When there’s too much work for one person to do, it’s reasonable to get that person an assistant.

In today’s story, one accountant desperately needed an assistant but was repeatedly told “no.”

Let’s see how the story plays out…

No assistant for you!

I am an accountant for a Software as a Service(SaaS) company that tends to have some…interesting ideas on how a business should be run.

(Yes, I am from Minnesota, why do you ask?)

We did ~30M in revenue when this issue came up, with myself as the only biller, issuing over 1k invoices every month, the bulk of which “needed” to be sent by business day 5.

They really wanted an assistant for billing.

I’d asked repeatedly for an assistant specifically for the billing process, and in turn got someone for collections (which I had been doing by myself, and managed a 45 dso), for revenue posting (which wasn’t my purview anyway), and for payroll (which I was doing because we literally had no one else), but “no assistant budget could be found,” per the CFO.

My supervisor, the controller, consistently tried to get me one, but was always denied every time she and I asked.

A new product ended up meaning a lot more work.

One lovely day, we get a new product: Adobe sign! Our clients can now send documents to their clients/talent for a low low price of exorbitant rate for tiered bundles.

I was supposed to get a report of how many packages were signed, then compare to what they were being billed, and “float up” to a higher tier if they used more than they were contracted for 2 months in a row.

This worked…OK for the first few months, when only 100 or so clients used the product, AND I received a summary report of usage.

But after those few months, the summary report stopped, and adoption exponentially grew.

By April 2020, I was receiving a 1 million(!) row spreadsheet, plus 2 other supplementary sheets that had 0 (zero!!!) key identifiers, but no other instruction on how to complete my job.

They desperately needed an assistant now but was still told “no.”

I repeatedly told my supervisor that this wasn’t feasible in the long run, and I couldn’t figure out how to calculate float ups, but she was distracted with other things (hi, 2020!), and told me to “figure it out.”

What I figured out is my need for an assistant was imperative now, and I literally couldn’t do my job as is, so I…didn’t.

N0 float ups from April- October 2020.

They couldn’t do it all and happily complied with an auditor.

Come October, sales, account management, and the c-suite finally figure out that Adobe revenue is lower than they expect based on usage.

I repeated my complaint that I couldn’t get everything done with the data they gave me (Adobe data was the least of the missing/incomplete data tbf) without losing in particular Adobe floatups, and EVERYTHING hit the fan.

The CFO demanded a full documentation of the billing process because “finance can’t be losing so much revenue.”

Read: why are you guys (and specifically me) messing up?

I just smiled, nodded, and agreed to comply with an outside auditor documenting my billing process to find “my” holes.

They provided details about the work flow.

In the 4(!) month process that took about two weeks out of every month, I described my process down to the nitty gritty detail, up to, and including the fact that:

A) I did not have a summarized user log. I got an 18k line user LISTING that I had to comb through for duplicates since 60% of our clients use 2 of our platforms and we didn’t (and still don’t) have single sign on(sso), and then pivot out and associate with each client manually via lookup against a non-key identifier manually entered into Sales Force(SFDC)

B) There was no db for which addon services our clients were using, and our Metadata platform(AMP) was just a manual check box for each client and each service upkept by the clients account manager

C) AMP had no reporting functionality to audit client usage verses contracted usage v billed usage.

D) There is more, but I think you get the picture.

The CFO apologized.

When the outside consultant gave her report to my supervisor and the CFO, the call was quiet for a long bit, then the CFO said thank you, and disconnected.

About 15 minutes later, I get a direct teams video call from the CFO.

He said, “I want to apologize. The fact that is still a going concern at all is a testament to your hard work. What you have done with the data you’ve been given is nothing short of amazing. Thank you.”

Slightly paraphrased, ofc, but that was the general gist (the going concern part, though? Direct quote)

They finally got an assistant.

The next business day, an ad was placed for an assistant for me, and for the SFDC deal desk manager.

I haven’t had to answer my phone, or dig in customer emails in 3+ years 🙂

I love my assistant and am so glad to have her. She makes my work life 1M times better.

It took way longer than it should’ve to get an assistant, but at least it finally worked out!

Let’s see how Reddit responded…

This reader hopes they got a raise.

Another reader is glad they got an apology.

This person rephrased the sad state they were in…

Another reader mentioned the important of an assistant.

This reader wasn’t expecting the CFO to be apologetic.

It’s not possible for employees to do the impossible.

At least this employee’s hard work was finally appreciated.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.