A reflection on the good life at KPMG

As I embark on this, the next chapter of my professional journey, I pause to reflect on where it all began: the #KPMG office in Kingston, Jamaica. There, a starry-eyed 22-year-old began what was to become an eventful career journey?in #finance and #accounting; a journey that continues today. ?

Working at #KPMG as a junior auditor was more like experiencing an extension of college than an office. It was the good life. With an all-expense-paid company car and having my rent paid directly to my landlord by the firm, my only remaining expenses at the time were food and entertainment. It meant that almost every weekend I was at the beach or some place similar with my friends having a blast; from frolicking in crystal blue sea water near Golden Eye, home of Ian Fleming of James Bond fame, to watching the sunset by Rick’s Café in Negril. You could not ask for more.

The job itself was a myriad of fun; my audit team at the firm served quite an eclectic mix of clients. My favorites were the hotel resorts, whether in Ocho Rios, Montego Bay or in Negril. ?I recalled while on assignment at one all-inclusive hotel in Ocho Rios that catered only to couples, my buddy and I were seated one night for dinner at a table with about three couples. The couples introduced themselves by recounting how they met, fell in love, and how they came to be at the hotel, whether for their honeymoon or to rekindle a flickering love flame. Lastly, they came to us, with fixated eyes, eagerly awaiting the explosive love story we were about to tell. With a bit of cheekiness, we started as if we indeed had a “love” story to tell, but quickly came clean to reveal that we were merely co-workers on an audit assignment. We all had a good laugh, notwithstanding our bursting their curiosity bubble.

Stories of all sorts were shared among our cohort, but the one that stood out for me was the one shared by a colleague who had an assignment at one of the more risqué resorts on the island, located in Negril. After dinner one night, she dropped in on one of the adult entertainment scenes at the resort to decompress from the day’s work. As part of the entertainment lineup, one guest went on stage to render his favorite karaoke song wearing nothing but a tie. That was quite a coming-of-age experience! ?But, with such a wide variety of entertainment options at our disposal, what we would consider “fringe benefits”, the job was more fun than work, despite the long hours at times. It gave meaning to the motto: ?“Work hard, play hard.”

The Kingston office was quite a culturally diverse one. About half the audit staff were expats, mainly from Sri Lanka, India and the U.K. That diversity, however, presented its own challenges. On assignment with a supervisor from India, I asked him if I were to perform a certain audit procedure. He replied by “shaking” his head, which I interpreted to be a “no”, so naturally I did not perform the task. I later learned that what I thought was a “shaking” of the head was instead a gesture signaling “yes”; an instruction lost in translation.

On another audit assignment, this time with a colleague from the U.K., we were offered a hot beverage of our choice by the office admin. In Jamaica, all hot beverages are classified as “tea”. Hence, the admin asked us what type of “tea” would we like? My English colleague, a coffee drinker, then asked me in a whisper why did not this client offer coffee as a choice? I then advised him that since he preferred coffee, his reply ??to the admin should be “coffee tea”, unless he would like some “chocolate tea” or “regular tea” instead.

My local colleagues had their own challenges. At an inventory count conducted by ?an audit senior and me at a client’s warehouse, the report he submitted to the engagement partner for review stated ?that we conducted the inventory count in the client’s ”whorehouse". The report came back to us from the partner with the review question: “where exactly was this inventory count performed?” After a good laugh at ourselves, we keenly noted for future reference not to rely solely on the spell checker.

The job came also with some eye-opening experiences. At a sugar factory client near the eastern tip of the island, we stayed overnight in the Great House located on the factory premises, part of a large sugar plantation once worked by African slaves. ?In the mornings we would be served breakfast by the wait-staff in the dining room of the Great House, the same dining room once used by the slave owners who once owned the property. My colleagues and I felt like we were reliving history, though in reverse, given our African ancestry.

The food at this and at other similar clients, however, was the best. Usually, it was prepared from fresh produce taken directly from the farm on the property. This could range from freshly brewed Blue Mountain coffee, served with freshly squeezed milk from cows on the property, complemented with scrambled eggs from chickens we may have counted just the day before as part of the inventory valuation procedure.

?There were some valuable lessons learned too. Walking along with my supervisor one day to meet some client staff at a cigarette manufacturer, I saw an individual dressed in overalls and in what appeared to be muddy work boots, standing in the hallway by some cubicles, holding a conversation with staff. I thought to myself that somehow the client was not enforcing its dress code, as evidenced by the client allowing this person into the office dressed as he was, with everyone else so smartly dressed, especially the audit team. ?To my surprise, my supervisor then introduced this individual to me as the CEO of the company. Lesson learned: ?Don’t be a judge of people.

Another lesson learned was that technical skills should never trump people skills. Sent to conduct an interview on internal controls with the director of an educational institution in Kingston, I was so focused on being efficient with the assignment that I threw all caution to the wind when it came to people skills. After arriving about ?30 minutes late for our appointment, ?the director beckoned me to follow her into her office from the reception area where I was waiting. I reasoned then that I would need to make up the lost time by skipping any “niceties” and get ?to? the job at hand. ?Hence, as she walked towards her seat behind her desk, I promptly took a seat and began to pull out my writing pad and pen, to be at the ready for the interview by the time she could take her seat. Was that a mistake!

On reaching her seat, she simply stood there and stared at me in disbelief. Speaking to me somewhat like my grade-school teacher, she then instructed me that I should never take a seat in someone’s office until offered to do so. That’s a lesson I never forgot: It’s not all about efficiencies.

Altogether, my time at KPMG represented a wonderful transition from the college campus to the corporate office. The experience gave me a good overview of what was involved in assessing the performance of a company. By learning to read and interpret financial statements early in my career, I was able to peak into the soul of the corporation and make sense of what was happening there. I would advise anyone contemplating a career in #finance and #accounting to start their career journey at a ??professional services firm such as at a public accounting firm. It will give you a good foundation on how to measure and assess company performance; knowledge you can then leverage to create value for any organization you come to associate with later in your career. Good Luck.

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