Why are Big 4 audit hours so ridiculous?

Question

To expect people to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, for a full third of the year is beyond ludicrous, it would seem. And it seems like the hours in the Tax/Consulting/Advisory practices of these firms are much more reasonable, even if a standard 40 hour workweek may still be elusive. So what gives in the Big 4 culture? Is it all just about fattening the partners' pockets while making it nearly impossible to stay around long enough to reach the Manager level?

Answer 1

It is not unreasonable to say that the entry level positions have and probably always will be a form of slave labor.  But these companies are great names to put on your resume and you always have a good chance of being hired on by one of their clients.  And it is very political to move up.

Answer 2

yeah they are trying to work you until you wanna quit because they dont want nobody in the manager level they wanna work you to the death and they want to save money and have money over instead of not having enough. they want leftover money.

Answer 3

It takes that long because of the disorganization and lack of best practices by the company.  If they used better practices and better organization skills, the time that goes into prepration for the audit, would be built as a normal way of business into the systems.  Then the audit would just require providing the necessary documents to the auditors, case closed.  But businesses do not do what they say they are goingto do and for the most part one part of the organization does not know what the other part is doing, so there you go.