The Myth of Human Resources

By Sean Anderson

I went to business school and became an account. Many of my friends wanted to go into human resources. They took a bunch of hippy idealistic business classes and some where along the line we've lost touch. The myth really started before college though. Even back then I would hear people say I want to go into human resources to help people.

Well that is not the goal of this department. They do tend to treat each other well, and take part in a lot of perks that nobody else in the company receives. They also keep on hand one sacrificial lamb called a recruiter just in case cuts become necessary.  However, that does not qualify as helping others, as a matter of fact that is helping ones self. At my company human resources gets upset if we walk through their department or use their copier. It has a big sign on it that says for HR only.  At the same time they don't have any problem drinking the coffee my department makes and grabbing food we bring.  It has been like this at several companies I've worked.  The big old double standard.

The reason that the human resource department acts like a bunch of whining brats is that they had some false premise about their jobs. They then use that as excuse to do what they want and everyone else hates usually hates them.  The point is a path of good intention doesn't lead to goo because companies have a much different need.

Human resources is a tough job. The decisions made by this department heavily influence peoples lively hoods. What insurance they receive, whether or not they keep their jobs and what programs might need to be cut to reduce costs. The job of the Human Resource department has little to do with planning the company picnic.

It also, has to deal with helping people when they don't want the help. Half the safety policies are really good but people always find a reason that they hinder their job and shouldn't be followed. Really it doesn't make sense, but if your in Human Resources your still going to be hated. Why do people resist changes that make them safer, who knows.

Even the job of a recruiter stinks. You have so many people seeking the same job and often times you'll hear situations that will make you want to hire someone unqualified for a job out of empathy. So, you just avoid those peoples' phone calls or tell them no. The other part of the time managers are raining down on you because it is really hard to find qualified employees.

Next time you think about seeking a job in HR think about the need to decide whether or not the companies survival is more important than the jobs of 500 employees and their families. If your lucky the solution will be cutting out their health insurance. Don't fall for the HR myth decide to get educated in a field where you'll make more money and be appreciated. Once you make your money help people all you want just don't dilute your professional ambitions with these notions.

Tax Professionals vs Tax Software

Well this isn't a major dilemma. Why would you choose to use a tax professional over tax software. Honestly, I can't see a reason that you should. You may even want to just do your taxes yourself. The directions are relatively straightforward, that is if you have the attention span to stick with them.

I personally do not do my own taxes and I am an account. I take my taxes to my aunt who uses TurboTax, and she does them for me. I pay her $30 bucks and I am on my way. I just hate doing taxes. I took two tax classes in college in they were the two most painfully excruciating classes I had to endure. As an accountant I have been ruined when it comes to those classes. It is like being asked to pet the dog who just bit me. Really, the only time you should consider a tax professional is if you earn quite a bit of money, and you have quite a few perks that come with your job. Yes those can be taxable.

For instance, if you are on the Runzheimer plan at your company. Typically, you would be a sales guy. Then if you don't drive a certain amount of miles per year you may have to claim a portion of the cost as taxable income. If you drive over a certain amount of miles namely 30,000 you have a tax asset had the end of the year. In laymen terms you get a deduction.

If you are like most people, and have basic circumstances stay at home purchase the software and just answer the basic questions you are asked. Make sure to answer them honestly, don't think of ways to answer questions that are advantageous. Tax software is also being created to handle more and more complex problems. It is amazing that they are still able to achieve the better results than many of the tax preparers out there. Remember many of the people at H&R Block are making $7.00 an hour. They are just running numbers through a program.

At the end of the day tax software is being used either way. You can run it for your business or do your individual return. Again, unless you have a complicated corporate structure or partnership you don't need a professional. If you are filing a personal return you should be good, possibly even if you are on the Runzheimer. I've never had to deal with this type of situation. Hopefully, throughout my career I can stay away from taxes as much as possible.

These are two tax software options I recommend:



Hit up each site review the features and figure out which software you prefer. Both software really lay out the information in a user friendly way. Besides you do you taxes in your underwear and don't take the shit from some hourly so called tax professional. If you don't need a CPA you can take care of your taxes using these options. In college I used TurboTax to file a return for a corporation including AMT and for a two different types of partnerships. I got an 80% on the partnership returns and a 97% on the corporate return. I kind of did the return for the partnership the day I had class. Fortunately, it was a night class.

Diet Without the Cost

By Sean Anderson

I have lost thirty-five pounds in a little over a month. It wasn't easy, but I changed my eating habits. I am a young male who at a recent health screening was told that I was abnormally unhealthy for my age. I was 6'3" and weighed 245 lbs. I didn't think that was that bad, I wanted to lose some weight but most friends told me I shouldn't worry. Then came the dread day of the health screening. I was told I had really high cholesterol, and I was prompted to change my lifestyle.

I began by reading Harvey Diamond's book Fit For Life (new it cost less than $10), which I got from some of my super fit friends. Well I also decided, after some research on the Internet, that cholesterol comes from animals and decided I wouldn't eat them anymore. I basically, became a vegetarian with the exception of fish. I have already successfully lowered my cholesterol and I am 20 pounds away from achieving my goal of 185 pounds. Well I have been successful, so you should ask yourself, "Well what did he do?"

I am going to answer that for free. I basically, followed the Fit for Life principles. The way in which we eat foods is very important. Foods should be eaten raw as often as possible and they should be combined with other non-conflicting foods.

The idea behind eating food raw is that any man induced change is considered processing. This alters they make up of food, and it becomes less usable to the body. The body in turn spends time coping with things that shouldn't be in you and begins to store fat to handle the extra work load. For instance, once vegetables are cooked above 120 degrees enzymes become misshapen and the body can no longer combine with them. Enzymes are like puzzle pieces so if they are not the right fit they can't be used. This doesn't mean don't eat bread and other foods you might enjoy like pizza just limit your consumption of these types of foods.  My Aunt follows the diet during the week and does what she wants during the weekend.  Oddly she finds that she splurges less and less on the weekend.

Another, little tidbit related to eating raw can come through reasoning. The world is over 70% water, your body is made up of over 70% water so wouldn't it go to reason that your meals should consist of high water content foods like fruits and vegetables. For instance, if you decide to eat a 6 ounce steak wouldn't it be wise to eat that with a large salad.

The next major principle is food combining. This principle is a result of they way your body digests food, the amount of time it takes to digest food, and the natural daily cycle of the body.

The digestion of food is important because this gives us a guide of what foods don't belong in the stomach at the same time. This one is really easy don't mix starches (aka carbohydrates) with proteins. Simply, because starches need alkaline in order for digestion and proteins are digested when the stomach emits acid. If the two are mixed they neutralize each other and it delays the digestion process. Basically, causing the body to be inefficient and inefficiency results in fat storage. Plant products become starches when they are cooked. So, don't eat a hamburger patty in the same sitting as a hamburger bun.

Things get a little bit more complicated here. I will start with the time breakdown of all meals. Fruit is in the stomach thirty minutes, vegetables an hour, starches three hours, proteins four hours and improperly combined meals are in your stomach eight hours. The problem is that when certain foods are in your stomach too long they spoil and create a toxic environment for your body, which results in fat.

To keep this simple don't eat fruit within the time frame that foods are still in your stomach. Fruit is the most likely to spoil and create problems. So don't eat fruit for an hour after vegetables or eight hours if you've combined a meal improperly. Eat fruit by itself. Vegetables and neutral foods that are naturally starches and proteins (examples are beans and soy) can be eaten with either are starch or protein meal.

This principle is not entirely set in stone tomatoes and avocados are two fruits that can be eaten with starches and vegetables. Bananas should be eaten separately from all other fruits, but failure to do so isn't that damaging. It is one of the key principles.

Now we turn to the natural cycle of the body. The body rotates three digestion functions that adjust to your sleeping habits. They are digestion, absorption and expulsion. For a normal person digestion begins at about noon, then absorption after eight at night and expulsion after you wake up to noon. If your not awake during the expulsion process have fun cleaning your sheets. This means in the morning you should only eat fruit, and at night you should end up eating your heavy meals containing starch or protein. For lunch have a salad.

You'll notice that you'll be hungry if you eat according to this pattern. Simply, keep fruit and vegetables around and do a lot of snacking.

In addition, to these principles I avoid high fructose corn syrup, mono sodium glutamate and vinegar (Fit For Life idea) at all costs. I also, drink as much water as possible. I probably, average close to 100 ounces of water a day. Harvey Diamond suggests distilled water, but I am personally not incredibly picky.

I suggest buying the book, using will power and adopting a mentor. At the time I watched Ultimate Fighter and chose Mac Danzig a Vegan as inspiration. He ended up beating a cattle or dairy farmer to take first place in the show. I might be a Vegan one day, I have serious concern for what would happen to animals without an economic use. If you can't succeed doing this give up and be happy with who you are. I do guarantee the result and increase in energy will make you a happier person, but don't let a weight problem make you depressed. Always focus on happiness.


Do a search for Fit For Life to buy the book now.

Finding Success in Business

By Sean Anderson

A lot of people give advice about how to run a successful business. I tend to think of business from an accounting perspective. You need to have controls and know something about the financial picture of the company. Then again, there are a lot of morons out there that just seem to be lucky. They don't have any controls in place and(or) know anything about accounting.

A lot of people say that if you love what you are doing you will be a successful business owner. This is where we start to get on track a little. If you explore this further you'll find that there are a lot of people who are successful business owner that absolutely hate what they are doing.

The key is balanced obsession. Sometimes people aren't even obsessed about the business they are running. We've all heard of the crazy CEO who likes to base jump among other things. In the end of the day they run a successful business because that is what supports their obsession.

Obsession can bring out many traits key to business. For instance, organization. Organization is the foundation of some accounting and legal firms. Businesses seek out these entities due to their ability to keep track of every detail. At the same time that is their business. If manufacturing companies were to do this inefficiency occurs, and the business would eventually succumb to costs.

This is why balance becomes important. Balance is created by the management of obsession. Obsessing about lowering costs or anything else for that matter becomes a problem when it interferes with other parts of the business. Having balanced obsession is essential. You yourself should be obsessing about the essential elements to the business as they become relevant. If you lack the skills or drive needed assign someone else to the problem.



For instance, the morons I spoke of earlier typically have a well equipped accountants. They are obsessive about their clients and accounting. As long as you, an employee or an agency is obsessing about issues vital to your business you will be successful 50% of the time. Hey, if I could give some advice that ensured success I would be charging for this information.

Getting to the Interview

By Sean Anderson

I am an accountant. What can we gather from this statement. Well I am not uniquely creative, expressive or artistic. Even my writing style you can tell that I am bland. My job is to put numbers on a page to convey a meaning. I don't spend time formatting reports beyond standards set forth by accounting.  Other accountants understand this but you first have to get your resume in front of managers and executives. The first step to getting an interview is your resume and the means getting past the human resources hacks.

I loathe the HR department they're just a pack of freaking hippies. In many companies the resume hits their desk first and then they relay it to the accounting managers if they believe it has potential. They naturally don't analyze the resume the same way my pals in accounting would so your resume has to appeal to different types of people.  When deciding how to prepare your resume analyze yourself.  Should you be the one writing, is someone else better able to sell you?  These are question you should be asking.

I figured this out, and had friends from school help me with my resume out of college. In later job searches I turned to professional resume writers. I've done this because my sole goal is to minimize the remaining amount of time at my current job. I have had jobs were I have just wanted out, and if find yourself without a job you really need to take advantage of opportunities.

There are some people who have skills to write great resumes, others don't have those skills. When getting an interview focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses. This is the best way to maximize your potential. You are your own business and you are the goods being sold.

My personal strength is managing where I've applied and contacting companies. I put excel spreadsheets together that tell me where I've applied and when I should follow up. When to send thank you letters and takeaways from interviews I have had.


Everything works together when searching for a job but the core of your job search is your resume. If writing and designing a resume isn't your strength outsource the process. There are plenty of places, and it isn't inexpensive in relation to the amount of time spent sending out a poor resume that doesn't attract responses.

Subprime Lending Placing the Blame

By Sean Anderson

A lot of CEO's, CFO's and whole companies have been blamed for being a part of the sub prime lending problem. People have had their homes foreclosed upon by banks and the market has suffered as whole. The real culprit of the sub prime problem has skated by un-blamed and has not suffered any consequences. Who should be sharing in the suffering? Well it should be the two bond rating companies Moody and Fitch. They pass judgement on the quality of bonds and they gave the bundled sub prime mortgages a much higher rating than they deserved.

This in turn caused pressure to be placed on investing groups to seek the higher returns being offered by bonds that were perceived to have a lower level of risk due to Moody's and Fitch. The criteria for making decisions was flawed and so became the market. Mortgage lenders kept writing sub prime loans, because they were seen as good investments by funds and financial investors like CitiGroup.

The good ratings given by Moody's and Fitch sent a signal to sub prime lenders that the fraudulent activity of writing and packaging mortgages to undeserving lenders was acceptable. Moody's and Fitch provided the environment to make this possible. This does not mean that banks did not consciously ignore sound lending practices in making decisions. It does not take a lot of skill to see whether someone will be able to barely make the mortgage payment. If they are working overtime and decide to stop it is easy to tell they won't be able to make they payment. It is easy to tell that given the conditions of the loan are based as an ARM when the interest goes up and the payment becomes three-hundred or more per month that the borrower is not going to be able to make the payment.

At the end of the day everyone could have used better judgement. Moody and Fitch put into place ratings that disguised this practice. They covered up the problem and the ratings caused investor to gravitate toward a problem. They set the trap and now we're caught.

Debits Credits and The Accouting Equation

Why is accounting so powerful? It is because it is all based off of one simple accounting equation:

Assets-Liabilities-Stockholder's Equity = 0

Assets = Liabilities + Stockholder's Equity

Stockholder's Equity = Assets - Liabilities

Liabilities = Asset - Stockholder's Equity

Yes, all of these are one simple equation. Just a bunch of different variations, to say the same thing. Always in balance, always able to provide information. The accounting equation is able to provide tons of information. By breaking this equation out further accountants, financial analysts and banks come up with more complex ways to evaluate a company. For instance assets can be broken into current assets and long term assets. By breaking up key information the ability to to evaluate key financial measures like liquidity is extended. Liquidity ratios answer a simple question, "Does X Company have enough money to pay the bills?" A simple but vital question financial statements answer.

Now that you understand the power of the equation let's discuss debits and credits. To understand debits and credits focus on the equation when it is stated:

Assets - Liabilities - Stockholder's Equity = 0

Debit and credits ensure that the equation is always in balance. Most people think of a debit and credit as a positive or a negative a left or right. Before you know it your lefts and rights are all mixed up and you find yourself in a tangled mess. They are just two opposites that offset each other when on the same side of the equation. Debit and credit must always equal each other. This creates the balance, it is that simple. They allow the parts of the equation to change but the ultimate outcome is always zero.

Zero serves the function of a check figure. A credit always offset a debit creating no net affect. That is it. The numbers change but the balance remains. This dichotomy is how we keep track of the changes occurring in our business's financial picture. This whole process is referred to as dual entry accounting.

People generally get confused over a little accounting trick. Basically, it is how we develop an income statement. All accounting information is used to effect the balance sheet. The income statement is created by separating a portion of the entries into income and expense accounts. Since, the offsetting side to these accounts usually have an effect on an asset or liability. The culmination of these income sources and expenses are collected in retained earning at the end of the accounting period. The whole time being offset by assets and liabilities. The balance sheet account that collects the income and expense are often called current year retained earning which is equal to your net income and comprise the P&L.  So to summarize expense and income accounts are just a breakout of current year retained earnings.

This allows for balance and difference to co-exist. Obviously, you want to be able to tell what you've earned so take expenses from income and that positive number (hopefully) leftover is your profit. If your not running the business efficiently that negative number is the loss.  At the end of the day the credit to income eventually turns into a credit to retained earnings increasing what the owner's percentage of the balance sheet.

Bring accounting down to the level of simple concepts. Accounting is the documentation of a transaction that is it, don't over complicate the process.