The Queen launched herself on Facebook last week. You can’t be her friend but you can ‘like’ the British Monarchy link. Apparently 41,000 users had clicked the ‘like’ button, an hour after the page was launched. There are pictures of the family and YouTube videos. Whatever next? Videos of Prince William at Count Bastion and more interestingly, Prince harry launching the Soldiers Challenge at the Imperial War Museum. Yes, I have watched them all.
What is the world coming to when the third in line to the throne is on a YouTube video on FB in a hoodie, giving it a high five with some other well, hoodies? I thought hoodies were all thugs and meant to be banned from anywhere respectable? Personally, I like them a lot but the point is how this sort of thing makes you question your whole worldview!
I have also had to revise my opinion of accountants recently too. I was in London last week, having dinner with some friends. One of them asked me if I would feel a failure as a parent if one of my kids decided to be an accountant. Ten years ago, I would have responded immediately with a big fat ‘yes!’ Now I hesitate. Why did they ask me this and why did I hesitate?
Well, I have one child who has expressed an interest in doing something in the financial world, possibly accountancy. And one that has a new best friend who is on a post-grad training scheme with a well-known accountancy firm. So I ask myself, what is it about accountants that is so unattractive? If my child wanted to be an accountant, I thought that meant they would basically be a very dull, conservative person with nothing interesting to say. This equates to me wasting 18 years of my life giving them the wrong messages.
Traditionally accountants just seem so boring! Apparently, not any more. These days there are accountants who get drunk, wax their legs, put on fake tan and pluck their eyebrows. And this is just the men! Yes, I have it on good authority that this is the new breed of young accountant. They sound pretty much like the rest of the population of non-accountants. Personally, I have never met an accountant who does any of these things. But I have been forced to re-think the whole accountancy as a career thing.
I am still wondering how can anyone get excited about tax law or spending hours looking at columns of figures on a computer? But I guess, each to their own and they do, in general make quite a lot of money. So, if any of my kids becomes and accountant or marries one, I will try not to feel a complete failure as a parent…..
