Situation: Everyone in your social circle, if comes
to know that you are a Chartered Accountant or a CA-in-making, tries to
take the fullest advantage out of you.
The problem does not lie in taking advantage. We are professionals and we are meant to provide our
services to the society.
But now is the real twist; this advantage thing comes in a package. This package may consist of the following:
Firstly, the people who are keen to exploit you might be the ones,
who are not important for you, like your least interacted neighbours,
your distant relative, your long-forgotten childhood friend or just an
acquaintance.
Secondly, these people might underestimate the amount of work done by
you. They end up paying you nothing or much less than what you might
deserve in the name of "Bhai/Yaar humse bhi charge karoge”
The actual problem lies in the mindset of people. They do not value
services. For example; they simply categorize it as a work done in a
couple of minutes like filing of returns, drafting a reply etc. They
will never understand that the work which is done in a few minutes
involves the application of our minds; the mind which has been trained
for a complete period of 4-5 yrs or more. It is not just a matter of
15-20 minutes but we have put in a greater amount of time of our lives
into that.
The solution to this awkward situation is:
Start valuing yourself. No matter, how low someone is pulling your
profession or valuing it. Firstly we need to take a stand of our own
self.
Secondly, start charging each and everyone you provide your services
to because if you start doing any work for free then your efforts become
worthless in the eyes of the other person.
Maintain communication and keep things clear with your client. Don’t
simply assume that the client is definitely gonna pay you this much
amount for your work done. Keep things sorted and communicated.
These situations are very commonly experienced by all of us. I just
tried to highlight it and I believe that such situations should be
thoroughly discussed amongst each other so that we all can collectively
give a uniform response to the people out there and prevent them from
exploiting professionals like us.