Here’s Your Sign!

The late comedian David Brenner used to perform this routine called “the worst doctor.”

The skit was based on the premise that somewhere in the world and of all the people who held a license to practice medicine, someone logically had to be the worst doctor.

I suppose that tragi-comedic theory could be applied to any profession although I would think that it would be somewhat safer physically to be the victim of the world’s worst CPA than the worst doctor or engineer.

Conversely, sometimes good professionals make the worst decisions. Like the owner of a firm in Michigan who was looking to merge up and confided to me that his landlord just offered him a terrific deal on a 5-year lease renewal.

Along those lines, another comedian, Bill Engvall, used to joke about giving people who did idiotic things or asked asinine questions to which the answers were painfully obvious, a sign that said simply “I’m Stupid.”

So I told the practitioner that what he did to save a bit of money effectively eliminated about 90 percent of the firms who may have been interested because now any successor firm either had to eat the lease or try and sublet the space.

By the way, here’s your sign.

Another practitioner this one in the Northeast and badly in need of a succession plan was on the verge of signing a merger contract when at the 11^th hour he told the managing partner of the successor firm that by the way, he wanted an office for his daughter indefinitely and also he demanded that they pay for his country club membership.

He was told good luck and to have a nice day.

By the way, here’s your sign.

But the best sign opportunity inevitably comes when we are consulting on a merger and at least one of the parties thinks that they know more than we do – despite our company facilitating roughly 900 mergers of CPA firms.

Like the case of a three-partner firm that ignored our suggested list of due diligence items and decided to conduct their own investigation. Three months after the deal closed they “discovered” that their new partners had, oh, at least six violations and assorted fines. They are now desperately trying to unwind the deal.

Oh and remember to take your sign, post-humously.

Come to think of it, I feel this would make great material for an open mike night. Who said CPAs weren’t funny?