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Who Says Beans Are Boring?

by Ian Howard

249 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-0374; ISBN 1-4251-1968-9; US$21.28, C$24.48, EUR16.59, £11.00

The turbulent and often hilarious story of an accountant's career as he attempts to keeps his career alive through the recessions of the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's to his retirement in 2005.

About the Book

This is the story of my turbulent and often hilarious career in accountancy from 1960, when I entered Articles in the City of London, until 2005, when after working for twelve different companies, I retired as Finance Director of one of the major subsidiaries in a UK PLC.

I describe my years in the profession, which were fascinating, excruciating boring, worrying and hilarious, depending on where I was working at the time and whom I was working with.

I must have been one of the youngest chartered Accountants when I qualified in 1965, at the age of 22, and my confidence took me steadily along an upward curve out of the profession and into industry in 1969.

My first ten years in industry progressed satisfactorily, if not without incident, until the recession in the early 1980's and my first experience of corporate ruthlessness. This was a great shock to me, and wrecked my carefully planned CV.

This was followed by several more shocks, particularity in one company that proved to be a nightmare. How I survived this without going mad I do not know. This is when I discovered a remarkable book. Dale Carnegie's "How to stop worrying and start living".

The final years of my career were the most interesting and challenging, with extensive overseas travel, working with acquisitions and joint ventures. It was also a period of continuous change in corporate structure and management style, which was also quite stressful.

I have an extensive experience of great comradeship, hilarity and friendship; career counselors and interviews; achieving and success; failure and struggle, managing change, ruthlessness and survival.

I am also grateful for a sense of humour that helped me to see the funny side of some of the disastrous situations that I found myself in.

About the Author

Ian Howard qualified as a chaptered Accountant in 1965 and, after working for Deloittes, one of the largest accounting practices, moved into industry. He worked for Wilkinson Sword, Acrow, Booker McConnell, The 600 Group and Trafalgar House, before retiring in 2005.