Note the "count" in ac"count"ant there. The gig is all about countin'. Revenues. Expenses. Profits. And that's about it, broadly speaking. So if you don't loooove numbers, they won't love you back, and neither will this career. But if you do, it's really a great gig, career, and numeric adventure. You can make real moolah and have a modicum of power, and as long as you don't steal from your clients, you have low risk of completely washing out and having to live on welfare like some of your brethren who wanted to be movie stars.

Gut check: Do you get chills up and down your spine when balancing your checkbook? Do you still use a checkbook just because you like getting that chill? If you answered yes to either or both of these questions, you may be a born and bred bean-countin' CPA.

Certified Public Accountants are known mainly as those who are responsible for assisting individuals and corporations with the preparation of their tax returns. However, they can also be involved in such areas as financial planning (how much cash will this new business burn next year → how much money do we need to raise now?), business auditing (Google is buying us but they need to be sure the profits we say we have are in fact the profits we have), and the design of corporate accounting systems (what are my stock options worth today anyway?).

But wait—there's more. You may also have your hands in management consulting, estate planning, financial analysis, and more. Pretty much any job description that puts normal or non-business people to sleep at dinner parties—all of this grandeur could be yours for the price of getting "certified" as a public accountant, and that doesn't mean "crazy."

^{Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.}

There are many of you out there who really, truly love math and solving numerical puzzles, and wouldn't mind spending most of your day parked in front of a computer, tapping away. Or, if you're an auditor, spending much of your time outside your own office with clients, but still having to dig through dusty old files and talk to a lot of strangers wearing horn-rimmed glasses. If that's the case, then read on, McDuff. Accountants live inside the financial guts of businesses. They see the good, bad, and ugly from Ben Franklin's glasses on the greenback and have the privilege of being the proverbial canary in the mineshaft when things go horribly wrong (bankruptcy), or wonderfully right (Facebook).

Many CPAs work for accounting firms; others are hired by a specific company to work in-house handling all of their own accounting and no one else's. Still others work as consultants advising a variety of companies, which is a great gig for any CPA who once dreamed of writing a successful national advice column but could never get anyone to listen to his words of wisdom. Suddenly, people are paying attention. A shame, though, if your real specialty is romantic relationships.

If you like numbers and keeping track of things but don't think you could handle all of the intricacies of accounting, you may be better off becoming a bookkeeper. Also sometimes referred to as an accounting clerk or accounting technician, a bookkeeper is similar to an accountant (which is why that word "accounting" keeps popping up), but the job really is just more about keeping careful records and balancing the books. Don't confuse this job with that of a librarian, who only keeps books until someone wants to borrow them. She may have access to cookbooks, but doesn't spend too much time cooking the books. Big difference.

For many people, the idea of having a career that involves so much math is enough to induce a major headache. The hours can be long and the work can be tedious, but if you thrive on that sort of thing, then this may be your gig. If you're comfortable remaining a drone in a small accounting firm, that option is available to you—but there's also the opportunity to ascend the ranks and work for some hoity-toity international company that gives you paychecks with even more numbers on them for you to count. Do we have your number?

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