ACCOUNTANTS

(A Syllable-for-Syllable Reprise of Carl Sandburg’s poem CHICAGO)

Bean counters for the world,
Gloomcasters, jugglers of books,
Fiddlers with figures and business purse-string holders,
Puny, furrowed, balding,
People of the green eyeshades.

You claim to be progressive, but we don't believe you for we've watched you do
things exactly the same way, time and again;
And you claim to be methodical, but we don't believe you for you can't even
structure accounts to house results sensibly;
And you profess clarity, but we don't believe you for we've heard you explain
in double talk what the financial statements mean;
And having answered, we examine the reports you prepare, with needless figure
columns and endless inane percentages.
Show us another profession so content with itself as long as debits equal
credits, even if they contain factual misstatements;
Allocating and redistributing costs in such haphazard fashion that end results
lose their entire meaning and reader value;
Distorting profits to a maximum degree by setting product costs and valuing
inventories on the full absorption method;
Sleeve-gartered,
Misinforming,
Tax man fearing,
Small-minded,
Hidebound, authoritative, disrespected;
Incapable of being meaningful through flexible budgets, responsibility reports,
return on investment analyses;
Incapable of determining sound product prices by taking cost behavior into due
consideration;
Happy in your ways, even though the output you now produce with computers is no
more useful than that done by hand in the fifties;
Self-satisfied despite your inadequate knowledge of cost control, proper asset
classification, and project management;
Secure,
Secure in the fact had the Creator made only accountants, we'd now be inventing
the wheel and lever, proud to be bean counters, gloomcasters, book jugglers,
figure fiddlers, and business purse-string holders.