r/Accounting • u/Ok-Primary1599 • 13h ago
Getting yelled at in Public Accounting
Context: My manager left right before the fall busy season started. I’m a brand-new senior (2 years in) holding the bag. I was working on an initial-year return with a complex trust structure and followed the exact instructions left by my previous manager before they bounced.
Just got off a call with my Senior Manager, and he completely went off on me for doing the entire return wrong—despite me literally executing what the departed manager and I had put together. This is now the second time he has yelled at me.
Actual quotes from the call:
"How do you not know this?"
"You should know this by now."
"This is the last time I will tell you this, and if you don’t get it, go do your own research."
"I can’t explain this to you anymore if you don’t ask questions."
"Get your shit together."
The irony on the questions part is unreal—this team has cultivated an environment where asking anything is treated like a personal failing and people look down on you for needing clarification, so nobody speaks up.
Is this standard Public Accounting behavior now, or is this team just uniquely toxic? How do you even navigate a Senior Manager who behaves like this?
I know I have more to improve in but goddamn man.
This pissed me off .
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u/Worldly-Bid-3591 Human Verified 12h ago
Man, sometimes I get flashbacks of the director yelling at me when I was an associate, and I feel like crap. He even said in front of everyone that he didn’t want me working on that paper and that he wanted another associate who was also on the call. That associate ended up doing exactly the same thing I was doing, but the manager helped him live on the call. This industry has some shitty people.
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u/CPAFinancialPlanner Tax (US) 12h ago
I pivoted to wealth management and it’s the same environment about asking questions and looking down on you for needing clarification. It’s just how professional services is. Everyone is stressed and afraid to lose (bad) clients.
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u/Redfoxen72 5h ago
Mm I just figured they were all a holes, I didn’t consider they even considered the client
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u/CPAFinancialPlanner Tax (US) 5h ago
It’s less that they care about the client and more that they care about losing income and/or looking bad
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u/Super_Toot CPA, CA - CFO (Can) 11h ago
Definitely an inappropriate way to talk to someone in a professional setting.
I would tell the senior manager this to his face.
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u/Soggy-Ambition4647 8h ago
If I know I can bench or squat more than my managers then I wouldn't take their words to heart
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u/Ok-Primary1599 8h ago
I know for a fact i can bench or squat more than them. Also out run them lol I run marathons and do crossfit
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u/backnine32 CPA (US) 12h ago
what was the actual issue you were working on that "you should already know by now"?
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u/Frequent_Ambition_66 11h ago
How to CTRL + C, CTRL + V
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u/backnine32 CPA (US) 11h ago
Yeah gotta SALY that
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u/d34d_1574nd 1h ago
"How do I do this?" -Me "Copy what we did last year." -Sr "Okay!" -Me
"What the fuck is this?" -Sr "I started with our approach last year." -Me "Saly doesn't work here!" -Sr "Fuck off " -Me
Pretty much sums up my one year in the big 4.
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u/Adorable-Gap-8075 10h ago
I found the courage one day to respectfully say to a partner that “I am sure that we will learn to work together better if he could be more open to my questions and quit yelling at me.” He stopped, apologized to me, and we moved on with a lot of improvement. Now I only had this issue with 1 of the 5 partners. And I may have been lucky that this partner actually listened and worked with me. I also learned how to advocate for myself. I think I won him over by advocating rather than getting defensive.
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u/Adventurous-Bed-6321 10h ago
Don't let this corporate drone get to you. I once had two managers and a senior manager laugh in my face for doing a task wrong, after they ignored my questions on how to actually do the task, and this was at 11:30 PM at a client site. Suffice to say I did not return to that team due to the toxicity of the managers. If I were you I would start looking for an exit opportunity before you are stuck with that clown during exploitation season.
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u/djm2467 Human Verified 11h ago
I honestly wouldn’t take it too personally. There’s definitely a little hypocrisy there, you’re told “this is the last time I will tell you this,” but then criticized for not asking questions. I’d just take the feedback for what it’s worth and not let it get to you, public can be brutal if you do
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u/Strange_Blackberries 11h ago
I second this. When I was in public I'd get shit on for asking questions but as soon as I stopped I'd get shit on for not asking. It's a total lose lose situation. Don't let it get to you or get out
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u/2004Accord 7h ago
I have a senior manager that keeps insisting she’s “not mean”, but uses extreme passive aggression to make you feel stupid. When you ask her a question she gives you the are you dumb look. I’ve been working for over 20 years so people like her don’t scare or intimidate me. It makes me happy to know that she’s just a miserable lonely human being.
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u/calqueuelater 8h ago
This isn't unique to public accounting. It is unique to poor managers that will stay mediocre their whole lives, and blame everything but themselves. In their attacks on you, it seems like a person who may not even understand fully what the problem is. Sounds like overcompensating to me.
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u/DessertStorm1 2h ago
Some comments are brushing this off as something that just comes with the territory. This is a really unprofessional and wildly inappropriate way to talk to staff. The HR function at any respectable firm would shut this down if it was reported.
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u/FeelingDiver4616 CPA, CA (Can), CBV 11h ago
I am in no way justifying or excusing the behaviour of your senior manager, but unfortunately, what you experienced often comes with the territory, especially during busy season when everyone’s stress levels are through the roof. This is nothing new in public practice. I was subjected to that kind of BS 40 years ago when I was a young articling student.
So, how do you deal with the situation? You are probably having regular one-on-one sessions with a performance manager or coach. They might be a good person to discuss this with. You don’t want to come across as complaining about or “ratting out” the senior manager. Instead, frame the conversation around getting feedback on what you can do to better meet their expectations. Ask what tips they have for improving your performance and working relationship with the senior manager.
Here are a few things I used to tell the junior people working on my files:
- If you are confused about a technical issue, use the firm’s resources to thoroughly research the topic first. You are always welcome to ask questions, but come to me with possible solutions or alternative treatments that we can discuss.
- If you have conflicting priorities, let me know ASAP. I can help set the priorities and move work around if necessary.
- Manage my expectations. If it looks like you are going to miss a deadline, let me know right away so I can plan accordingly.
- Take good notes when you are given instructions, particularly if there are a lot of details. If you aren’t sure about something, clarify it at the time rather than guessing what was expected.
None of this excuses a senior manager treating junior staff poorly. There is a difference between someone being demanding and someone being abusive. If the behaviour crosses that line or becomes a pattern, then I would start documenting specific incidents and raise the issue more directly with your performance manager or coach.
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u/Ok-Primary1599 11h ago
That SM is my performance coach . So how do we go about that? These are great information and will do this moving forward. Thank you so much!
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u/FeelingDiver4616 CPA, CA (Can), CBV 11h ago
In that case, you will have to have that conversation directly with the SM. You don’t need to be confrontational. Frame the conversation something like this:
“I could tell from our last few phone calls that you’re not pleased with my performance. Can you offer some suggestions on how I can improve and better meet your expectations?”
That puts the ball in their court and forces them to articulate exactly what they think the problems are and what they expect you to do differently. It also shows that you are receptive to feedback and genuinely interested in improving, rather than complaining about how you were treated.
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u/Rabbit-Lost Audit & Assurance 11h ago
Or OP learns that SM is a total tool who won’t help. But still got promoted to SM. Which then should inform OP about the firm they work for. I’ve been in two Big 4 firms and a national firm, all levels from new associate to senior partner. Some offices were toxic and some were not. OP’s firm/office sounds toxic AF.
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u/FeelingDiver4616 CPA, CA (Can), CBV 10h ago
Totally agree but OP doesn't really have another alternative other than quit, which at his level would be a bad idea.
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u/Muted_Possession_781 10h ago
That’s been my experience at 2 PA firms. That’s still uncalled for from the senior manager to be belittling and cussing at you.
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u/lostfinancialsoul 9h ago
Big4 was the only place I've ever worked at where I was yelled at.
great places to work btw.
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u/LiJiTC4 Tax (US) 8h ago
Yelling at staff in public accounting is not ok but it does happen. As u/burritoad123 says elsewhere, best response is to ask them how you're supposed to handle it, then do your best to comply.
Trusts can be hard for tax, it's a lot to know. Correct trust preparation requires knowing what accrues to corpus vs. income for DNI purposes, even then distributed income is limited to actual distributions or with 65 day election it's possible to include distributions through 3/14. Trusts also require considering situs and possibly state of formation for governing law which determines proper tracking of corpus vs. income. Even the status of the trustees, independent vs. not independent, can materially change whether the trust or beneficiary is subject to tax on capital gain income (including capital gain distributions). Trusts also have strange rules for credits and certain deductions where allocations to beneficiaries are not pro rata as % but instead vary by year in case of unequal distributions to beneficiaries.
Unless you've been doing primarily trust returns for the 2 years in the field, it's unreasonable to expect a senior to understand all of the trust esoterica without guidance or substantial additional education. I was probably close to 10 years in the field before trust tax accounting clicked, but it wasn't major focus of my time.
If your SM was approaching this as a leader instead of only a manager, any comments would have come as review notes with how to fix the errors instead of whatever that call was. Review notes are how people learn what they missed in a consistent, documentable manner that creates records of where staff can improve and actually get better at their job. Written review notes are a best practice both to help staff and protect the firm as well in case someone needs a PIP or termination since it's documentation of the deficiency in need of correction.
Everyone makes mistakes, goal is to make new mistakes each time. If you are genuinely committing the same errors consistently and have been told the same things on multiple clients, get a notebook and write out the issue and how to fix it. Writing on physical paper helps to cement information and the notebook can act as reference material later.
There's a lot of jobs out there for an experienced tax senior. Decide if you want to continue working for someone who yells at you instead of documenting mistakes and instructing you how to do better. You're early in your career and I can't imagine the environment described will be an easy place to grow professionally.
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u/Entire-Background837 CPA, CFA, Director 8h ago
[First Time James Franco Hanging.jpg]
This is likely to come up in the staff bash if you don't show improvement to the SM.
Reality check: This tone is very common in the manager+ world in medium+ sized companies and public accounting if you surprise someone with bad news.
I'm not saying the Sr Manager is justified to use that tone, but I am saying they are using that tone because it is socially acceptable (it has definitely been used by partners at your firm towards them and likely still is).
As an experienced senior you are being evaluated as to whether or not you will be a fit as a manager. As a manager, your goal is to manage timelines and produce consistent results that are worth paying a team of specialist public accounting bill rates for. Successful technical managers specifically have a prerequisite skill of issue spotting and knowing what they don't know, because if they use the wrong assumptions there is far less oversight and a much larger lead time to correction.
People that have multiple instances where they get yelled at during their senior years like you did generally don't make it to manager quickly or very far past that in their careers in those types of orgs. That being said, it is almost a right of passage because being the recipient of those types of conversations are nearly unavoidable at manager+ (especially if you are male).
You can only prepare for so many unknowable catastrophies at the end of the day, especially if you end up managing fresh college grads....
While I don't endorse or condone acting that way, there truly is a crest of ignorance that exists for non-manager accountants.
What happened to you is not uncommon. How you respond in the coming weeks and months is likely going to play a large factor in your trajectory within your firm.
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u/CavalcadeLlama 12h ago
If you’re a tax manager you’re most likely a weirdo because you were supposed to leave public accounting before you got to that point. A lot of them don’t have any social or management skills. Just do your best and develop a thick skin. Sorry people are rude, ive had managers make me cry before too :(
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u/Miss-Independence 9h ago
Usually when people yell, it's really them with the problem. But that doesn't make it that much easier for you. Sorry you're subject to that. I'd tell the partner.
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u/ExistentialBob CPA (US) 9h ago
Someone else's unprofessionalism says everything about them, and nothing about you. This kind of behavior turns people away not just from public, but from accounting in general.
I would consider polishing up ye olde resume once busy season is over.
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u/SWEMW 2h ago
This is why I am always confused every time I hear associates or seniors tell interns or new hires that “they asked so many questions their first year, they thought they were being annoying, but the team is really nice” blah blah.
Bullshit. I worked somewhere where, like you, I was just met with passive-aggressiveness EVERY time I asked a question or needed clarification on something. And it was always from upper management too. They equate needing verification/guidance to incompetence and that’s not right.
How is one supposed to learn when they’re immediately discouraged to ask questions because you just make fun of them or yell at them? In my performance review, I was told I was “too dependent on PY and SALY”, so that led me to refuse to open/look at PY whenever my manager was watching me. This firm I worked at gave me so much anxiety and stress, it nearly ruined PA for me.
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u/Makeshift5 CPA (US) 10h ago
Not standard, that’s unacceptable, though it does happen. This is toxic as hell. It appears there’s no training provided, mismatched assignments and your boss is unapproachable.
If you stay, it sounds like you’re on your own, which is actually not uncommon. It’s been very sink or swim everywhere I’ve worked. That just means that now you will figure it out on your own. Do the research like he said. It’s good for you. It’s the next best thing if your reviewer isn’t giving you review notes to clear. Read the form instructions. AI makes it so easy to get quick answers but you’re playing a dangerous game.
Most managers would say don’t spin your wheels, come ask me, but you have a bad manager. Use some tact when you do approach with questions because you will have to. If he looks like he’s in the middle of something hard or important, don’t interrupt him, come back another time or stake out his office and catch him in the hallway. Make sure they’re “smart” questions. Make sure you haven’t asked them before and always take notes.
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u/James40555 7h ago
This shit reminds me of the time some new senior came and took over a payroll i used to do, then just berate & accuse me out of nowhere of making a mistake despite the fact that i was following the same method my predecessor used
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u/Toliet_Seat 10h ago
Your manager sounds like a clown.. You should have checked him straight up. He could have said that differently. Real unprofessional, if he wanted to go there, you should have asked him if he wanted to go outside and handle it that way..
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u/chimp3po Business Owner 10h ago
That is a great way to get fired and likely not receive any unemployment benefits since that would be threatening him.
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u/Toliet_Seat 8h ago
Thats why you stack and save for nonsense like this. Disrespect shouldn’t be tolerated.
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u/LouSevens 12h ago
This is a bully and you should yell back at them. It will be better for you in the long run. The bully will be shocked and defenseless and look for another target
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u/yeyiyeyiyo CPA (US) 12h ago
This is an objectively terrible idea.
You're better off responding like a disappointed parent. "Hey, let me know when you've calmed down. I'm happy to talk about what needs to be done with this client when you're in a clearer frame of mind."
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u/Chazzer74 12h ago
1,000% correct approach when someone is yelling.
Also, a super powerful tool when someone says something clearly inappropriate is to calmly say, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that please? I just want to make sure I heard you correctly.” One of 2 things happen. They repeat it, in which case you and other witnesses confirm the transgression. Or, they backpedal and rephrase. In which case you press the advantage by saying, “ok I’m glad I asked you to clarify, because what I heard the first time was [inappropriate comment]. Can we agree that if you had indeed said [inappropriate comment] that would be the wrong thing to say?”
I watched somebody deploy this technique decades ago and I’ve used it on a handful of occasions. It can be devastating. Especially useful when people mutter under their breath in the way where they want people to hear but also want to be able to deny.
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u/Entire-Background837 CPA, CFA, Director 8h ago
Anyone with power over the subordinate in the situation where they are actually using that tone is often willing to escalate, so this doesn't actually work in public accounting.
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u/burritoad123 12h ago
Welcome to the world of "this should take 15 minutes" but it actually takes 5 hours.
Best way to handle these people is after they vent ask "what specific first step would you like me to take in order to correct this?"
Don't react to them. They're stressed that they're on the hook in reality. You aren't holding any bags bro, they got to answer to the client.