How Internet Trolling has Sabotaged my Profession
This post has been inside of me since I started dissecting platforms early in my writing career. Now, I feel equipped enough to challenge norms - especially ones that are toxic to your career.
Without further introduction, please enjoy a shallow dive into the detriments of internet trolling on an industry.
Big4 Accountant
I work at a Big 4 accounting firm. What used to be a proud statement has turned into a misconception that I should be ashamed - whether by those outside the firm crying elitist or a small minority inside the firm crying misery. Regardless, for several years, accounting firms (and professional service firms in general) have launched young professionals into successful business careers. Not one person with any business acumen has told me, "You're making a massive mistake and wasting your time at an accounting firm."
Now, that is not to say the profession of public accounting doesn't have its faults. Two negatives are inherent to the job:
Hard work
Below average pay
Accounting is a framework of processes that record all of the activities of a business. With the business behemoth our country has created, let's just say nothing is ever easy, and the regulation is often unclear (another topic for another day). Coming out of college, I thought I would be dealing with clients and companies whose operations would work seamlessly. I've simply found the opposite.
Accountants work long hours in certain seasons to meet strict reporting deadlines to keep the public trust of businesses and individuals (i.e., you). Many in the accounting profession would argue that the pay does not meet the demand of the job, but in reality, all free labor markets are simply supply and demand. There will always be accountants, and it is tough to specialize in accounting starting out (like any other line of work).
In my two-year tenure in public accounting, the negatives have weighed on me more often than not. The short-list of negatives that come to my mind include:
strict deadlines
tedious processes
lots of meetings with lots of information
long hours spent performing the work
juggling good client relations with necessary work
dealing with the backlash of hostile clients
stress from managers
*insert any other job negative*
Do you know what I've come to realize? Industry aside, these are simply the gripes of working in the business world. And even with some of the nuances specific to public accounting, I was made aware of them by those in or previously in the profession. Yes, the work is challenging, but there is value in rigorous tasks.
This comparison of the work and the idea of the work has created a hurricane of perception problems for Big 4 public accounting firms. I'm firmly standing in the corner of the Big 4 firms. Yes, there are plenty of faults, but the small group of people who are unhappy (and would be unhappy regardless of where they work) doesn't represent the larger group that has a positive experience. And that is the crux of the problem: In today's world, the louder minority can speak for the silent majority.
Therefore, we have entered an environment where new generations of workers have the power to control the narrative through platforms. Unhappy individuals can truly wreck massive companies, and diminish current employees, often co-workers, in the process.
Suppose companies and firms will not crawl out of their fear holes and stand up to unreasonably disgruntled employees. In that case, it is up to those who bear the true burden of their actions (or inaction) to fight negative narratives; those whom companies and firms should be trying to protect at all costs - their own satisfied employees.
Internet Trolls vs. Professional Peers
I wrote a piece in February 2021 titled Content Consumption & Your Job. Coming off the heels of the Hedge Funds vs. r/WallStreetBets market fiasco, there was a moment where internet content was controlling global markets - stemming from a Reddit thread! No one knew what to do.
In that post, I outlined the growing trend of internet content meeting the business world. I argued that businesses embrace content creation as the only way to reach the next generation of workers. And make no mistake about it, I am still fully onboard for more business content. When done correctly, content can be valuable for any business - not to mention entertaining!
Unfortunately, I'm in a profession consistently under assault from harmful internet content. Sure, most of it is light-hearted and funny, but the rest diminishes and damages public accounting. Naturally, the problem content stimulates comes from people within public accounting firms that know what the job is like. When someone intentionally tries to tear down others from within, it is safe to call that trolling.
Sign me up! Even as an optimist, I can't help but feel sorry for myself after reading all the accounting doom and gloom on platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Fishbowl, Instagram, etc. It instantly deflates my purpose. What makes it worse is this is the only rhetoric professionals in public accounting consume. It's like if Firefighters scrolled their socials only watching people being burned alive.
You might ask why would an individual troll the industry they work in? Why not just leave and do something else? Good question… The answer is they are in the minority and can't stand it, so they try and bring everyone else down.
The Miserable Minority
There are people in life that are going to be unhappy, whether they are singing nursery rhymes to babies or working a 60+ hour week in accounting. It's sad, and I feel bad for these people because they put all of their life's worth in all the wrong places (completely separate topic). Their outlet is to complain, "Woe is me! This is so hard… Ugh," when they knew good and well what they were signing up for.
According to a 2021 Statistica study, 1.2 million people are employed at Big 4 accounting firms. Let's just say half are justifiably unhappy with their job because of all the negatives I have stated. It's a generalization, but I know a handful of people who are struggling. I have also gone through negative mood swings myself. Do you know what those I know who are struggling are not doing? Bringing everyone else down just because they feel they have made a bad decision. The ironic thing is this "bad decision" is only going to lead to opportunity! Disclaimer: I try and be humble in my writing, but look at my LinkedIn inbox:
Working and making a good living is a privilege, blessing, honor, etc. It's even more of a praise that my peers and I are actively sought after in the job market. That's not to say you can't have high standards and demand more; the two mindsets aren't mutually exclusive. I'm saying things aren't always as bad as they seem.
Yet, we keep letting a small minority control the narrative for the majority, who is overall generally pretty happy with their life. Maybe that is why there is inaction because the happy people don't care enough to respond. Still, the accounting industry is getting hammered with low talent pools. Soon enough, everyone is going to be unhappy in a rocky environment.
The Consequences of Inaction
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie, the famed author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, wrote this about people that sit on the sideline their whole life. Although, I think it is just as applicable to companies, explicitly accounting firms in this piece. Firms have to start standing up to poisonous notions that disgruntled employees create. I understand it is impossible to eradicate, but the overall inaction does not instill confidence in employees.
I came across some good knowledge about social media that better explains the repercussions of a firm's inaction. Packy McCormick wrote a piece called Amplified Tribalism, where he discusses the consequences of mob mentalities online. McCormick quotes Jonathan Haidt's views on social media as follows:
A mean tweet doesn't kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one's own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It's more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities… This, I believe, is what happened to many of America's key institutions in the mid-to-late 2010s. They got stupider en masse because social media instilled in their members a chronic fear of getting darted.
McCormick goes on to elaborate:
[Haidt's quote is about] institutions that lost their backbone – their willingness to stand up for their people in the face of social media heat and their acceptance of dissenting views internally – and became less effective, and dumber, in the process. David Deutsch's Principle of Optimism states that "All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge." Pushing away knowledge to appease a mob is anti-optimistic. Any one tweet, show, or pile-on isn't a big deal – and I'd imagine if you asked most founders or researchers, they'd say it doesn't bother or distract them, that it's just part of the job, that it motivates them to build something even bigger – but taken together, I think the ease and popularity of dunking is a disease that slowly eats away at society's ambition, creativity, and drive, one person at a time.
The sad thing is that companies and firms know the detriments their inaction creates. I'll pause from being a hypocrite to say I love the perks I have been given in this new power to the employee. But nothing substitutes mission, purpose, and leadership determined to achieve the two - that is the company I want to work for. Increase the legal budget and take on the inevitable lawsuits from firing people; I'd argue you're losing more value from those slandering the profession. Seeing as that is a long shot, hopefully, this is a wake-up call for my peers to see the destruction that negative content can have.
And if you are a part of the problem, it's tough to feel sorry for you when you make double the 40 million Americans living below the poverty line. Go do something else, please.
My Unsolicited Advice?
I get the same sentiment from my young professional peers: "What would I do if I left my current job?" I've swam in those rough seas before. It stems from this need to have a perfect plan for your career where you know you're going to make the right moves to success.
My generation isn't thinking 10 years down the line. We care about the here and now. The thought process is, "I'm unhappy right now, and I want someone else to fix it… right now" That's how we were raised - in the biggest wealth creation in human history where our parents could afford to fix all of our problems. Great, but that is not how the world works. I don't know what I'm doing on Saturday, much less what I will be doing in 5 years,
But I know what I must do to make my dreams a reality.
If I live the right way, prepare the skills I need, cultivate a positive attitude toward others, and take care of what is most important, "success" (whatever your definition is) will come my (your) way. Alternatively, I know if I consistently chase happiness, I'll chase it to the grave.
Would love to hear your thoughts!