The Song of a Lovesick Accountant

The Song of a Lovesick Accountant 

How to account for your loss of interest? 

How to analyse your manner strange? 

Tell me truly of my errors: 

Narrate the reasons for this change. 

Your company and loving presence 

I value over all else on earth. 

If some goodwill can now be shown 

I venture we’ll see love’s rebirth. 

Reconciliation swift I now am seeking: 

This current impasse leaves me tense. 

Do not discount my urgent pleading: 

Do not keep me in suspense. 

 Dennis Flynn

Is the glass half full or half empty?

 Is the glass half full or half empty?

To the optimist, the glass is half full. 

To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.  

To many accountants, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. 

To the realist, it doesn't matter if the glass is half empty or half full. There is clearly room for more. 

Anyway, instead of describing the glass they are more interested in drinking whatever it contains. 

And the older accountants who stop the debate and simply add whisky to the glass. They also point out you should never ask if the glass is half full or half empty. The question misses the point. The glass is refillable. And, anyway, why bother with the glass if you can find the bottle/jug?

The King and HMRC

It is not well known that the King is a keep fit enthusiast and insists on all of his gym equipment being laid out in exactly the same way ahead of each training session. 

When he can't make it he pays a small fine. 

The sign on the palace gym door reads: HM Customs and Exercise.

The accountant and the bikers

An accountant is sitting alone in a country pub sipping a beer and reviewing some accounts which he has out on the table in front of him.

A bunch of bikers roar up to the pub and when then go inside they immediately begin harassing the accountant. He tries to ignore them as they insult him and make fun of his glasses, the accounts and the fact that he isn't responding to their taunts.

The accountant continues to ignore the bikers who then begin poking at him and getting physical. One of the bikers pours beer on his head. He does nothing. Another pokes him with a pool stick. He does nothing. Another sweeps his accounts off the table onto the floor and stamps all over them covering the papers in mud and grime. Still he does nothing.

Eventually the accountant pays for his drinks and leaves the bar.

One of the bikers turns to the bartender and says, "Not much of a man, was he?" sneering at the cowardice of the accountant who did not defend himself against a bunch of guys who outnumbered him and were bigger than him.

And the bartender turns to the biker and says, "He's not much of a driver, either. He just drove his car over all of your bikes."

The accountant's eulogy in rhyme

He counted every penny, with precision and with care, 

In columns and in ledgers, he kept the numbers fair. 

His spreadsheets were a marvel, each figure in its place, 

With formulas like poetry, in this his special space. 

Sadly his life was little more than balance sheets and sums, 

No tales of grand adventures, no travel to far-off lands. 

He left behind a legacy of numbers neat and wide, 

For though he never truly lived, his ledger never lied. 

So here's to this accountant, in his world of black and white, 

Where every penny mattered, from morning until night. 

He may not have embraced the world, or danced with joy and glee, 

But in the world of numbers, he found his symphony. 

Do accountants enjoy what they do?

Do accountants enjoy what they do? 

Accountant one: You can't make a career out of doing something that you really enjoy as that would spoil it. It would cease to be pleasurable and it would become drudgery. 

Accountant two: That's why we became accountants. It's something one isn't in danger of enjoying too much!

Death and Taxes - the full story

Most people (in the UK anyway) who hear the two words 'Death and Taxes' tend to think of Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) who is usually credited with saying: 

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." 

This was apparently written in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789, which was re-printed in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1817. 

 Before that however Daniel Defoe used a similar phrase in The Political History of the Devil, 1726: "Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed." 

And much more recently Margaret Mitchell says the following in her book Gone With the Wind, 1936: "Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never a convenient time for any of them."