Accounting is a profession that is plagued by horrendous stereotypes and accountants are never seen to be the life of the party. Thankfully, they tend to have a sense of humour about it. We’ve put together a selection of accounting gags to brighten up your Friday and perhaps give you something better to use as an icebreaker when you’ve got to go up and present those numbers. Please let us put the “extroverted accountant looking at your shoes” line and the polite twittering that goes with it out to pasture.
A young accountant spends a week at his new office with the retiring professional he is replacing. Each morning, as the more experienced accountant begins the day, he opens his desk drawer, takes out a worn envelope, removes a yellowing sheet of paper, reads it, nods his head, looks around the room with renewed vigor, returns the envelope to the drawer, and then begins his day's work. After his veteran colleague retires, the new accountant can hardly wait to read for himself the message contained in the envelope. Surely, he thinks to himself, it must contain the great secret to his mentor's success, a wondrous treasure of inspiration and motivation. His fingers tremble anxiously as he removes the mysterious envelope from the drawer and reads the following message: "Debits in the column toward the file cabinet. Credits in the column toward the window."
An accountant is having a hard time sleeping and goes to see his doctor. "Doctor, I just can't get to sleep at night," he says. "Have you tried counting sheep?" inquires the doctor. "That's the problem - I make a mistake and then spend three hours trying to find it."
An accountant goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner shows him three birds on a perch and says, "The parrot on the left costs R500." "Why does that parrot cost so much?" asks the accountant. "Well," replies the owner, "it knows how to do complex audits." "How much does the middle parrot cost?" asks the accountant. "That one costs R1 000 because it can do everything the first one can do, plus it knows how to prepare financial forecasts." The startled accountant asks about the third parrot, to be told it costs $4 000. Needless to say, this begs the question, "What can it do?" to which the owner replies "To be honest, I've never seen him do a darn thing, but the other two call him Senior Partner."
A lady goes to see her doctor with some very worrisome symptoms. After examining her, he says, "I'm terribly sorry to tell you this, but you only have six months to live." The lady is very distraught, "Oh doctor, what should I do?", she asks. The doctor says: "I advise you to marry a chartered accountant." "Will that make me live longer?", she asks, hopefully. "No, " says the doctor. "But it will seem longer."
Accountant after reading a nursery rhyme to his child: "No, son. It wouldn't be tax deductible when Little Bo Peep loses her sheep. But I like your thinking."
