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              ATLANTA PITTSBURGH
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BOSTON HASKINS & S E L LS PORTLAND
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CHARLOTTE CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO
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DALLAS BULLETIN DENVER
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LOS ANGELES SHANGHAI
MINNEAPOLIS NEWARK E X E C U T I V E O F F I C ES
NEW ORLEANS 30 BROAD STREET. NEW YORK HAVANA
NEW YORK MEXICO CITY
PHILADELPHIA MONTREAL
VOL. X NEW YORK, MAY, 1927 No. 5
Every Job
THERE are many famous passages in
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." Many
of them might serve admirably as inspira­tional
slogans for accountants. There is
one which may be appropriate or inappro­priate,
according as use of it is made:
"The evil that men do lives after them;
the good is oft interred with their bones."
No vocation, profession, or means of
livelihood depends more for its success upon
the character of service rendered than the
profession of accountancy. Any mistakes
in getting at and reporting facts, errors in
judgment, carelessness in setting down
figures, bob up eternally to damn the
reputation of an accountant who offers his
services to the public.
On the other hand, nothing establishes
and increases the prestige of an accountant
like a piece of work well done.
Modern practice may have to combine
professional and commercial elements. The
purely professional type may starve in his
devotion to an ideal. There is no reason
why an accountant should work for nothing.
But there is every reason why he should
keep constantly before him his professional
duty and be guided by a sense thereof.
In the building of a professional prac­tice,
whether on a scale large or small, mis­takes
are bound to occur, and errors are
bound to creep in. Where is the engineer
who has not been guilty of mistakes in
judgment? The great bridge over the
a Good Job
Saint Lawrence River, outside of Quebec,
crashed to ruin twice while the project was
under way. The engineers made mistakes.
But one of the finest spans in the world
finally was completed. In the early days
of abdominal surgery, a surgeon cut off
a piece of the intestine instead of the
appendix. But today a human being may
live without a stomach because surgery did
not stop with that mistake. Some lawyers
have advised their clients badly, but the
legal profession has become one of the most
honored of the learned professions.
The accountancy profession may be
chargeable with its share of errors. The
evil growing out of some errors may live
on and on. But every mistake should be
a lesson and contribute something to the
betterment of the work. Likewise, it
should serve as a reminder that the reputa­tion
which a firm enjoys is founded on the
sum total of what it does. If the poor work
is greater than the good work, the reputation
will be evil. By the same token, if good
work prevails the reputation will be good.
If success in accountancy is to be
achieved, every job must be a good job.
Whether it be profitable, or unprofitable,
is beside the point. The greater considera­tion
is the character of the work done. If
slogans are needed as a force to spur one
on to constant effort and unceasing vigi­lance
every hour of the day, what could be
better than "Every job a good job"?