Uneasy speaking: A path through conversation

By Lea Gray, CPA

Life is awkward. But generally, it is those awkward moments that give the most life lessons. In both work and real life, people are forced to discuss things that they wish could remain unspoken. The conversations that no one wants to have are the most important, whether it be on personal life, someone’s bad breath or career discussions. These conversations may be unwanted, but without them development would be impossible. 

I am not a psychologist, sociologist or anthropologist, so I cannot give technical analysis of conversations and growth based on another person’s research. However, I do have some personal anecdotes that I think are valuable lessons in handling those hard conversations, how I have handled some in my past, and what I could have done better.

My senior year of college, I lived in a townhouse-style on-campus apartment complex with three other roommates. I went to a small college, in the middle of the mountains, surrounded by trees and land, so we spent a lot of time sitting around talking about our dreams, goals and future plans. While these should have stayed upbeat and hopeful conversations, one of my roommates’ favorite ways to turn the conversation was to discuss, in explicit terms, what our biggest flaws were. I do not mean to say that she was trying to get us to think deeply about where we were in life and how we needed to work on ourselves to make our goals, but rather that she would list her perception of each of our flaws and ask us to defend them. 

When these hot seats first began, I felt as though they were a bane to my existence and a reason to avoid my apartment. Who wants someone constantly telling them every single thing wrong with their personality? But after some time, I started to enjoy those conversations. It is not that I enjoy being criticized, but that because the criticisms were meant to be helpful and constructive, it gave me an opportunity to develop a more mature sense of self-awareness. Being open to another person’s perspective of my personality allowed me to better analyze who I am, what I want and how I could achieve those goals. This gave me practice in opening myself to criticism and allowing people with good and helpful intentions to give advice even when I do not necessarily want to hear it.

While I was in college, I interned at a small accounting firm, local to my area, for two years. As a history major, this was a completely different environment for me and is honestly one of the main reasons that I am where I am today. But here, I also learned another valuable lesson in awkward conversations, and this one had the added bonus of being at work. 

In my second year of interning, I was one of four interns, the other three of which had all started that year. This meant that in some ways I was supposed to mentor or teach the others, so the accountants could spend less time on us and more time on their work.

One day early on in busy season, one of the accountants told me my boss, the partner, needed to talk, but to wait until he was done with lunch. I waited nervously for about ten minutes for the impromptu meeting. “We have an issue.” I waited, trying to figure out the best method of apology for whatever problem I must have caused. “One of the other interns smells bad, and you need to deal with it.”

I was dumbfounded. How was I going to tell this poor man, who I had barely spoken to thus far, that he stunk? I was glad I was not in trouble, but I also had no idea how I was supposed to deal with this issue. Most importantly, I was afraid this was a sly way of letting me know that I stank without hurting my feelings. I went to all my friends that night very seriously asking if they ever noticed a bad smell. 

Because I was personally so self-conscious, I decided that mentioning bad smells and the best brands of toothpaste and soap to the other intern would cause him to be aware enough that it would solve all the issues. Eventually the smell did go away. However, looking back now, I realize how I could have handled the situation better. Rather than using innuendo or manipulation, I should have been direct. There are polite and respectful ways to tell people sensitive information, and you should always respect their feelings. Deal with things head on, because the only way for someone to move on or to make necessary changes is if they are aware. Being unsure about what someone is saying only causes distrust and dislike and wastes time.

Finally, I want to share some of what I have learned during my limited career. As I previously wrote, I did not start out to be an accountant. I was a history major and had a job as a tech writer (technically my title was word processor) after college. During my internship, I decided to pursue accounting, but I still took off a year between undergrad and graduate school to work. Though I knew when I started my job that I had been accepted into grad school and would be leaving after the year, I waited far too long to announce it to my coworkers. Of course, I did not wait until the day I was leaving, but we worked on projects that lasted years, so my managers were not just planning how to get through the next couple busy seasons, but deciding how the program would be funded and staffed for sometimes decades. Now, there will always be some give and take in communication at work, but it is also very important to be open and honest with career advisors and managers when decisions affect other people. 

Conversations should be two-way, and real conversations allow differing opinions and perspectives to come together to form growth. Life is the path of the individual, and just like life, sometimes conversations can lead to awkward and difficult situations. But sometimes, just like in life, it is those difficult times and conversations that provide the opportunity for the most growth and impact.

Lea Gray, CPA, is a senior tax associate in the Richmond office of BDO USA, LLP. She was a member of the 2018–2019 VSCPA's Young Professionals Advisory Council (YPAC) for the council year.