Doing My Bit Chapter 10 - The Accountant Dilemma

DOING MY BIT

Chapter 10 – The Accountant Dilemma

The file in front of me carries the heading “Honorary Treasurer,” and even before I open it properly, I can feel the weight that sits behind the word. It looks light on paper, almost ceremonial, as if it exists more as a courtesy than a commitment. Yet the numbers tell a different story. Time spent, calls returned, emails answered late into evenings that had no right to be occupied. The file belongs to a small sporting club, the kind that runs on volunteers and goodwill, where the smell of a Saturday morning barbecue carries more weight than any formal report. It is the kind of place that, on paper, cannot afford someone like me, and so the role is framed not as a transaction but as a contribution.

There was no moment where the decision felt heavy. No meeting where terms were negotiated, no careful consideration of scope or boundaries. It came, as these things often do, in passing. A conversation at the edge of a field, the sound of children cutting through the background, a request framed more as an assumption than a question. There was a sense of familiarity, of shared purpose, of something that aligned with the quiet expectation that skills such as mine should occasionally be given rather than sold. The answer arrived easily, without friction, carried more by instinct than by analysis.

In the early days, it feels right. There is a rhythm to it, a quiet satisfaction in taking something that might otherwise drift and giving it structure. Bank statements reconciled, discrepancies explained, processes introduced where none had existed before. The committee nods, appreciative, though not always fully understanding. Gratitude is present, but it is the kind that assumes continuity. The work is done, and because it is done, it becomes part of the landscape.

The room holds that familiar quiet that only comes after numbers have been worked hard enough to settle. Paper carries a faint warmth under my fingers, printer ink and old timber mixing into a smell I have come to recognise as something close to certainty. Outside, there is movement, cars passing, voices rising and falling without meaning, but in here the world reduces to columns and obligations. It should feel contained, as though everything that matters can be balanced, reconciled, brought into line.

It rarely does.

This is the Good, and it sits comfortably for a time. It satisfies something that sits beneath the professional layer, a need to give back, to use experience in a way that is not measured purely in fees. It aligns with a broader current, one that runs through community and service, a belief that not everything of value needs to be monetised. There is a quiet pride in knowing that a small organisation, one that might otherwise struggle to meet its obligations, is being held steady.

The shift is subtle when it begins. It does not arrive with a clear marker, no moment where the tone changes or the expectation is explicitly stated. It shows itself in small ways. A phone call that comes earlier than it should, or later than is reasonable, carrying an urgency that is more assumed than real. An email sent on a weekend, marked as important, though the importance lies more in convenience than necessity. The language begins to change, not dramatically, but enough to be noticed. What was once a request becomes a reliance, and reliance, left unchecked, begins to resemble expectation.

The word “Honorary” takes on a different weight. It starts to distort the relationship, suggesting that the absence of a fee removes the need for boundaries. It creates a space where time is no longer something that needs to be negotiated, where availability is assumed rather than agreed. The leash, once invisible, begins to tighten, not through any deliberate action, but through a series of small concessions that accumulate over time.

What complicates it further is the nature of the organisations themselves. Many begin as minuscule entities, run on little more than goodwill and determination, genuinely unable to afford professional services. In those cases, the decision to assist carries a clarity that feels justified. Over time, however, some of these organisations grow. Revenue increases, sponsorships are secured, and operations expand. The capacity to pay begins to emerge, not always dramatically, but enough to change the underlying reality. Yet the arrangement remains unchanged, anchored to an origin point that no longer reflects the present.

There is a reluctance to revisit it. The initial decision, made freely, carries with it an unspoken expectation of continuity. To alter it feels, at least on the surface, like a withdrawal of something that was once given without condition. And so it continues, even as the circumstances evolve beyond what was originally contemplated.

The tension deepens when the boundary between the organisation and the individuals within it begins to blur. A new face appears, introduced through the club, someone with personal matters that need attention. There is no discussion of fees, no acknowledgement that this sits outside the scope of any honorary role. The expectation carries over seamlessly, as though the designation applies universally. The work is approached not as a favour, but as a natural extension of what has already been provided.

It is here that the Ugly reveals itself, not in overt confrontation, but in quiet assumption. There is no malice in it, no deliberate attempt to take advantage. It is simply the natural progression of an arrangement that was never clearly defined. When something is given without measure, it becomes difficult for others to understand where its limits lie. The absence of a price does not remove the cost; it merely obscures it.

The caritas gauge begins to register the shift. Mercy, which once felt aligned with purpose, starts to draw from a deeper reserve. It is no longer just about the work itself, but about what that work displaces. Time that could have been spent elsewhere, energy that might have been directed toward family, toward moments that do not appear on any ledger but carry their own form of value. The presence of my boys is not something that demands attention in these moments, but it exists as a quiet counterweight, a reminder that time is not an infinite resource to be allocated without consequence.

The professional role complicates the equation. There is an expectation, both internal and external, that skills should be applied where they are needed, particularly in contexts that serve a broader good. At the same time, those skills are the foundation of a livelihood, something that must be sustained if it is to remain available at all. The balance between these two realities is not easily struck, particularly when the lines have been allowed to blur.

Numbers, for all their precision, do not provide the answer. They can quantify time, assign value, calculate what has been given, but they cannot capture the gradual erosion that occurs when boundaries are not maintained. They cannot reflect the shift from gratitude to expectation, or the quiet pressure that builds when the two are no longer clearly distinguished.

There is a moment, not dramatic, but definite, where the recognition settles in. The understanding that generosity, when left unmeasured, is not infinite. It draws from somewhere, and if it continues unchecked, it begins to take from places that were never intended to be part of the exchange. The role of the professional accountant, in this context, extends beyond the management of numbers. It becomes a matter of managing value, including one’s own.

The Rotarian ethic hums quietly in the background, a reminder that service has its place, that giving back is not only worthwhile but necessary. Yet even within that framework, there is an understanding, often unspoken, that service is most effective when it is sustainable. It is not meant to consume the individual entirely, but to exist alongside other commitments, other responsibilities, other forms of contribution.

Where that balance begins to fracture is in the subtle emergence of something more colloquial, less noble, and far more corrosive. It sits beneath the surface, rarely named in polite conversation, but recognised instinctively when encountered. It is the sense that what is being asked for is no longer service, but something closer to taking the piss.

It is not the request itself that defines it, but the absence of recognition around what sits behind the skill being requested. The years of study that do not simply confer knowledge but shape judgment. The long hours spent in offices where the work is rarely finished, only paused. The accumulation of experience that allows a problem to be seen not just for what it is, but for what it might become if left unattended. None of this appears in the moment of the ask. It is compressed into a single expectation, as though it exists independently of the life that built it.

There is a quiet dismissal embedded in that compression. Not intentional, not even conscious in most cases, but present nonetheless. The professional becomes a function rather than a person, the output detached from the input, the result assumed without regard for the process. It is here that the decision-making is subtly removed from the table. The choice to give, which once sat firmly with the giver, becomes implied rather than expressed. What was an act of discretion begins to feel like an obligation.

That shift carries weight. It diminishes not just the value of the work, but the value of the path taken to be able to do it. The qualifications earned, the credibility built over decades of showing up for clients, the quiet kudos that come not from titles but from trust. All of it becomes background noise to the expectation that, in this instance, it should simply be provided.

The tension is not in the giving itself, but in the erosion of the right to choose when and how that giving occurs. Service, when it is freely given, carries with it a sense of alignment, a connection between the act and the intention behind it. When that choice is assumed away, the act begins to change. It loses some of its integrity, not because the work is different, but because the context in which it is given has shifted.

Within that space, the caritas gauge begins to register something more complex than simple generosity. It measures not just how much can be given, but how that giving is being received and understood. When the needle moves toward imbalance, it is rarely because too much has been given in isolation, but because the act of giving has been reframed without consent.

The question that lingers is no longer whether to give. That answer has been written many times over, in hours already spent, in roles formally accepted, in commitments carried through Rotary halls and Scout grounds where service was not assumed but chosen, named, and understood. There is a body of contribution that exists, not as a ledger seeking recognition, but as a lived pattern of showing up where it mattered, often when it was inconvenient, and sometimes when it was costly.

What begins to surface instead is a quieter, more difficult question. What is enough?

At what point does the accumulation of what has already been given hold its own weight, standing as evidence that the intent to serve has never been absent? And why, in this particular arena, does that history seem to dissolve so easily, replaced by a fresh expectation that begins again at zero, as though the past carries no currency here?

There is a difference, and it resists simple explanation. In Rotary, in Scouts, the roles were defined, the boundaries at least visible, even if they were occasionally stretched. The giving sat within a framework that acknowledged both the contribution and the contributor. There was an understanding, sometimes spoken, often implied, that service existed alongside the rest of life, not in place of it.

Here, the lines are less distinct. The professional skill set, honed over decades, is both the offering and the commodity. It carries a value that is universally recognised in one context and quietly disregarded in another. The same work that commands respect and remuneration within the office is reframed outside it, not through malice, but through a collective habit of assumption. The decision to give is no longer clearly asked for; it is simply absorbed into the expectation of access.

That is where the tension settles. Not in the act of giving, but in the absence of a boundary that honours what has already been given.

The room settles again, the light shifting as the day moves on, the edges of things softening into something less defined. The file remains on the desk, unchanged in its content but altered in its meaning. It no longer represents just a set of accounts, but a point of reflection, a place where professional responsibility and personal capacity meet and do not quite align.

And the question that now presses forward is not simply where service ends and self-preservation begins, but something more deliberate, more confronting in its simplicity.

If a life has already been shaped by service, then what does enough actually look like, and who gets to decide when it has been reached?