Year 1. 1999. I was in the fourth form and my school made it mandatory to attend this class. I had no ulterior motive to succeed here, so I sometimes slept in class and was called out by the teacher (who was one of the best in town). I absorbed nothing, as I was saving my memory.
Year 4. 2003. There was an accounting course available in my college, and all the kids on track to investment banking and economic consulting jobs were crabbing to get in. I had however, designed my time in college to avoid all commercial subjects, as I figured they were too easy and should be studied in the field, later.
Year 7. 2006. I am working my third job after college as a quantitative analyst in the funds management division of a Malaysian investment bank. It is a horribly backward operation, with fund accounting done by hand on reams of paper and my own job requiring no more than maths from ... ironically, the third or fourth form.
From the same mailing list of churchy people (I was raised in a religious community) where I had found this job, there was another job interview I had attended. It was at a hip corporate finance boutique, and I was specifically advised upon checking that no accounting background was required. So I attended in good faith, and was presented with an accounting case study, to which I objected on the grounds of being ill-advised by my introducer. The interview did not progress.
The boutique was later rolled into the national sovereign wealth fund, as its founder was picked to be the fund's CEO. My introducer worked in the fund for quite some time, and later I dated someone who had worked for them. I was told they made decent money by the mid 2010s.
Year 9. 2008. I am on my fourth job after college, taking a break from really dumb people in really stupid corporate jobs. I help some ex-General Electric folks put together a pitch to sell a training company to Malaysia'e largest English newspaper. In the process, I learn how financial statements work, via Google. I put together the statements of projection for ten business units, for the pitch. I am amused at how simple the structures of statements are. I think it would have been more interesting in grade school if we had started with ops, and done accounts later, rather than study accounts without ops.
Year 14. 2013. Following a bit of "grad school", I am helping some bloke to pitch his uncle for funding to start a third-wave coffee shop. Once again, statements and projections are prepared. Over the next year or two, this chap and his associates ask for my help with this. Sometimes I don't get paid. I am allowed to show some of my work to others.
Year 16. 2015. Subsequently, I somehow raise 412,000 Malaysian Ringgit including about 50,000 of my own money, essentially my life savings at that point, and I start work on another coffee shop ... a job that lasts me until 2020, six years, the longest I have ever remained under one marque. That operation is shuttered in 2020, but the entity is wound-up only in 2023, as it has been complicated. I did nearly every line of accounting over the lifespan of that annually audited entity. A humble task.
Year 25. 2024. I am on sabbatical again. On the 500th day, I have set up enough of an environment that there is a comfortable place to sit and read, with a view of the mountains north of Kuala Lumpur. I begin with the first book of the ACCA guide published by BPP in 2002. It is well written, in formal prose. I make this note about my journey, before going to bed.
