PWC Resignation Letter

The Life of an Auditor blog has this resignation letter, supposedly left by a PWC auditor, on that fateful last day. Whether it’s real or fictional, some days are really like this, aren’t they?

Check it out:

As many of you now know this friday will be my last day with PwC so I wanted to say good bye and thank you for everything. My decision to leave was not a snap decision as it may have seemed but a well thought out process.

It started one night in the audit room as I was helplessly attempting to focus on some inane, completely irrelevant task so I could leave when the green card carrying cleaning lady came into my cage to empty my garbage when my decision was made. I realized that I was actually jealous of her job. I would have gladly emptied the garbage cans in the whole building over any of the nonsense I was doing on my computer.  See, at the end of her shift she has made a difference, she has added value, be it minimal, of removing the refuse from the employees cubes. At the end of the day she sees the empty garbage cans and knows that she accomplished something. When trying to apply this mindset to my own work I found it to be impossible.

At the end of my shift, I will have documented a control, that was only created for the sake of having a control, and my work will get picked apart by anal retentive managers, but ultimately find a home in a cabinet somewhere, only to see the light of day again when it is thrown out in 7 years when it is deemed to be irrelevant.

I have added zero value to the client, zero value to my own company, and it has made me routinely daydream about ways to off myself. I find it very hard to be motivated when I know the end result of my work has no impact on anything but simply must be completed because PwC audit guide says it must be completed. What makes this entire process worse is the fact that those around you insist that this work is crucial to the world’s existence and it is essential that you never use abbreviations, that your sheets must be as colorful as possible, and all lines must be drawn with a ruler or else it is clear that PwC will come apart from its hinges.

In my opinion, that’s the best part. If interested, read the rest here.

On the same note, one of the cleaning ladies where I work recently retired. She was almost 60, and was one of those people who always smiled and had a nice thing to say. I told her I appreciated how she went about her work and would miss her.

I guess it’s not only the work you do, but how you do it. And the impact you have on others.