I never had so strong feeling today the dim prospect of audit industry. One of my classmates and friends just submitted the letter of resignation and he seems to have firmly decided to leave PwC for a long period of time. Let's turn our heads to see the status quo of our office now: hundreds of senior and junior staff members are idling and most of new entry staff are spending their first month in PwC in nothing but press the keyboard in MSN and browse endless messages over the web. Especially, in our group, people may not be possible to find a seat even he or she comes to office exactly at 9 AM and most of seats have been taken by early-coming idling staff or simply by some books or bags.

 

Frankly speaking, in retropsect, as I was chosen by TICE a year ago, I was really excited and confident and felt that I can get much deeper understanding of China's media and technology industry. But what is the fact? It has been over a year since I entered the company and most of the projects I have done have de facto no relations with media and technology. Sometimes, I was even booked to do the IPO project whose revenue is mainly from fast consumption goods. Initially, I thought it was somewhat because of my imperfect lucks. However, as I had learned more from colleagues and friends, it really is the have-to-be choice. Why? It's simple. Much less healthy projects successfully make the deals and driven by strong desires to earn money and make profits, partners have to accept couples of sick, at least unhealthy, projects whose accouning policies and internal controls can hardly be more messy. Then, what is the result? As less projects come to our office, more staff members in our group are continuously idling and as the company has to pay monthly salary for those people, the budget for each ongoing projects will be cut significantly. However, does that mean the staff who was booked to do such project can no longer work overtime? Not exactly. They have to be forced to finish all works before the tight deadline and therefore have to work so late each night and are not allowed to charge additional OT.

 

What exactly I can learn under such enviornment? May be much less than spending time in the library or in academic lectures. What can I do if I leave PwC, say, three or four years later? Maybe an internal auditor or a financial analyst. But is that really what I desire in my life? Unfortunately, never. I have to accelerate to thinking about my road ahead from now on. I am always asking myself: Am I ready for change now? If anytime the answer becomes yes, I will choose to leave here with no hesitation. Hopefully, the time will not be so long.