How to survive year-round mandatory overtime in public accounting
Firms shift tax staff into audit work during the off-season to cover understaffing, eliminating all downtime and forcing employees to work 40 to 60+ hours a week year-round. This constant overwork leaves staff exhausted, isolated from their families, and completely drained of energy.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Planning to quit the firm
- 2Refusing the reassignment in solidarity
- 3Ignoring non-essential emails and chat messages
- 4Limiting small talk and social interaction until the busy season ends
- 5Working excessive hours to meet deadlines at the expense of social engagement
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Would you expect people working 1.5x-2x what they normally work to behave normally?”source ↗
“You spend more time with your co-workers than your families and some people behave like robots and/or turn or are anti social.”source ↗
“it chips away at the part of your brain that remembers how to do small talk about anything except tax deadlines”source ↗
“Debit: Social Battery Expense Credit: Accumulated Stress”source ↗
“Am I wrong for thinking this is absolutely insane? We currently have a 60+ hour billable expectation, and we were understaffed over summer, so we have already been utilized to the maximum during the year.”source ↗
“And at my current firm, they want to move us to audit to hit 40+ hours during this time.... so basically no downtime throughout the year.”source ↗
“I'm not adding an extra hour to my already 60hour workweek just because someone wants to chat.”source ↗
“They’re tf tired. Leave them alone”source ↗
“Oh yes. And go to work in dark. Come home in the dark. At times I forgot there was a sun.”source ↗
“obviously burn out is real but at times people in accounting are just strange individuals.”source ↗
Where this came up
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