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A BAD MONTH FOR …PwC

28 October 2009

PwC has just been voted the High Fliers Top Graduate Employer of the Year for a record sixth year.

It has also picked up lots of other prestigious awards this year; yet all this good publicity could all pale into insignificance if a sacked trainees viral email and the worker suing them for being treated ’like a prostitute’ take all the publicity!
The problem is what makes the more exciting news story?
The ranting of the sacked trainee in question, Gareth Jenkins, has became an internet sensation after he vented his true feelings about PwC in an email after being dismissed for failing his ICAEW exams. Now Jenkins, who admits he was ‘rubbish at audit’, had to leave after he failed his exams - but it was a fellow PwC workers who forwarded his email and made him a global sensation (there is nothing like a bit of confidentiality).
His internal email ridicules the firm’s training programme, adherence to business jargon, and even the people PwC attracts. Jenkins says that he was at one client for several months and never understood what they do. That company was still charged!
A former Deloitte student has claimed they had ‘enjoyed’ a similar experience to Mr Jenkins, so this is not just a PwC ‘problem’. Another former PQ said that they had done their three years and got out as quickly as possible. But said it was ‘pretty much the worst time of my life’. One PQ said that everyone who joins PwC as a trainee knows there’s a risk of being fired if they fail and that is the game you have to play. Someone else wondered what had happened to the associate who had forwarded the mail outside PwC!
There was even a joke: What is the difference between auditor and an airport baggage trolley? Answer – the trolley has a mind of its own!
PwC will be hoping that everyone will be forgetting Mr Jenkins very quickly, which they will.
Meanwhile, serial litigant Mihaela Popa (see September PQ Magazine) was awarded £5,000 for hurt feelings after taking PwC to court recently. She claimed PwC made her feel ‘like a prostitute’, but the court found she had suffered no financial loss. During the case we discovered the £41,000 a year accountant was given an unfair reference by the firm. Despite this she landed a £66,000 a year job with Credit Suisse in 2008.
To see Gareth Jenkins email in full go to our careers section

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