Memorable Job, the First
I really have deep gratitude for my 42 year professional career. I am fortunate that the two most memorable jobs I had cover 2/3rds of that time span. The rest…..well, I do deeply want to forget the rest!
My first professional job was with an international accounting firm, Price Waterhouse, in the Anchorage, Alaska office. There was pressure in school to get “Big 8 firm” (now it’s Big 4) experience on which to base your career. I was skeptical of wanting to work in those environments to get the experience needed to become a CPA. My wife and I were both antsy to get out of our hometown and, as it happens, both had relatives who had lived in Alaska. I interviewed with the big firms in both Seattle and Anchorage and had my choice of cities and offers.
We took the plunge to move to Anchorage. If I was going to get a big firm on my resume, I’d do it in a small office and see some stuff. The first two years, I was on the audit staff and our clients were really all over Alaska. My first week, I was introduced to small planes flying over rugged country. I white-knuckled the first couple of flights, while my supervisor laughed his ass off. Since we had just moved to town, I was informed Sunday night by a knock at my door that we were flying to Kenai. That client ended up not being ready and I got assigned immediately to another job near Mt. McKinley. Lots of flying in the first week.
At the client up by Mt. McKinley, we stayed in a railroad bunkhouse next to the tracks. There weren’t the hotels up there that there are now. I was an awakened in the middle of the night by a train headlight flooding the room with light and the train rushing by right next to the wall. It was like a horror movie scene. The next day, we went to a roadhouse on the highway. One of my fellow new workers was from Florida and not blue collar like me. When asked to order a drink, he said “Do y’all have any Perrier?” The bartender kept a straight face and said they had Bud, Miller and Coke. No fancy drinks in rural Alaska in 1979.
The office’s biggest client was in Barrow on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. I spent several weeks up there, both in 24 hour darkness and 24 hour light. The hotel was owned by our client, and had a closed sewage system where they changed the water in the tank every two weeks - or so. The toilet water ran dark and stank to high heaven. Closing the door didn’t help. Some of us who didn’t smoke, tried it. We also found whale blubber in the office refrigerator, which didn’t smell so good either. Walking on the shore of the Arctic Ocean was, however, very cool. Barrow was a dry town and we brought our own alcohol, including Drambuie to put in our coffee while working. The rules were loose. The office did have satellite TV which was better than Anchorage (network shows were one or two weeks behind, as tapes were sent to Hawaii and Alaska).
I also spent three weeks in Nome in December. The winds made it an effort to walk upright. That was my coldest time in the state. We stayed in a little house the client owned. The upside was making one of the best friends I’ve ever had or will have. The other main place I worked out of Anchorage was Juneau, the state capitol. It was a quiet and charming town back then, before cruise ships started to travel there. I went back a few years ago - on my last job - and it was changed a lot from a bit influx of tourism. The exception was we stayed in the same hotel, 30 years later, and that hadn’t changed at all!
We ended up 7 years in Alaska and I got more experience in that time than I could most anywhere else. It was possible to be less specialized and constrained than in a large office. If it needed doing, you did it. My Alaska CPA certificate number is AA 0000814. They have big plans.
On our personal time, we saw a fair amount of the state like Homer, Kenai, Seward, Valdez and more. There were two canoe trail areas where we went canoe camping, portaging between lakes and getting far from any vehicles. That was a maybe the most special part of our time there. It was also very good to get away from family and “grow up together”.
There are more Alaska stories, but this is just a taste of how we made my career process into a life adventure.