*Warning: Profane Language Ahead*
I sauntered into his classroom that cold, Monday morning 15 minutes late. I knew I was in for it. You didn’t show up to O’Shaughnessy’s Intermediate Accounting class late. If you did, you had voluntarily entered the danger zone.
Intermediate Accounting. It is the class that makes or breaks most accountant wannabes. If you can pass Intermediate Accounting, you will likely stride through the rest of your major. If you can’t get through Intermediate Accounting, well, you better start choosing a different one.
And while Intermediate Accounting at most universities have a similar stigma, O’Shaughnessy was a legend.
‘O’Shaughn’ had been a professor for more than 32 years by the time I walked into his classroom that morning in 1996. And he was a legend, not just on our small Central Washington University campus, but throughout much of the Pacific Northwest. If you held an accounting degree from CWU, then your interview would include the question:
“Did you take Intermediate from O’Shaughnessy?”
If you answered “no” (because you took the class in the summer to get away from having to take it from him), I guarantee that your application would be significantly discounted.
Even ten years after I had graduated and returned to the Pacific Northwest, I was still getting that question at each of the accounting firms I applied to.
But, like I do, I digress.
I walked into his classroom late that day…. because I was failing and my ass needed to be in that seat.
The girl who had never received a grade lower than a B in the entirety of her lifetime, including college, was failing Intermediate Accounting…. we’re talking a BIG FAT ‘F’.
I will tell you that one of the reasons that I was failing was because at that point in my illustrious educational career, I had never learned to study. Things came pretty easily for me, I could write papers, turn in my homework, understand what I was being taught and apply it in whatever way a teacher or professor asked. Accounting was a whole new language and I was at that time, unprepared for the challenge.
The Second Reason I was failing was due to a new boyfriend I had, you know the kind who leaves your head in the clouds….
And the Third Reason I was failing was due to O’Shaughnessy’s grading system:
- Get the answer right: +3 points
- Skip the answer (leave it blank): 0 points (i.e. no harm/no foul)
- Get the answer wrong: -2 points
His philosophy: Know your shit. Know when you don’t know your shit. Get penalized for thinking you know your shit but you really don’t.
My friends, if that isn’t a life lesson, then I don’t know what is.
But when you’re 21 years old, you don’t see it that way.
So, to say the least, I was struggling. Life was truly “unfair.” I met my best friends (Suzanne Brandt, Lori Yount, Kevin Dahlen, Mike Voie, and Tim Merritt) as a result of our need to huddle together and study in group cry in groups drink in groups to survive. We all agreed that this was totally unfair. Didn’t he understand that we had other coursework to manage? Didn’t he understand that we needed to have a LIFE?! Didn’t he know that his grading system was bullshit and had no bearing on the “real world?!”
Fast forward to that Monday morning. Monday, being the operative word in this situation. Monday meant I had stayed the weekend with that boyfriend (who eventually made an honest woman out of me!) and drove the three hours from his place back to school at the crack of dawn.
But, I didn’t make it on time get out of bed on time.
“LeMay…you’re late.” No one went by their first names in his classroom. We were only known by our last names. Yount, Brandt, Dahlen, Voie, and Merritt kept their heads down and pencils up.
There was no one to save me for the coming onslaught.
Now, to understand the rest of the story you have to picture this:
A man in his mid-50’s, average height, fairly thin, graying hair – with a loud, bellowing voice who commanded attention. Imagine him with an imaginary basketball between his legs, basically walking in a greatly exaggerated bow-legged fashion back and forth across the front of his classroom.
“LeMay, you walk into my classroom 15 minutes late, walking like this [insert exaggerated walk here]…it {ahem, the sex} must have been damn good.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Of course, I wasn’t walking like I had only done one thing the entire weekend. Of course, his comment was wholly inappropriate. Of course, I could have died of embarrassment on the spot.
With everyone in the room at the same time stunned and trying to suppress their laughter, I assessed my choices:
- Turn around in embarrassment and walk out.
- Turn around in embarrassment and walk out and make a complaint to the school.
- Do nothing and sit.
- Give a little shit back to him.
I chose #4.
“It sure as hell was”, I retorted.
He laughed. The class laughed. And on we went with the day’s lesson.
I’m not sure that O’Shaughnessy’s brand of teaching would even be allowed today on America’s college campuses. And, that’s too bad.
Because I learned a lot more than intermediate accounting from him:
~ I learned that knowing when you don’t know your shit is more important than when you do.
~ I learned that when times get tough, you need friends.
~ I learned that you can either run from adversity or face it. Only one of those choices makes you stronger.
~ I learned to be a damn good accountant. I walked out of his class (and the worst final of my life) with a B-, thank you very much!
