Finally, after what felt like 3 extremely long years, I've tendered in my resignation from my current position as Audit Associate in Deloitte Malaysia.
Alhamdulillah for all the good and the bad. But let's talk about the bad first so I can end this post on a positive note. Hahaha.
The bad.
1. Long and unstable working hours.
During peak season, sometimes I have to work up to 16 hours a day, sometimes including weekends and public holidays. But this doesn't last throughout the whole year. It's usually 4-6 months at the beginning of the year only. I would prefer working 8 hours a day consistently (with breaks of course) and NOT work on weekends or public holidays for the whole year rather than working like zombies for 6 months and having almost nothing to do for the rest of the year. It's hard having to get in and out of the zombie mode every time.
2. Commute.
Since I changed clients every 2-3 months, I would have to commute to different places for each different client. But of course for the past 2 years, a big portion of the time was working from home due to repeated MCOs but I don't want to stay in the firm knowing that I would still need to commute to client's place in the future. It's not my choice if I don't want to go to a client in Port Klang.. And God knows how many Port Klang clients Deloitte has. I've been assigned to two clients in Port Klang and it was hell having to commute there, me being from Bangi.
3. Nature of audit.
Audit is basically checking other people's work. I feel like a fraud 95% of the time. When I first started I felt like a fraud 100% of the time. It only decreased due to the meager experience I've gained. Why do I have to check someone else's work when even I don't know what the heck is going on. But you know, at this point, I feel like majority of corporate people don't know what's going on. The remaining who do know, purposely makes things harder so other people don't get in on the secret.
Aside from checking other people's work, audit is always tight on deadlines. They should put in the job description before people joined : "Must have thick skin and thick face as you would need to chase clients or else they would end up blaming you for not meeting the audit deadline, even though THEY are the ones who don't provide you what you need and THEY are the ones who need the signed audit report."
Also, due to changing clients all the time, there's a 'touch and go' feel to it. You feel stupid every time you start on a new client. You come in once a year and they expect you to know everything there is to know about the client. Even though every client is different. They are different companies, with different SOPs and different industries with different business processes and different people working there. You need to be careful what questions you ask or there will be a risk of clients replying to you 'Haven't I told you about this last year? Didn't you guys document it down or save it somewhere?'. What they don't know is, usually, almost half of last year's audit team probably aren't around in the firm anymore because the turnover here is so damn high. But at the same time, if you rely too much on prior years' information, the audit manager will tell you 'Why we follow last year for everything? If everything you want to follow last year, then no need to do this year's audit la'.
The good.
1. The people.
I've met so many people. Among them, I've made some good friends and interesting acquittances. But at this point, a lot of my good friends have resigned. So it's a good thing I'm leaving as well because let's be honest, a big portion of why I made it this far is because of good people. That's why I really respect those seniors that have been here since freshly graduating and they're still here despite being the only one left from their batch.
...
I can't think of any other good things right now HAHAHAH. That's so bad. I'll add on more when I think of it.
I don't want to talk about the salary because I don't want to be ungrateful. Of course you have to fight for your rights but I would say my salary is average. It can be seen from two different perspectives, one, me being overworked and underpaid, and two, there are those who have it worse than me. So for me, it's not really the biggest thing to complain about. No matter what people say, I don't think there is such a thing as being 'compensated fairly'. The fairest way to compensate someone is based on their hard work because qualifications and experience includes factors such as luck, family background and upbringing. And it's very hard to measure people's hard work. So is there really such a thing as being compensated fairly? Take someone who works in F&B, their average salary is always around RM2,000. They definitely work harder than me. Yet I sit in the chair all day and copy other people's working paper and get paid more? And you see all those directors, CEOs and audit partners getting paid RM100,000 per month (and this is the lower end of the spectrum. Some CEOs earn up to RM700,000 per month). What exactly did they work so hard on for them to deserve that much? Nothing is fair.
Well, so much for ending this post on a positive note. I'm still very grateful for the experience I gained here though. I won't go so far as to say I couldn't have gained it anywhere else or that if I could do it again, I would because hell nah. I'm not a Big 4 glorifier. I'm a firm believer of any experience is the best experience for you because Allah put you there and He put you through it. And the fact is I can't rewind anything, and whatever happens, life moves on, so I'll take what I can get.
