.  To ensure that Americans will purchase several of these to carry their currency, we have created “designer” brands with diverse colors, shapes, and sizes for the discriminating consumer.  Our paper dollars require protection and easy accessibility with a pronounced element of style.

    The paper money supply is monitored by various governmental agencies and the vast wasteland that is the financial media.  In the 21st century, it is now possible for all computers to talk to each other and for bank customers to swipe debit cards that look like credit cards to quickly access money from their bank accounts for purchasing goods and services without actually producing the paper.   Abracadabra.   Whoosh – the money flies out of one account and into another one as long as you remember your personal identification number which is subject to theft unless you protect your identity by paying more money to watchdog security systems.   Additionally, hundreds of thousands of advisors and analysts can experience the joys and frustrations of instant mass information, which bombards us every time we refresh our television or computer or iPad or iPhone or some other newer screens yet to be developed. Experts are available for every topic.

                Question: “What do I need to do to save for retirement?”

    Expert #1: “You are alone. You need to do it yourself.  Stay tuned to my television show, and I will teach you the secrets that have made me the gigantic success I am today.  Subscribe to my newsletter.  Buy my books.”

    Expert #2: “You are not alone, but you can do this yourself.  If you call my toll-free number, someone will personally help you in this time of financial uncertainty.  We are your friends.”

                Expert #3: “You cannot do this by yourself.  You need to work with an advisor who understands your needs and objectives.  Professional advice is the surest way to success.  We care about you.”

    You see the problem.  So many experts, so little time.  And context?  Clearly, it isn’t everything any more.  Context is defined and massaged to frame five-minute segments on twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week news programs.  In five minutes, answers are given to economic questions that have plagued theorists for years.  Five minutes later, different responses to the same questions create confusion for the listeners brave enough to stay tuned.  In the immortal words of Andrew Shepherd, the President in The American President, “It’s a world gone mad, Gil.”

     As for me, my forty years with numbers were good ones and passed too quickly. The people behind the numbers were always real and taught me many lessons that I would have never learned without them.  From parents planning for their children’s education, to seniors securing their estates for their families, to the gay and lesbian couples who were forced to find alternatives in planning for their futures because they had no legal status, I saw that the use of financial resources often reflected the caring character of my clients who owned them.  I am grateful to those clients and friends for their trust, which I diligently tried to earn through the values instilled in me by my dad—treat everyone equally and with respect because every person matters. And, most importantly, keep your sense of humor.

    Once in a while, when you lose that comedic edge and worry too much about the numbers and dollar signs, try to remember that it’s only paper, after all.  And, for perspective and context, avoid watching more than one financial guru at a time on whatever channel you select for your financial news.

    **************************

    Pretty trying to get our granddaughter to nap yesterday

    Yes, I know the photo is totally irrelevant to the subject matter, but Ella’s Nanas are shamelessly fascinated with her – even when she sleeps. Oh my goodness.

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

  • It’s Only Paper


    CONFESSIONS OF A FINANCIAL ADVISOR

                Forty years is a long time or a short time, depending on your perspective.  For example, if you’re talking about your work, career, job, employment, occupation, profession—it’s a long time.  If, on the other hand, you’re talking about life expectancy, it’s definitely short.  Context is everything.

                In order to spend forty years in some variation of giving advice to people about their financial futures, I had to be in love with numbers.  The love affair began at an early age when in elementary school my mind grasped the concept of “1 + 1= 2.”  Imagine the simplicity and order and, yes, the comfort of that equation.  Consider, then, the possibility of “2 – 1 = 1.”  Astounding.  Okay, maybe not astounding, but certainly intriguing to my young mind.  Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.  Numbers could be manipulated and re-arranged in combinations that hid secrets or unlocked them.  Context was everything.

                At some point in my educational process, numbers were combined with dollar signs.  Dollar signs represent currency values, the medium of exchange for goods and services, or “must-have’s” and “can’t-resist’s.”  We become accustomed to seeing numbers with this “$” in front of them.  We learn that good news for us is a dollar sign followed by a large number, if it indicates what we have.  Bad news is a dollar sign followed by a big number, if it signifies what we don’t have.  Again, context is everything.

                Eventually, the numbers and dollar signs blur with the addition of a comma and several zeroes, which means that the numbers are so big that you don’t even want to discuss them.  Millions become billions that grow into trillions, and then someone wins the lottery.  Someone else loses her retirement savings.  A national election is won or lost as a result of the number of zeroes in the unemployment levels.  New words are discovered for numbers with dollar signs.  Net income before taxes, and net operating losses before moving corporate headquarters overseas.  Deficit—a nice, neat word for spending more than we have.  Surplus, a term of endearment.  Generally accepted accounting principles, a floating lifeboat in an ocean of corruption.  Stock markets that run up like bulls when greed has a green flag, or down like bears when fear chases them to their dens.  Ratios, which have something divided by something else. Price/earnings ratios.  The words melt in your mouth, not in your hands.

                Once upon a time, numbers were written by hand and manually checked for accuracy.  Checked and cross-checked to make sure that “1 + 1” still equals 2.  Long ago and far away, hamburgers with all the trimmings cost $0.25, and a gallon of gas was the same price.  Silver quarters and silver dollars were the currency of choice.  A penny saved was truly a penny earned.  And a copper one, at that.

                In the midst of those days, I consummated my love affair with numbers and became an accountant.  Not just a plain old accountant, but the ultimate—a Certified Public Accountant.  It wasn’t easy.  Professions rarely admit new members graciously, and it took three attempts for me to pass the entrance exams.  But, I knew my numbers wouldn’t disappoint me, and they didn’t.  They welcomed me into a world of debits and credits and spreadsheets that generated financial statements and the obligatory returns of the Internal Revenue Service.  It was a world I inhabited and embraced for twenty years.

                During that period, from 1968 to 1988, my faithful adding machine with the little spool of white tape that could be checked, torn off, and stapled to paperwork as a record of accuracy was my constant companion.  Regardless of the task, numbers were printed on white tape and preserved.  How could there be a shred of doubt about anything when numbers supported your position?  Need a bank loan?  Net income must be high.  Paying income taxes?  Taxable income must be low.  Which brings us to another new word—reconciliation, a word commonly used in domestic disputes but also invaluable in financial circles.  Numbers must be “reconciled” to tell different stories to different audiences.  Their historical framework must be plainly visible to the untrained eye.  Context is everything.

                And, then, one day towards the end of that time of long ago and far away, the numbers were swallowed by a machine called a computer.  They were devoured and simply vanished from their connection to the people and values they represented.  All control of reality was relinquished to a keyboard attached to a screen.  As I watched those screens over the next twenty years, numbers with dollar signs zoomed through cyberspace and into a Twilight Zone of futuristic projections with reckless abandon.  New Age economics clashed with Old World mathematics.  Did “1 + 1” still equal 2?  No one really cared.  Numbers were about possibilities, and the hopes and dreams of financial freedom with a few chronicled trends tossed in for good measure.

                By the year 2008, hamburgers with all the trimmings, in the world of the here-and-now, up close and personal, cost twelve quarters, and they weren’t really silver ones.  A gallon of gas cost more than the hamburger, and the price was determined by a four-letter word group called OPEC, which was run by men who lived across the Big Water and not just down the street.

                Since it’s impractical to carry enough quarters to buy hamburgers today for a family of four, we traded our coins for paper currency that is lighter in weight, which makes it easier to transport, and also encourages a whole new industry of manufacturing wallets and pocketbooks.  To ensure that Americans will purchase several of these to carry their currency, we have created “designer” brands with diverse colors, shapes, and sizes for the discriminating consumer.  Our paper dollars require protection and easy accessibility with a pronounced element of style.

                The paper money supply is monitored by various governmental agencies and the vast wasteland that is the financial media.  In the 21st century, it is now possible for all computers to talk to each other and for bank customers to swipe debit cards that look like credit cards to quickly access money from their bank accounts for purchasing goods and services without actually producing the paper.   Abracadabra.   Whoosh – the money flies out of one account and into another one as long as you remember your personal identification number which is subject to theft unless you protect your identity by paying more money to watchdog security systems.   Additionally, hundreds of thousands of advisors and analysts can experience the joys and frustrations of instant mass information, which bombards us every time we refresh our television or computer or iPad or iPhone or some other newer screens yet to be developed.   Experts are available for every topic.

                Question: “What do I need to do to save for retirement?”

                Expert #1: “You are alone. You need to do it yourself.  Stay tuned to my television show, and I will teach you the secrets that have made me the gigantic success I am today.  Subscribe to my newsletter.  Buy my books.”

                Expert #2: “You are not alone, but you can do this yourself.  If you call my toll-free number, someone will personally help you in this time of financial uncertainty.  We are your friends.”

                Expert #3: “You cannot do this by yourself.  You need to work with an advisor who understands your needs and objectives.  Professional advice is the surest way to success.  We care about you.”

                You see the problem.  So many experts, so little time.  And context?  Clearly, it isn’t everything any more.  Context is defined and massaged to frame five-minute segments on twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week news programs.  In five minutes, answers are given to economic questions that have plagued theorists for years.  Five minutes later, different responses to the same questions create confusion for the listeners brave enough to stay tuned.  In the immortal words of Andrew Shepherd, the President in The American President, “It’s a world gone mad, Gil.”

                As for me, my forty years with numbers were good ones and passed too quickly.   The people behind the numbers were always real and taught me many lessons that I would have never learned without them.  From parents planning for their children’s education, to seniors securing their estates for their families, to the gay and lesbian couples who were forced to find alternatives in planning for their futures because they had no legal status, I saw that the use of financial resources often reflected the caring character of my clients who owned them.  I am grateful to those clients and friends for their trust, which I diligently tried to earn through the values instilled in me by my dad—treat everyone equally and with respect because every person matters.  And, most importantly, keep your sense of humor.

                Once in a while, when you lose that comedic edge and worry too much about the numbers and dollar signs, try to remember that it’s only paper, after all.  And, for perspective and context, avoid watching more than one financial guru at a time on CNBC.