From Collator to Colorado

By Connor Doyle

Hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes it takes time to get the full picture.

My story begins at college graduation. I was bright eyed, bushy tailed, and without a job. One of my top accounting firm choices, Wiss & Company, had just turned me down for an internship. After an overly anxious two months, a last minute drop from the temporary positions in the Wiss tax department opened up with what I came to know as one of the most unglamorous jobs in accounting. I took a job as a Collator. It did not qualify as working as an accounting professional, but I was in an accounting firm, making money, and not sitting on my couch watching reruns of the “The West Wing”.

My future was hazy, but I knew I had made a choice to be there and wanted to make the most of it.

It wasn’t long before I was given an opportunity as an audit intern at Wiss. That intern position quickly turned into a full time offer as a staff auditor. I had done my work diligently, despite any tedium, and did my best to leave a good impression in the process. The team was supportive and I had made friends in the short time since joining. I was quickly learning that the business world wasn’t a collection of high strung men in suits like I had originally thought. Wiss was a group of social individuals that not only wanted to make the best of their situation, but wanted you to make the best of it as well. I had made a step in my career and could now say with confidence that taking the job as a collator was a valuable life choice.

Over the next three years I moved up within Wiss, from Audit Staff to Audit Senior. I studied and passed my CPA exams. I wrote recaps of company sporting events for entertainment, I made friends, I listened to the advice of others, and I did my best to make my presence felt even if my voice wasn’t always heard. The people first mentality made the hours less stressful, the hard lessons easier to take, and communicating with people outside of the organization almost seamless.

My future was still foggy, but it had been getting clearer every step I’d made over the last few years.

But then I took a different step.

I chose to go with the most important person in my life out to Colorado. The future is uncertain once again, but I know that the attitude and mentality Wiss has imbued will serve me long after my tenure with the company has ended.

There are times you can’t see the forest for the trees – when you’re so focused on seeing what’s immediately ahead and behind you that you don’t appreciate the possibilities that surround you. Moving through Wiss I was often focused on the everyday – the demands of clients, the immediate interaction with colleagues on accounts and projects, and the lost weekends of work ahead of me. But there was a bigger picture. My resilience sewn, connections forged, and confidence instilled over my years at Wiss are what will follow me.

I took a job as a collator to gain a place with a team I admired and hoped to be a part of. I took a job to make money and get a foot in the door. What really happened is I had made a commitment to becoming a professional.

I’m moving to the mountains, but the forest behind me will never be forgotten.

Connor Doyle is a Senior Auditor at Wiss & Company. If you would like to get in contact with Connor, you may reach him at 973.994.9400 or at hello@wiss.visioncreativegroup.com.

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