When I grow up I want to be....

Friday afternoon, the Shanghai American School High School hosted its annual Career Day.  There were 30 presenters from various occupations. John was asked to be a guest speaker, representing careers in accounting. The week before, the students in grades 9-12 each chose their top three choices from the 30 different careers they would like to learn more about on their upcoming career day.  Since Bracken has not yet decided what career he wants to pursue, he chose three completely different occupation fields.   We loved Bracken's honesty when he told us he had chosen to attend the accounting workshop and support his dad, even though he had no interest at all in becoming one!! 

Unfortunately, I did not attend, but wished I had after hearing about John's presentation from Bracken......so much for the "stuffy accountant" image so many accountants have, as apparently the high schoolers loved his creative presentation......

For each student attending the workshop, John gave them three papers--each paper was labled with a different pseudo-company name.  I especially loved the company names he came up with (:

With help from a Powerpoint presentation, John showed the students facts about each pseudo company, their stock values, assets, earnings, net worth etc.  From the given facts, each student was to decide and give John one of the three papers labled with  the company they would most likely invest in. (Apparently Big Bubba's BBQ was a top choice as it seemed to be an extremely impressive company indeed!)

After the students "invested" in the company of their choice, John then told them more about each company, and what the accountants had reported about each company.  The students were surprised to find out that after the accountant's had done their job looking over each of the pseudo companies financial records, they had found some errors.  Apparently Big Bubba's had falsely accounted for much of their assets, and their stocks were not worth anything.  Suzie's Succulent Sweets was also unfortunate for many, as this company was also a dive!  The real winner, surprising to most everyone, was Tiny Tim's Tools!! Anyone's pocketbook who had invested in  Tiny Tim was now anything but TINY!!  For all the student's who had invested in Tiny Tim, John awarded a grab in a bag that high school students prize almost as much as money.......

Bracken was proud to report he was an invester in Tiny Tim's Tools (without any input from his Dad he wants to add) and came away with some loot, and a new apprecation of his Dad's occupation and responsiblities!