A Boy in the Office: My First Job

I was perhaps thirteen or fourteen, and my father asked me to work in his small but growing accounting firm. I worked during that summer, and I did that for many summers from what I recall.?I was too young to know anything about accounting and auditing, so I worked as a boy in the office (aka office boy).

My job required me to do various errands, the most vivid of which was delivering mail to clients in person; this was well before the fax and e-mail technologies kicked in. I would carry a bag full of envelopes of various sizes, and go -mostly on foot- from one place to another in Beirut. The hot and humid weather did not make it any easier, but I was thrilled by the experience. I used to watch with awe clients or their assistants eagerly waiting for me to hand them the sealed envelopes. “Sign here, please”, I would tell the receiving party pointing to a small rectangle on the document tracker that I carried with me. It was such a great feeling to give instructions to people always much older than me.?Nobody outside the office knew that I was the son of the owner of the firm. No one asked, and I never volunteered the information.

I also did many other chores around the office. I learned how to make coffee, hand it over to employees or clients who were visiting, and later collect the cups. I most probably cleaned the cups afterwards; I don’t really recall. My best friend was the more permanent office boy, a delightful young man who was a little bit older than me. He told me what to do, and taught me how to do it. Guided and encouraged by my father, he studied accounting in parallel with his work. I asked him to teach me what he knew, and he did. He was my first accounting tutor, and I guess I was his first student. I went into accounting as a major later on, earning my MBA with an accounting concentration and became a CPA; later on I worked as an auditor. Now I know that I owe my first baby steps in accounting to this friend of mine.

For many years I worked under my father’s supervision, then the academic world fascinated me. I started to exit gradually the family business dedicating more of my time to my new passion. I had two sisters, but I was the only boy in the family. It was culturally expected that I should be the one who would continue the family legacy. It didn’t happen that way, and my father was fine with that. He recognized that I was going on another career trajectory; I had other aspirations. He did not stand in the way.

My office boy job was instrumental to who I became (till this day I have special affinity with anyone who occupies that role). I learned the importance of commitment, fairness, hard work, and humility. It was my father’s message to me that I needed to start from the bottom. I was the owner’s son, but he made sure my feet were always kept on the ground. He supported me throughout my life, but he never failed to send me strong messages that not even a loving and caring father can help me if I don’t help myself first. That was his message, and to that I am forever grateful.