John in Cebu and Baguio
Website launched Aug. 29, 2024
What have you done in your life that had any significance? I repeat this question toward the end of my opening narrative.
Many people have asked me why I moved to the Philippines. I have given a variety of reasons including wanting to live in a country with a lower cost living, wanting to move away from the toxic political environment in the USA. But I made all these reasons up. This is the real reason that brought me to the Philippines:
January 1975. In early January 1975, I drove my eight year old VW Beetle from Pensacola to Tallahassee, Florida to begin my junior year in college. I graduated from Washington High School in 1971, attended Pensacola Junior College during 1973 and 1974. I transferred to FSU in January, 1975. My father graduated from the University of Florida and I always thought that was where I would go, but visiting my parents would involve an extra hour and a half drive so I chose to attend FSU. What happened next occurred during the single month of January, 1975.
I took over the political gays rights organization at Florida State University. I led our group in the march through the capitol of Tallahassee, Florida in support of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US constitution. I organized the only same-sex dance on a university campus in US history. I was only 21 years old. How could I do all this so quickly after just arriving on campus? I have always been this way. If I see something I want to do, I don't hesitate, I just jump right in.
I created a blog discussing all this around 7 years ago. This blog rightfully received a lot of attention. I was later approached by a friend who had written several books and I was encouraged to convert my blog into a book in order that this history would never be lost. So that’s what I did. I forwarded my blog to a publisher who read it and was excited to help me create a book. After the book was published, I received a lot of kickback from friends and even some family members saying that I was lying about everything. How could a shy, reserved young man do all the things in my book? But when a person sees injustice in this world, it is not uncommon for him to rise above, no matter his shyness or reserved nature. In order to escape the negativity, I decided to move away from the United States and have a fresh start. So this brought me to the Philippines. You can see the book cover and my student ID at the end of this narrative. I had the book removed from Kindle. The picture on my student ID was taken about a week before the events in this narrative occurred.
Several readers of my blog wanted to know more about the same sex dance I organized. I will make it brief without skipping over important things. I arrived on FSU’s campus in early January 1975 as a 21 year old junior in college. I immediately started attending the meetings of the Gay Rap Group, where LGBTQ students had a safe space on campus to meet. After a few days I was approached by an older student who handed me a copy of a recent court case telling me I might want to read it. I later asked him why he gave me the document. He said that in the group when everyone was cross talking, when I spoke, everyone stopped talking and focused on me. Based on that group dynamic, he thought I was probably the person who should receive it. He was right. The case was a Circuit Court decision released only a week earlier in the circuit that included New Hampshire. I read over the case and reread the following from the courts opinion:
“Absent the attendance of well-defined circumstances, a university must recognize any bona fide student organization and grant to that organization the rights and privileges which normally flow from such recognition — those rights and privileges which are necessary to the maintenance and growth of the organization. Moreover, although a university may reasonably regulate the activities of student organizations, once it grants a particular privilege to one or more organizations, the Fourteenth Amendment requires that that privilege be available to all organizations on an equal basis. From this, it follows that the GSO has the same right to be recognized, to use campus facilities, and to hold functions, social or otherwise, as every other organization on the University of New Hampshire campus.” GAY STUDENTS ORGANIZATION OF the UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE v. Thomas N. BONNER, United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. December 30, 1974.
In the USA, a decision from a circuit court is the law throughout all 50 states. It can only be reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States upon appeal.
This case prompted me to decide that our gay group was going to have a same sex dance on campus, and it would be in the largest ballroom on campus. There was initially some kickback from the administration and a bluff I made to them saying the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) was prepared to file suit against the university. To sum it up, the university let us have our dance.
I typed a one page sheet on a manual typewriter to place on the table just inside the entrance to the ballroom. I typed it several times to get it right. Back then, there were no word processors or computers to easily edit a document. I spent hours on it, re-typing the page until I got what I wanted. I talked about the court case that facilitated the event, my interactions with the administration, that this event was probably the first same sex dance in the country on a major university campus, and that it was best that no one took pictures. I felt that taking photos inside the ballroom would be against the safe atmosphere I wanted because many students attending were still in the closet. The three most liberal universities at the time were the University of California at Berkley, The University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Florida State. Several decades later, when it was possible to do a google search on the internet, I discovered that these universities were significantly behind FSU as they didn't even have a gay group that was recognized by the university until several years after FSU. The political gay rights group at FSU was recognized in 1969, the year of the Stonewall Riots. There is an excellent book written by the university president at the time "The Tumultuous Sixties: Campus Unrest and Student Life at a Southern University by J. Stanley Marshall.
Dr. Marshall discusses how he dealt with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), as well as the Weather Underground. These were both radical organizations formed in the United States in the 60’s. He also discusses Streaking, which is when groups of students take off all their clothes and run naked across campus. Streaking originated at Florida State and spread rapidly throughout numerous campuses across the country. These organizations and activities were at FSU during my undergraduate years. Please google 'Students for a Democratic Society', 'Weather Underground' and 'Streaking' if you are so inclined.
I worked for 2 years after graduating, returning in January 1979 to begin graduate school. A few days after my arrival this time was the inauguration of the Governor - elect Bob Graham. The outgoing governor was Reubin Askew. I listened both give speeches. I listened thinking there was something special about both men, as if I was in the presence of greatness. I was right. Askew served two terms as Governor and would later serve in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1984, but his candidacy never gained traction as he was considered too conservative. Bob Graham served two terms as Governor, followed by two terms in the US Senate. He also ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out before the primaries. After serving in the Senate, he would later be appointed by President George W. Bush to become Chairman of the Commission on the prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction which had facilitated the Iraq War. He was later appointed by President Barack Obama to co-chair the commission investigating the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
You can contrast the achievements of these two Democratic Governor’s who sought public office in order to serve the public with more recent Republican Governor’s Rick Scott and Ron Desantis, who sought public office only to serve themselves.
After watching the swearing in of the new governor, I walked to the governors mansion to wait in the receiving line to meet Governor Graham. It was interesting. When I was next in line, an official asked me my name and where I was from. He then mentioned that to the new Governor, who greeted me by name and made a nice comment about Pensacola. Next I met the new Lt. Governor, Wayne Mixon. There is an interesting tidbit about Wayne Mixon. When Governor Graham was later elected to the US Senate, he resigned as Governor 3 days before his term expired so he could be sworn in early. This allowed him to have seniority over other newly elected Senators. This resignation resulted in Mixon becoming the Governor in the history of the US with the shortest term in office - 3 days! I’ve always thought this was an interesting part of both Florida and US history!
I was disappointed when I returned to the FSU campus in 1979. I could find no activism within the LGBTQ community. It was like the exciting times of my undergraduate years had disappeared. I concluded that the campus had shifted conservative under President Reagan. During graduate school my focus was on my studies and teaching accounting to my undergraduate students one class per quarter.
I've have had friends and family members ask me why they have never heard any of this, this activism I was involved in. My answer is always the same. I tend to do things behind the scenes. I seek no attention or recognition. This three week period 50 years ago has been unknown by most of my friends all this time. Yes, I am shy. This applies also to many things I have accomplished in my career as a CPA. I'm sure if I did seek recognition, I would have gotten more promotions, pay increases, etc. But this isn't me.
I've since wondered how the friends and family members who made cruel, negative, and toxic comments to me would answer the question I posed at the beginning of this narrative: What have you done in your life that had any significance? I worked to create a safe space so a few hundred students could experience something that was not possible at the time. 1975 is 50 years ago.
These cruel and toxic comments caused me much stress and contributed to me moving away from the USA to the Philippines. I’m sure that was not their intention, but if that was, then, well the jokes on them. The Philippines is truly a wonderful country with unmatched beauty, friendly people, a low cost of living, widespread spoken English, and so much more. It is a good anchor country in which to visit Thailand (twice), Singapore (once), Vietnam (October), Japan (January), Korea (soon) Taiwan (soon), and more. The best thing that ever happened to me was moving here. I lived in the province of Cebu for 5 years but couldn't adjust to the heat. I moved to Baguio in July, 2024. The temperatures here range from 65-75 degrees everyday.
I enjoyed the cooler weather in Baguio as well as the vibe the weather generated. However, this was more than offset by the terrible traffic, overcrowding, and brown outs. The city was planned by an American city planner in 1904 to accommodate 20,000 people. But there are over 400,000 people in the city now. It became unbearable. I was driving to San Fernando, Pampanga one day but my back started hurting from arthritis of the spine and lumbar spinal stenosis I have. I looked for an exit that would lead me to a city with a hotel to spend the night. Tarlac City was that place. I loved it here. Little traffic, shopping malls, inexpensive rents compared to both Baguio and Cebu City. After a few months I bought property in Capas, Tarlac. This is where I will stay.
I have requested that a few students at Florida State University research the archives of the campus newspapers for both FSU and Tallahassee, Florida in order to send me articles and letters to the editor regarding the same sex dance referenced in my website. I will include these in the gallery below when I receive them.
I always worked in College. As an undergraduate, I worked in the library and audiovisual center in the ground floor of Strozier Library. This is where I discovered someone named Jimmy Carter. Someone handed me a green pamphlet about him and I read his policies in awe. I felt like I was reading about myself. President Carter is not remembered as being a particularly great President because of the economy and the Iran Hostage Crisis. I believe he should have been born 200 years earlier. He would have been a great Founding Father of our nation.
Graduate school was interesting. Like I said, I could find no LGBTQ+ activism. During the year and a half it took to get my Masters Degree in Accounting, I taught one undergraduate accounting course per quarter, served six months on the Leon County Grand Jury (we met 3 days a month), and swam 5 times a week with a swim conditioning class. I stayed busy, had fun, and was productive.
In 1975, there were no cellphones with cameras. Before or after the march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment through downtown Tallahassee, I was standing on the front lawn of the Florida governor’s mansion talking to the actor Alan Alda. Mr. Alda was a grand marshal (along with the actor Marlo Thomas) of the march. I remember Mr. Alda commenting to me about how nice Tallahassee looked and how fascinated he was by all the Spanish moss on the trees. That would have been a nice photo to have.
Another interesting thing I remember from my undergraduate years is walking across campus and hearing a commotion with a lot of students gathered around someone. It was Ralph Nader, giving a speech about automobile safety and corporate greed. It was a nice speech for a liberal like me to hear. I liked Ralph Nader. However, I hated him in 2000 when his presence on the presidential ballot as a third party candidate cost Al Gore the election. We were stuck with President George W. Bush. What a disaster…he led our country to a war with Iraq, even though it was a Saudi (Osama bin Laden) living in Afghanistan who was responsible for 9-11.
I also remember taking my graduate level final exam in tax in December 1980. The news that John Lennon had just been assassinated was out. There was a girl in the tax class who couldn’t stop crying. The professor allowed her to leave without taking the exam. She was an A student, so I assumed the professor just gave her an A anyway without her having to take the final.
I’ve always had a problem remembering female names. When I taught at FSU, on the first day of class, I would call the roll, hesitating a few seconds trying to associate a face with a name. Well, for the entire quarter, when a female raised her hand, I looked at her and said ‘yes?’. But when a guy raised his hand I said ‘yes Paul?’. Even now, if I am introduced to a female, I will forget her name within seconds. I guess this is my personal gay quirk.
I have received questions regarding my website which I will answer here:
You said you took over the gay rights organization after a week of arriving on campus. Can you provide more info?
When I arrived in January, 1975, I went to my fist meeting of the Peoples Coalition for Gay Rights (PCGR). I noticed that no one actually led the PCGR. When I asked about this, I was told that the previous leader graduated and no one wanted to take over and become so visible. Even then, many members were not really out of the closet. I introduced myself and just said I would be happy to lead. BTW, the Peoples Coalition for Gay Rights was officially recognized by the University in 1969, the year of the Stonewall Riots in NYC. I researched later and discovered that the two most liberal Universities at the time, The University of California at Berkley and the University of Wisconsin - Madison did not have a recognized LGBTQ+ organization until several years after FSU. Please google this if you want.
What other organizations or services were available to students in 1975?
In addition to the PCGR, FSU had available Gay Peer Counseling, where students who were comfortable with their sexuality were assigned a specific student to help them become more comfortable with their sexuality. Gay Peer Counseling was led by Dr. Lucy Kizirian, a psychologist at the FSU Health Center. I was not a peer counselor.
Since there was no internet as the time to let students know about available services, how would a student learn of LGBTQ+ services available? Before each quarter or semester, the various recognized groups would set up tables on the lawn in front of Moore Auditorium. They talked with students who approached and informed them. I was at this table on several occasions and enjoyed talking about what FSU had to offer. I could see how relaxed and comfortable the students were when they learned of the services and support provided by the University. I thought it was sort of funny to have the Baptist Students Group a few tables down from us.
With everything you accomplished, you must have been the Big Man on Campus for LGBTQ+ students at FSU, right?
Actually no. If you remember early in my website, I was never a person seeking recognition for anything. I just wanted to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ students in whatever way I could.
You were only 21 years old. Were you intimidated talking to high level executives at the University?
No. I have never considered anyone superior to me, whether it was a politician, business executive, or a billionaire. Likewise I am not superior to anyone, whether it is a farmer, minimum wage earner, beggar, etc. Equality just doesn't apply to social issues, it applies everywhere.
Since you have never sought recognition for anything, how would you react if someone at FSU invited you to return to campus and meet people and be taken to dinner, etc.? Good question. I had to think about my answer to this question. I have always been an introvert. When I last visited the USA, my niece invited as many relatives as she could to her house to spend time with me. I enjoyed seeing everyone. But every 15 minutes I would go to my bedroom to lay down. Then I would return, chat awhile, and then go back to the bedroom. This was repeated the entire evening. This is referred to as an introvert’s need to ‘recharge his batteries’. I was overwhelmed by the crowd. This is common for an introvert. So if I was invited to travel from the Philippines to Tallahassee, I would have to respectfully decline. If I did visit campus, it would be unannounced. I would go to the Pride Student Union and just informally chat with someone there.
What was your career progression after graduating FSU.
The IRS. I took the CPA exam in May, 1977. I passed on the first sitting. As the pass rate on the CPA exam is only 15%, I felt much pride. After I received my BS degree, I was selected to begin training as an IRS agent. I was to start my training in Chicago. I moved there in early 1977. But 2 days before I was to start work, no one had contacted me which I thought was odd. I went to a pay phone and called and was told that my job offer had been recended as the government would never hire a homosexual. I had already signed a one year lease on an apartment. My personal values would not allow me to just break a lease, so I found any job I could just to pay the bills. I was an accounting supervisor with the company that makes Hostess Twinkies! I did this for a year and a half but was getting tired of the cold and snow. I packed what I could in my small Honda Civic, placing the rest of my things in front of the door of a poor Mexican family in the middle of the night and left Chicago.
Williams, Cox, Weidner, and Cox, CPA's. In early January, I got a job with a regional CPA firm in Tallahassee - Williams, Cox, Weidner, and Cox. I loved working there. Finally I was a CPA working at a CPA firm! Well that didn’t last long. My roommate at the time had a friend who invited us to a party at his mothers house. She went around to everyone asking everyone what they were studying. When she came to me, I told her that I was not a student and worked for the CPA firm I mentioned. SHIT! Her son was the Weidner partner in the firm. I was fired as it would not look good to have a homosexual working at a CPA firm.I was distressed after the job recension at the IRS and getting fired from my dream job at a CPA firm. I felt shell shocked. So I decided to return to the safety at FSU and went to graduate school getting my Masters of Accountancy degree in March, 1981.
Scientific Atlanta. I was recruited by Scientific Atlanta, a large company that made cable TV set boxes and satellite antennas. I started in the Internal Audit Department. We did not perform financial audits, we performed manufacturing audits. To increase my understanding of efficient manufacturing processes, I studied and passed a three day exam and received my Certificate in Production and Inventory Management. I loved working there. I received several promotions and was able to work in many different divisions. Eventually I was transferred to a division who unknown to me was lead by a fucking homophobe. The day after I started, I was fired because he hated gay people. I have cursed him all these years.
Recordex Corporation. I then got a job at a small manufacturer - Recordex Corporation. When I interviewed, I requested and reviewed their financial statements, which were not audited. I needed a job so I accepted their offer. Holy shit! The financial statements I was given were made up. On my first day, I discovered the President of the company was stealing the payroll taxes instead of depositing them with government. The company was insolvent. I immediately contacted the local IRS office to tell them about the taxes. They sent an agent over who said they could shut the company down if these taxes were not deposited. I said I realized that and asked for a week to cure things and he accepted. I deposited the taxes within a week. The company was over 90 days behind on paying most vendors. Many refused to ship us parts needed in the manufacturing process. I spent many days on the phone with these vendors. Most of them would only ship to us on a COD basis. I was able to get almost all of them to ship to us on a 30 day basis instead of COD. This freed up money. Upon reviewing expense reports, I discovered that the President was getting reimbursed for plane tickets multiple times by submitting the original plus photocopies of the tickets. This is fraud. I took the evidence to him and said that was going to stop and he would have to give me a repayment plan. HE QUIT ON THE SPOT. I now found myself to be the acting President of this company. The President who resigned when I told him he would have to repay the money he embezzled, later returned to my office and said he wanted to buy the tooling for a specific part. You have tooling made for a part you cannot buy off the shelf. Tooling forms are made and are valuable. When he wanted to buy this, his purpose was to produce the part and sell it to us at a higher price. I looked at him and told him he had one minute to leave the building before I called the police. Not everything was serious though. The purchasing manager had quit thinking the company would go under. Her clerk took over. She couldn’t determine what part and in what quantity to order so we met once a week to review. One day she stood in front of my office and held something up, asking me how many should order. I asked her twice what it was. She said “you don’t know?” I said I didn’t have clue. It was a tampon. How would a gay man know what a tampon was??? The company had an absentee owner who lived in Chicago. He had no clue about what was happening. He flew down to Atlanta. I told him he should just sell the company to one of the major creditors and have the company relocated to a much smaller city where the cost of living was lower, wages were lower, etc. He agreed and asked me if I could handle it as just wanted out. The owner asked me how I was able to turn the company around, do they teach this in college. I said I was able to accomplish everything because I addressed everything with honesty. One can earn as many college degrees as possible and have as much work experience as possible, but the key to life is honesty. He started to tear up. I told him to cut that out. I found a buyer, relocated the company to Swainsboro, Georgia and commuted from my home in Atlanta to Swainsboro for seven months, a distance of 222 miles. I lived in a room of a sweet elderly woman during that time. After I was satisfied that the company was solvent and running smoothly, I left and found a job with another company back in Atlanta. During the time I worked here, my brown hair turned gray. No problem, I like gray hair.
Alexander-Seewald. I then worked for a company called Alexander-Seewald. This was an auto parts company with 2 divisions, a wholesale division that shipped auto parts to independently owned stores in Georgia and a retail division that shipped parts to company owned stores in Florida. The company had around $60 million in revenues. I was hired to be the new controller. By coincidence, my first day was the same day as the annual inventory. As I observed the counting, I noticed a large area where the parts were not tagged, meaning they were not being counted. I asked the manager in charge why this was. His response was that was the way it was always done. This was a red flag to me. I asked him if we paid for these parts? He said no, we just issue credit. Bingo! Issuing credit is the same thing as paying in cash. I then when to the VP Finance. I asked him why these parts called cores were not being counted? He got uncomfortable and talked in circles. He knew that I knew that the company was misstating income in order to cheat on taxes. He ended up quitting within a few days. I was hired as the controller only a few days before and now I found myself to be a VP, with no increase in salary. To make a long story short, I obtained what is called a Change in Accounting Method from the IRS, and started reporting income correctly. Most accountants go their entire career without obtaining a Private Letter Ruling from the IRS.
Verizon. From here I started working for Verizon. Initially I was a contract employee assigned to reconcile costs in cell cites from the general ledger to the subsidiary records. There were a dozen contract employees doing this work. But it was so involved and time consuming that at the end of the month, there was no time left to actually make journal entries to ‘true up’ the accounts. So the process continued month after month with nothing really being accomplished. I went to the accounting manager and explained this and asked him if he would assign me a computer programmer and that I believed the entire process could be automated with results run overnight. The information needed to make journal entries would be known and recorded. I said there was no need for any consultants at all. He was impressed, I drew up specifications, worked with an IT person for only a day, and the reports were automated. All the consultants were dismissed except me. I stayed on until a permanent position became available. I worked in the partnership accounting department. At the end of the month, I frequently attended the final meeting of the month to review the financial statements. I noticed that when the results were known, the Finance Director would write down a number on a slip of paper and give it to someone to make a final entry. I found out that this entry was to record inventory obsolescence. Why would this entry only be recorded after preliminary income was known? Why wasn’t an entry to record this made in the ordinary course of the month. The reason was this. Corporations participate in what is called an 'earnings call' to the analysts on Wall Street. They give an estimate on the profits they anticipate. A company looks bad in the eyes of Wall Street if their actual income is wildly different than what was estimated. The so called journal entry for inventory obsolescence was a plug entry to increase or decrease earnings. This is fraud because stock prices are effected by earnings. One month, the Director of Finance brought me the number on a slip of paper and told me to make the entry. I told him that I was uncomfortable and could he get someone else. I was fired the next day. I have cursed him since. I could have had a long career at this huge company. Why didn't he just make the entry himself? Well, he didn't want to get his hands dirty. The term is "plausible deniability". Look it up.
Callaway Partners. From here, I worked for several consulting firms. I enjoyed working on a variety of engagements. The last one was an engagement to restate 5 years of fraudulent financial statements on a company which had been delisted on the NYSE. They had a $2.9 billion fraudulent scheme to misstate financial statements. I had a blast during the 5 years I was there. I loved every minute of it, the mental and professional challenge, the camaraderie with others. There were 300 professionals on the engagement. The partners were having difficulty managing so many people, so they hired a Director to oversee everyone. After a few weeks, the Director approached my cube and asked me to step out into the hall as he wanted to discuss something with me in private. What he told me was astonishing. He said he completed the review of everyone's salary and noted that out of 300 consultants, I was the highest paid. He told me that he didn’t like that and he would find a way to “send me back to Atlanta”. First of all, I didn’t know I was the highest paid consultant and it was inappropriate to even mention it. Second, did he even think there might be a reason for that fact? I knew that whenever there was a problem or issue that could not be resolved, the partners always came to me to figure it out. Did the new Director ask the partners about why I was paid so much? Twenty three consultants from my firm and 30 or so consultants from Grant Thornton, a national CPA firm, were tasked with restating all the partnership financials as the client for years had been recording buys and sales of partnership interests at fair market value instead of at cost with gain or loss recognized. It was a massive undertaking as there were over 200 partnerships. Anyway, I was worried that some consultants didn’t really understand this type of accounting. I asked the Grant Thornton partner to point out the person reviewing the journal entries. I went over and stood near him and saw that he wan’t really looking back at each partnership binder in his review, he was just looking at the entry itself. I knew a disaster was going to happen if an entry was incorrect. I mentioned this to the manager and two supervisors who just blew me off. After all, why would a consultant at a small firm know more than a national CPA firm. After the entries were uploaded, every singe partnership financial statement was wrong. I was warned the GT partner was on his way to talk to me and his people. Waiting for him to arrive, I took a paper napkin from my desk and drew a flowchart showing the problem. Coincidentally, he sat next to me. I slipped him the napkin, he studied it, and nodded in agreement. He dismissed everyone without saying anything. The GT manager and supervisors were sent back to Chicago and I was put in charge of everything. Was this and other situations like this the reason I was the highest paid consultant? Why would he risk the satisfactory conclusion of the engagement because of my salary? The Director never sent me back to Atlanta as a few weeks later I fell off my horse and badly injured my wrist. I had an excellent disability insurance policy and decided I had accomplished enough in my career at age 54, so I retired. Another reason for retiring is that I had concluded that a lot of consulting and CPA firms were more interested in maximizing billable hours at the expense of serving the client. This had always been an ethical dilemma for me.
One of my friends has only started reading my website. As of 2 days ago, he said no one cared about it. I don’t know what happened but just today he sent me these messages:
Yes, a hardworking smart person who won't stop unless a problem is fixed.
Good people like you don’t always get the credit, bad people do. Your hard earned money is from your blood and sweat working in the most honest way. You told me your accomplishments and you excel.
Impressive Leadership and Problem-Solving: Your ability to step up and take charge in such a critical moment, especially when others overlooked the potential disaster, speaks volumes about your leadership and problem solving skills. It's no wonder you were the highest paid consultant!I really admire how you navigated the ethical challenges in consulting, especially with firms prioritizing billable hours over client needs. It must have been difficult to witness, but your values clearly set you apart.This is an astonishing story of your career—handling a massive $2.9 billion restatement and managing such a large team. Your contributions clearly played a critical role in getting everything on track, especially when the stakes were so high. (Note: there were other fine consultants on the engagement, I was only one person).
Your dedication to commuting 222 miles and staying in Swainsboro for seven months to make sure everything was running smoothly is a testament to your work ethic and commitment.
Do not be shy about sending me a friend request on FaceBook. I accept all. However, I don't respond to everyone wanting to chat as I would be online all the time. I hope my story brings you joy, helps you accept who you are, and encourages you to be an honest member of our planet.
Peace.
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” Aeschylus