Financial Administrator of the Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press
what that means is that i look after the money for part of a press attached to a university--the other division is the books division.
A description of a typical day
we have a lot of societies that publish their journals with us and i handle sending money back and forth to them. so on a typical day, i'm usually calculating what we owe them and requesting checks for them or calculating what they owe us and sending them a letter asking them for money. my boss might ask me for a budget for one of the journals or for all of them put together. i might meet with people from the journals or from my office to tell them how a journal or many journals are doing in terms of whether they are making money or losing money. and i have lots of journal editors at other universities around the country who send me reports about how much money they spent working on their journal--if they sent me a report that day, i'll request a check to send to them to cover those expenses.
What you need in the way of training/education/experience to do this job
it would be helpful to have a degree in accounting, but i don't happen to have one. what i did have when they hired me was two years of experience keeping track of money for a department at the university that does survey research. what i had at the time that department hired me was a balanced checkbook (they were having trouble finding someone so they agreed to train me--nowadays they probably would keep looking until they found someone with an accounting degree).
Why you like it
i like working for a company where i feel like what i'm working on is a good thing that the world needs. the journals that i work on are full of articles that help other people who are studying those areas to learn what other people are thinking about and studying. and i like the people who i work with very much.
Why you dislike it
my least favorite part of my job is that our financial year ends june 30 and i have to write a lot of reports and do a lot of work during june, july and august. so i can't really take a summer vacation ever.
What sorts of things can go wrong at your job?
if i don't pay close attention, lots of money can get lost in various ways.
What kind of person thrives in your job
a person who is good at keeping track at lots of different things at the same time. a person who is good at explaining things to people and helping them. a person who is good at arithmetic, although you don't have to know very complicated arithmetic to do my job. a person who is good at working on computers especially with spreadsheet programs.
Anything else you can think of that would give her an idea of what it might be like to choose your career?
there are two things about my job that don't always have to go together. i work in publishing and i work for a university. i have worked in publishing but not for a university before this job and what i have learned is that i really like working for a university. there is lots of stuff that happens here on campus--concerts and talks and other things to do on my lunch hour and after work. it means that i have a chance to keep learning things and i like that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-23 06:49 pm (UTC)What your job title is, and what that means
Financial Administrator of the Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press
what that means is that i look after the money for part of a press attached to a university--the other division is the books division.
A description of a typical day
we have a lot of societies that publish their journals with us and i handle sending money back and forth to them. so on a typical day, i'm usually calculating what we owe them and requesting checks for them or calculating what they owe us and sending them a letter asking them for money. my boss might ask me for a budget for one of the journals or for all of them put together. i might meet with people from the journals or from my office to tell them how a journal or many journals are doing in terms of whether they are making money or losing money. and i have lots of journal editors at other universities around the country who send me reports about how much money they spent working on their journal--if they sent me a report that day, i'll request a check to send to them to cover those expenses.
What you need in the way of training/education/experience to do this job
it would be helpful to have a degree in accounting, but i don't happen to have one. what i did have when they hired me was two years of experience keeping track of money for a department at the university that does survey research. what i had at the time that department hired me was a balanced checkbook (they were having trouble finding someone so they agreed to train me--nowadays they probably would keep looking until they found someone with an accounting degree).
Why you like it
i like working for a company where i feel like what i'm working on is a good thing that the world needs. the journals that i work on are full of articles that help other people who are studying those areas to learn what other people are thinking about and studying. and i like the people who i work with very much.
Why you dislike it
my least favorite part of my job is that our financial year ends june 30 and i have to write a lot of reports and do a lot of work during june, july and august. so i can't really take a summer vacation ever.
What sorts of things can go wrong at your job?
if i don't pay close attention, lots of money can get lost in various ways.
What kind of person thrives in your job
a person who is good at keeping track at lots of different things at the same time. a person who is good at explaining things to people and helping them. a person who is good at arithmetic, although you don't have to know very complicated arithmetic to do my job. a person who is good at working on computers especially with spreadsheet programs.
Anything else you can think of that would give her an idea of what it might be like to choose your career?
there are two things about my job that don't always have to go together. i work in publishing and i work for a university. i have worked in publishing but not for a university before this job and what i have learned is that i really like working for a university. there is lots of stuff that happens here on campus--concerts and talks and other things to do on my lunch hour and after work. it means that i have a chance to keep learning things and i like that.