Honor the past; don’t repeat it
Chair's Message
Charles Esler, CPA | October/November 2022 Footnote
Editor's note: Updated September 30, 2022
Fall is one of the most anticipated times of the year. The temperature is ideal for outdoor activities, the colors are bountiful, football is playing out in spectacular fashion, fish are still accessible without bringing along an auger, cider booths populate apple orchards, farmers actually encourage you to get lost in their mazes of corn, children are walking the halls of school, and strangers throw candy at kids who excitedly show up dressed as their favorite heroes. It is a time of celebration. In some ways, it feels like the last shared toast of social animals who feel the expanded darkness and potential isolation of winter lurking over the horizon.
For many CPAs, this is also traditionally the time when they pack their belongings and distribute hugs to family members in preparation for the coming season, when they do their best impressions of the accounting version of “The Deadliest Catch” and set off in stormy seas for months at a time in an effort to feed themselves and others in conditions that can be less than ideal. If you are not feeling unstable and sliding around a rain-soaked deck in the dark in an attempt to bring home the goods, you’re not living.
Not exempt from the ever-changing world, this practice once seen as a proud rite-of-passage, is being challenged by those who have entered or are contemplating entering the profession. The appeal is limited from the outside looking in when one spews tales over lager of hard-fought times in dark hours for little earnings. This precipice is not unique to accounting. There are physician residents and a host of other professions being reevaluated by those walking in the footsteps who continue to challenge why it is accepted and wondering if things cannot be done differently.
That is the beauty of innovation and evolution. The next ones always want to do it better. That is why we stopped riding horses for commuting, ceased using green-bar paper, and somehow lost the standard-issued visor along the way. At the time of those changes, you know some contingent was gathering in the corner of the Local on Tuesday nights, saying that is how they were taught and that they worked hard to earn the right to wear that visor and, “These kids today just don’t get it.”
Some free advice to the future bearers of the profession: Don’t follow in our footsteps; make your own path. Honor the past, but don’t repeat it.
Sincerely,
Charles Esler, CPA
Chair, MNCPA board of directors
boardchair@mncpa.org
