Andersen Reviews

My experience may be similar to other large accounting firms, but from speaking with my friends working at the Big4, I think my experiences at WTAS (now Andersen Tax) were substantially worse. Here's the gist of it: The firm didn't have a good process for copying tax returns so they asked every tax preparer to copy their own returns, get all the envelopes and "sign here" stickers placed, and put the copies in the nice packets. This process consistently took about 1 hour to do for a typical return. I spent 2 months perfecting the process until it took 22 minutes and I never had to walk over the same floor space twice. Then I presented what my improvements to managers and asked that we hire two meticulous temps during busy season, who I would personally train, so all the rest of us who were working our butts off and frequently sleeping under our desks could focus on tax return preparation instead of photocopying. The response was, "that's a wonderful idea, but 3 people before you have tried the same thing to no avail." I'm not willing to waste my life working for a company that isn't willing to accept the gift of productivity improvement from it's employees. I found a job within 2 weeks and was gone.

This is the type of firm that markets itself as different from other accounting firms. But really it isn't. Don't believe what they might try to sell you in a job post or interview. This is also the type of firm that fires a hard-working pregnant woman or doesn't hire a qualified intern for a full-time position because of a rumor that he/she didn't wash their hands in the bathroom. And those are just examples. There is no work/life balance. Turnover is high. No one takes the time or effort to teach or train. But upper management expects you to know everything and reprimands you if you don't. As a manager, if you do take the time to unofficially train the staff, you also get in trouble for it because you're spending too much time. Office politics, nepotism and rumors run rampant. Partners generally don't care about their staff, colleagues or even their clients. They only care about themselves. Overall, it was an unhealthy work environment and several current employees agree.