So what is it exactly that you do?

So I seem to get asked this question quite often and I thought I would share what it is I spend most of my time doing away from home and how it is I got there.....

I am currently an Accountant, Assitant to the CFO/Controller at Wasatch Advisors. Wasatch Advisors manages our now 18 Mutual Funds- called the Wasatch Funds. We just launched a new website http://www.wasatchfunds.com/ and while we were hit hard last year with the way the Market went, our funds performance has improved greatly since the beginning of the year. They say it is always "darkest before the dawn."

My job responsibilities include processing payroll twice a month for now 75-80 employees, overseeing all GL Accouting including acct recs/bank recs etc, budgets, financial statements, and I am currently spending alot of time with our external auditor as he conducts his yearly audit. I am  also over the processes of all Accounts Payable, and Accounts Recieveable. My department is very small. I am one of three in this juggling act of due dates and deadlines. I have worked for Wasatch since May of 2006 and currently have a fabulous office in downtown Salt Lake that lets me look at the Mountains everyday.

I am impressed if you are still awake to have read this far. Many would find my job boring, but especially with the current state of the economy my job is never dull.

So how did I get here you ask.....okay maybe you didn't ask, but I am going to share anyway.

I moved to Logan when I was seventeen to attend Utah State University. As a freshman I started taking a variety of classes to see what I wanted to be "when I grew up". I had taken sign language classes in high school and continued on that path in college thinking I would be a Deaf Education major, but after a few semesters I realized I just enjoyed signing and since you couldn't get your signing certifications through there I decided to go down a different path.

Next was Psychology. I had taken a class one semester and found it to be really interesting so the next semester I signed up all my classes as a Psych major. After the first day of the semester, I realized what am I going to do with a "Pscyh" degree? Would I ever be able to find work, especially without getting a masters degree? So I walked to Old Main and sat on the front steps, as I started to cry because I had just dropped all the classes on my schedule and panic was setting in "I have no direction, what am I going to do with my life?, At that point I did what every other teenager in college does.... I called my Mom! It was in that conversation she suggested, why don't you try the business school. I said "Moooommmmm, It is the first day of the semester all of the classes will be full, I will never get in. " Glad no one can call me melodramatic! So I started to add my classes and sure enough I was able to get every last one! Amoung those classes was one for Accounting. By the end of the semester I was sold. It made sense to me. Accounting was so black and white. "Assets=Liabilities + Equity", this was a world that made sense, where 2 + 2 always equaled four. So it was from then on that I raced through the rest of school, making sure that I graduated in 4 years at the age of 21. Now looking back.....especially every morning when I get up at the same time to go to the same job and have the same stressful responsibilities, mortgage, housework, yard work etc., "I ask myself why was it I was in such a hurry to be done again????" But I did love my college years looking back I took some fun classes as well, "Money Well Spent!!!", Billiards, Horse Back Riding, Snowboarding (okay I only lasted in snowboarding one day... and that was one cold ride down the mountain on my butt....) I also enjoyed many naps on the quad and visits to bear lake for their insane shakes! I moved four times...... I wouldn't recommend! And my first year I was without a car and shared a door room with 5 girls and only one bathroom!!! I do remember some interesting bus rides that year....

After graduation in 2005 I found a job as an Accountant for a trucking company in North Ogden, while the commute was not fun, especially during the winter, to drive through Sardine canyon twice a day from Logan, I really enjoyed everything I learned there and the people that I worked with. I was there for 7 months and moved to Salt Lake in the process. After moving here I ended up finding my job at Wasatch where I have been ever since.

Now if you have made it this far you deserve a COOKIE!!!! And so I will share with you some other jobs I have had in my past that may entertain you.....

1. VideoVerns
2. Canyon Sports-many winter seasons
3. Warehouse Music-i think this place was haunted....
4. Lane Bryant-fashion place mall
5. All-a Dollar (one day) it was a nightmare!!!
6. Salt Lake County Voting office- side note, I had to drive to one of the voting stations on election day, and drove one of the counties 15 passenger vans, the worst part was that I couldn't park the thing and ended up hitting another car in the process..... EEEEkkk!
7. Dusted at a department store in a mall (1/2 day....) (I was working for a temp agency at the time)
8. Computer Lab Consultant on USU's campus- 3 years!
9. KeyBank-teller- ahh how I loved to count the money!
10. Convergys..... one long summer on the phones! Yikes!!!!
11. ATG Trucking, first accounting job out of college