A Day in the Life

While earning her Master of Accountancy, Jessica Kashyap completed an internship with Deloitte in her native India. After graduation in May 2011, she passed the CPA exam and joined Deloitte in Nashville, where she began working with an audit team dedicated to Community Health Systems, which operates community hospitals across the U.S.

5:30 AM

Get up, work out for 40-45 minutes, come back home to feed and walk my dogs, Artie and Zuzu.

7:50 AM

Leave for work. It’s about 20 minutes to Community Health Systems. Most days, we work at the client’s offices. Sometimes, for training or meetings, we “hotel” at Deloitte’s office downtown.

8:10 AM

Settle in, get coffee, check emails. As a team (there are about 30 of us), we meet with our senior manager to brainstorm and discuss the day. Some days, I already know what I’ll be working on. Other days, I might be chasing “unicorns”—critical but elusive pieces of information that might involve talking to a hospital CFO, then to the controller or the business office manager. You never know what your day will be like. It’s always a fresh series of puzzles to solve, which is fun.

9:00 AM

Start evaluating “supports”—documentation received from hospitals to support their financial line items.

10:15 AM

Make calls to (and field calls from) local hospitals to discuss their documentation. Typically, I’m dealing with things for 75 different hospitals (at least). Organization is key!

12:00 PM

Most days I eat at my desk, from a PB&J sandwich to leftover Indian dishes I’ve made. On Fridays, the whole team goes out to lunch.

1:00 PM

Touch point meetings with the client’s internal audit staff. While learning to audit I’m also learning management skills, so I’m getting the bigger picture.

3:00 PM

Coffee, then get back to it. We spend much of the day gathering information. Around 3:30, I start documenting what we have.

5:30 PM

Touch base with my senior manager before heading out (if it’s summer). During busy season—January to mid-February—we’ll usually be here till 10:30 or 11:00, and then just go home and go to bed. It’s hard, but you also know there’s an end to it.

6:30 PM

Take the dogs out. Cook. Straighten house. Watch TV, catch up with bills and personal emails. Maybe call my grandparents in Bombay because it’s morning there and a good time to talk.

10:30 PM

Bedtime.