Stop the Presses!

 

When last we left the My Jobs thread -

I retooled my career by taking business courses at Berry College (1982 - 1984). Unfortunately, despite stellar grades and high recommendations, the best job I could get was working at Atlanta Seal & Stamp for an insensitive "entrepreneur" who was incredibly nasty and self-centered (see Seal of Destiny). I stayed in that job for less than a year).

I hate looking for other jobs. That's why I often leave because I am forced to. Not the case with American Seal & Stamp. I wanted to get out, restart my career, and maybe get on a course with more opportunities.

So, when a chance to interview at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I took it. I was hired, interviewed by the assistant controller. The beginning of a salary pattern emerged - the assistant controller offered me slightly more than what I made at my last job. I don't know if it was the norm for everybody, but it certainly was for me. You're not paid based on merit - you're paid based on what they can get away with.

I started out as the newsprint accountant, tracking purchases and inventory levels. I checked how much we used compared to how much we should have used. Think that's a small job? Think of how much newsprint a paper the size of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution uses daily. They published the Constitution every morning, the Atlanta Journal every night, and myriad other local papers and supplements.

One day, not long after I was hired, the newsprint supervisor took me on a tour of the newsprint presses so I could have a better understanding of the process. While he showed me the presses, printing the current edition, the presses suddenly stopped. The newsprint supervisor was puzzled because the run needed to be completed.

Turns out they wanted to change the front plates because of a breaking news event. The Challenger space shuttle had just exploded shortly after taking off. He told me that what happened was an extreme rarity, to stop in the middle of an edition. So, just like in the movies, I witnessed "Stop the Presses!"

The inventory was done perpetually and then checked each month physically. They were kept in separate bays and, as time went on, at two locations, one downtown and one in Gwinnett County.

A forklift lifted me to the top of the stacks, and I counted from there. And yes, I don't like heights. And yes, sometimes the stacks were wobbly.  

The physical inventory had to occur on the last day of the month, and it had to happen between editions. Even if that meant the inventory had to be done on Sunday morning at 4 AM. That was fun.

I learned my first lessons in dealing with layers of corporate bureaucracy and management. The controller met with upper management in the middle of the month, and he would project how the numbers would turn out. Then, when I did my newsprint usage numbers at the end of the month, if they did not conform to his projection, he would send me back to the drawing board until I came up with the numbers he wanted me to come up with.

The controller, someone close to my age, was impressed because he knew I had been a teacher and had chosen to do this instead, that I was willing to take the salary hit to do it. Yeah.  That should have been a warning sign that I may have made a terrible mistake. For most of my career,  a teacher with a master's degree would have made more money than me.

I always tried to make sure I was one of the first ones there and one of the last to leave. I was salaried, so it didn't help me make any more money. I thought it would impress them, but I don't believe they gave a ratatouille.

Eventually, I was named General Ledger Supervisor. I had four people to supervise. The accounting department as a whole had about 100 people. With few brief exceptions, everyone I supervised was a minority, and almost all of them were female. I got along well with most, and I was proud of our work.

One person did not like me. When there was a workplace shooting in the news, she would remark on it positively and insinuate it might be needed here. Upper management wanted me to get rid of her but do so with cause to lessen the likelihood she would sue (which she also delighted in suggesting). My efforts failed until she was tardy a few times, and they used that as an excuse to fire her. She didn't come back with a gun; she didn't sue.

She was extreme, but I understood some of the resentment. The white guy got promoted in a department that was decidedly not white. There was a changeover while I was there in Accounts Payable when their elderly white supervisor retired and was then managed by a very competent young black woman.

While I was there, they introduced personal computers - three or four for a department of 100. I became a leader in using those computers, creating spreadsheets and macro-programs to modernize how the newsprint inventory was kept. But, unfortunately, my reward for this innovation was...nothing.

I wanted to advance my career, so I prepared for the CPA exam. This was an intense two-day, four-part test, and for the first time, I did not prepare well enough. The first time I took it, I flunked all four parts. The second time I paid for a training class, studied my toucas off and passed it all in one sitting.

I was so happy and proud. I went to the assistant controller and will never forget his response -  "No sh--! Why the f-- did you do that?"

I became disenchanted with them, and they became disenchanted with me. They told me I had 90 days to prove I could do better, or they would fire me. Rather than go through that farce, I told them I would go if they would certify my experience with them so I could become a CPA. To get your license, you need either need two years of public or five years of private accounting experience. And that's about what I had with them - five years.

And that's what they did. My CPA certificate was like my golden parachute. Now if I could only parlay that into something greater and grander.

Spoiler Alert:  HAHAHAHAHAHA!