Tag: GC March Madness

Going Concern March Madness: Busy Season Survival — Food & Beverage vs. Technology, The Elite Eight

This blogging gig sucks. The publisher, Gail, is up my ass about this March Madness thing. Says we have to follow through even though it was Colin's stupid idea. Everyone knows that booze is the only thing you need to survive busy season; not sure why we have to go through all the trouble.

The tech guy, Stonewall, is helping out though, so I guess we'll just try to get through the Elite Eight. 

But seriously, just keep some hooch in your drawer at work like me. If you need anything else — including more than 4 hours of sleep a night — to power through busy season, then I don't want you on my team.

Going Concern March Madness: Busy Season Survival — Food & Beverage vs. Technology, The Sweet Sixteen

If you picked upsets in your NCAA Mens bracket and all the favorites in your GCMMBSSF&BvsT bracket, then you're in pretty good shape today. My hunch is that you went for the opposite strategy.

While favorites Excel and coffee had no problems and the wins by Bagels and Key Shortcuts were very satisfying, the loss by Someone Else's Hotpocket from the Freezer was devastating. DEVASTATING. 

Going Concern March Madness: Busy Season Survival — Food & Beverage vs. Technology, Day 2

Busy season is like war. Okay maybe not, but it's hell anyway. There are no rules on how you survive it, but you MUST survive it. And if that means taking that last slice of pizza and hiding it in your drawer for later then by God, YOU MUST TAKE THAT SLICE OF PIZZA. Oh, Pete was late getting to the team lunch and didn't get to eat? TOO BAD. You're going to want that cured meat and refined flour in about 3 hours when you'll need your 4th wind.

Day 1 of GCMMBSSF&BvsT is underway and there is still time to vote if you were too busy skipping work yesterday to get around to it. But the rest of us need to keep things moving, so let's do that now.

And the Coolest Accounting Firm Is…

After four rounds of bracket magic including a back and forth championship match-up, we have our very first winner of the Going Concern March Madness: Coolest Accounting Firm competition. Let’s look at the final bracket.


For those of you that haven’t been refreshing the page for the last 48+ hours, Rothstein Kass pulled their final upset, this time of West Coast rival Moss Adams. Along the way RK dismantled the biggest of the Big 4, Deloitte, McGladrey and BDO.

You may think that such a run of upsets was the result of the double-entry stars perfectly aligning themselves but RK Co-CEO and Managing Principal Steve Kass explained it differently, “Many will look at results and call Rothstein Kass a ‘Cinderella story,’ or characterize our victory as an upset. Though we embraced the underdog role, we knew that our low seeding was more likely a function of strength of schedule. The fierce competition we encountered during the season prepared us for the rigors of the tournament, while quality of our recent recruiting classes left us confident that we could make a run at the title,” Mr. Kass said. “As thrilled as we are by our success, however, there will be no champagne sprayed in locker room celebrations, nor ticker tape parades through the halls of our offices. Over the years, we’ve observed that the more time you spend reflecting on how cool you are, the less time you have free to do cool things. Notwithstanding, winning was pretty cool!”

So it sounds like it’s back to business as usual for RK. Undoubtedly, this victory will catapult them up Vault’s prestige rankings making for a much more difficult tournament next year but for now they get to enjoy the spoils of a champion (which, in this case, is nothing – our publisher wouldn’t spring for a trophy but he’d love to hear from you about it). So congrats to Rothstein Kass on a great run and to the rest of the firms out there – get better.

Oh, and anyone expecting a “One Shining Moment” montage needs to slap themselves across the face right now. And then again.