Accounts Assistant
Ulster Carpets

Naomi R

00:02 My name is Naomi R and I’m an accounts assistant in Ulster Carpet Mills.

00:07 I basically assist the financial director in producing monthly accounts and I look after the payable, the girl who looks after the accounts payable at the factory, I would help her out and pull together different aspects of the administration and invoicing side of the business.

00:26 Well I would like to be an accountant and I still am doing a course, part-time course through my own time, for trying to reach that qualification.

00:35 From high school I probably had it in my head that I would like to be an accountant. I just thought it was something that I, took a notion that I wanted to do. Don’t really know where it came from.

00:44 I did work at an accountant’s practice for two years when I was doing my accounting technician qualification. I started initially doing it there and I just didn’t like the environment, it wasn’t much fun for me, it was very pressurised and there was probably only about ten people worked in it. I was just used to more interaction with people.

01:04 I was brought up outside Ballygawley in County Tyrone and brought up on a dairy farm, so we were just, we were given a very much a work ethos where you always had to help out on the farm, regardless of whether you were male, female or what age. From an early age we were sent out and we’d gather potatoes, gather stone and whatever needed to be done.

01:27 School was fine but I, I was glad to leave too. I just, I didn’t mind being there when I was there but I wouldn’t say I loved it like. I don’t know what it was but and I didn’t mind working at school, I didn’t mind school but again I was quite happy to go into the world and work after I left that, it just was me.

01:45 I’m not a real studier, that’s probably me problem, I hate sitting studying and I hated sitting studying for exams and I did music exams outside of school, again I loved playing the piano but I hated doing music exams. Possibly it’s actually the pressure of exams I don’t like.

01:59 Went to high school and did my GCSEs, then I went on and done GNVQ in business studies . When I had just started that, school, I had just made top school and me mum passed away, she’d got cancer, so that kind of put a bit of a dent in the family but it was to keep working then, getting me through. My mother always said oh if you start something you keep at it. When I finished it I had got a bursary award in the high school for doing the course and I got the cup for my year, that year as well and, and I got my distinction in advanced business studies qualification which was equivalent to my A levels. I got offered the opportunity to go to university, during this time and study accountancy but with my family circumstances at that time, I chose not to go. I suppose sometimes I look back and think maybe that would have been good, anyhow I would already had my degree properly, then I would be finished but then the other side I, at that time I had two younger brothers at home and it seemed better to stay at home.

03:05 I do recommend probably getting the experience at the time was very good for accountancy because actually just knowing the text isn’t as useful as having the actual practical experience of either working in a practice or in a business in their accounts section because you learn so much more by the actual, actually doing the job.

03:24 I would say when my mum died, that changes your perspective in life. You probably view things differently. I wouldn’t get too hung up maybe on issues that other people would, I don’t, I wouldn’t see myself as someone that maybe panics at every decision they take. I’ve failed exams before and you can always re-sit them. It’s not the end of the world. It’s only an exam and the vast scheme of the world there’s much bigger issues and again if there, if there’s something you really want to do, I’d just say, go for it, but be prepared to put in the work.

03:56 END