Web Crush Wednesdays: Yes Even Accountants

Something is pretty awesome on the internet. (That should totally be the alternate title of this column.) Specifically, people have been doing a lot of cool things in regards to writers and writing resources. From Disability in Kidlit, which talks about good disability representation and writing, to Diversity Cross-Check, which allows writers and consumers to combine their life experiences on the altar of better representation, the internet has slowly been crowdsourcing research so that writers can have an easier time of research and so that writers can more easily be held accountable for their writing sins. And now there’s another resource to add to the already sizable list: Yes Even Accountants.

Yes Even Accountants is a Tumblr created to let people talk about their jobs. It’s not job advice or a career column, as much as those are necessary right now—it’s literally just a Tumblr for people to talk about their careers and experiences. As their About page says:

Are you a writer? Sequential Artist? Addicted to roleplay? Are all your characters also a writer, sequential artist, or roleplay addicts?

Are you a nurse who cringes during House? Or a CSI and want to kick Sherlock’s writers in the teeth? A programmer who thinks THIS SCENE from Swordfish is the height of comedy?

Are you tired of every character you make being a doctor, lawyer, or famous actor with you knowing nothing about any of those jobs?

What the fuck do accountants do anyway?

Then share your experiences here! Help storytellers looking to broaden their career knowledge by providing information on your unique career history and current job.

People can submit lengthy posts about what a day in their job is like and what the media gets right and wrong about their jobs. Oftentimes, because these are real stories, they come with a helping of your everyday -isms: women in the science field say they’re flirted with and not taken seriously, and women in the computer science field protest that the media thinks they’re awkward and socially maladjusted, and they definitely aren’t. You can also get very specific information about what the media is currently doing wrong, as one female military mechanic tells us:

When someone says “hand me a wrench/socket/screwdriver” it is annoying because those things all come in several types and sizes.  Do they need standard (SAE) or metric wrenches? What size? Combination, open-ended or box end? Phillips or flat head screwdriver, and in what size? You get the idea. When the tool in question is already laid out it makes sense, but when someone asks for a wrench and the other person just pulls one out of a box or bag, that strains credibility with me.  It’s a stupid nitpick, but it gets me every time.

Yes Even Accountants gives a voice to people who aren’t often represented, and even if they are represented, they usually aren’t represented correctly. Maybe, in the case of the screwdriver, a writer might say “oh, but I didn’t know that was important,” or “oh, but I had no one to talk to about it”, but now, with this sort of crowdsourcing of information, that excuse becomes less and less viable. Writers can find some jumping off points for their character research, and casual Tumblrites can spend some time reading through others’ job experiences. Hopefully both things will lead us to better stories in the future.

You can visit Yes Even Accountants at their Tumblr, browse through the currently-submitted career summaries, and maybe even submit one of your own!

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