It is a well-known fact, employees of the largest audit firms (the “big four”) have no social life. Unmanageable schedules (9:30 am – 11:30pm, on average), a stressful job, a lack of social consideration… the consultant or the average auditor looks like an Ugly Duckling in the eyes of decent people (accountants, etc.)
Moreover, 80% of the manpower is constituted by young people, coming from a distant village or even a distant country. All of them have left their buddies, girlfriends, and landmarks to join these prestigious companies. In short, we may conclude that if emotional misery bore a name, it would be called the financial auditor.
On the basis of this excruciating report, one of the audit firms (no-one remembers exactly which one) had a brilliant idea: creating an online dating web site dedicated to the employees of these firms. A kind of Intranet common to these 4 firms, on a worldwide scale.
James H. Quigley, CEO, Deloitte & Touche USA: “At first, the idea came from PWC Luxembourg. It is true that in this small country, one must feel completely alone and lost during the long winters evenings. Thus they launched this idea of online dating site during one of the meetings between the human resources partners of the 4 audit firms in Luxembourg. When we finally heard about it, we immediately adhered to the concept. What a wonderful way for our staff to finally meet somebody who, eventually, will have about the same intellectual level, the same wages, same values. It’s not like all those loony geeks you can usually find on traditional dating web sites”.
A few weeks after the initial idea was launched, a dedicated Internet web site was put online. It’s not worth the trouble to precipitate you on the web site, the access is strictly reserved to the employees… Nevertheless, we tested it for you, and the result (edifying!) you will be reported in a forthcoming article.
