Living with a CPA;

              Living
with
aCPA
What effect does a public
accountant's career have on
his wife? How does she,
consciously or unconsciously,
influence his career decisions?
Because H&S Reports believes
in frank discussion of an issue
that concerns many staff
members and their families, it
asked for this report by a
management psychologist.
By Anthony W. Martin, Ph.D.
As psychologists to management, my
colleagues and I have had a unique
opportunity to witness the influence of
a man's career on his marriage—and
vice versa. Never does that influence
reach a more critical point than when
the husband comes to make a decision
about his career.
Such decisions are never easy to
make at best, even for the paragons of
initiative and toughness described in
the management textbooks. The part
a wife plays in a decision often be­comes
crucial. We have seen wives
move in to support their husbands, to
give strength when it was really
needed and to tilt the balance deci­sively
in favor of risk-taking and ad­venture.
At times, we have seen wives,
wittingly or unwittingly, withdraw
from their husbands at a most crucial
moment in their careers, leaving them
to flounder. We have also known occa­sions
when the wife encouraged her
husband to play for safety, to put on
the brakes and to settle for security,
prematurely in the light of her hus­band's
potential.
Assisting our industrial clients in se­lecting
men for employment, we often
interview a young accountant who is
thinking of moving from public ac­counting
into industry. The most com­mon
reason he gives for wanting to
leave accounting is the adverse effect
that travel and overtime have on his
family. Now there are times when this
can be a convenient rationalization. He
may not be well suited to public ac­counting.
It is much easier and more
Dr. Martin is a partner of Rohrer, Hibler &
Replogle, psychologists to management, retained
by Haskins & Sells.
acceptable for him to project blame
onto family circumstances than to ana­lyze
his own aptitudes realistically.
On the other hand, time away from
home can be a very valid reason, rather
than just a rationalization or an excuse.
A number of these men we have seen
in exodus from public accounting are
unquestionably of high potential. They
have performed well and their firms
are sorry to see them leave. Or a man
may leave because he is offered a place
in XYZ Corporation that he or his wife
thinks he cannot afford financially to
turn down for the sake of his family.
This only the man and his wife can
decide. The financial needs of the mo­ment
may be great, and impossible to
meet without an immediate increase in
salary. In that case, the favorable pros­pects
in his present job are under­standably
put aside.
But it also often happens that a CPA
will consider leaving public accounting
because his wife does not understand
the stature of his work or its demands
on him.
A CPA finds much in his work that
is positive. He plays a truly professional
role with many deep satisfactions.
These satisfactions become very real
to the CPA as he pursues his career
over the years. To him they become
self-evident. He gets a strong sense of
achievement from coping with difficult
technical problems. His work in build­ing
good client relationships is an art
that takes patience, forethought and
mature judgment. When practiced suc­cessfully
this can bring many intan­gible
but meaningful rewards. The
CPA also finds challenges in the effec­tive
supervision of others and the con-