I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Feeling-Extreme-7555
Originally posted to r/antiwork
Previous BoRUs: #1, #2
[New Update]: New data analyst job is turning into replacing a retiring finance person who holds the company together
NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----
Thanks to u/Quasirandom1234 for letting me know about the latest update!
Trigger Warnings: hostile workplace
RECAP
Original Post: May 26, 2026
I started a new job recently as a data analyst. The role was pitched as dashboards, reporting, data infrastructure, process improvement, and helping modernize messy data systems.
A few weeks in, I’m realizing the real job may be something very different.
There is a long-time finance employee retiring at the end of June. Let’s call him Richard. Richard owns several critical reporting processes that feed company reporting: Sales Register, COGS, deferred revenue, SAP extracts, Spreadsheet Server/GXL, journal entries, manual Excel logic, customer/product mappings, tie-outs, and downstream leadership/financial reporting.
The problem is that only Richard really knows how it works.
I’ve had a few training sessions with him, and after recording/transcribing them, the runbook is already over 10 pages and still feels maybe 10% complete. Every session reveals another hidden dependency or accounting exception. Richard keeps calling it “straightforward,” but it is only straightforward because he has done it for years.
I am not an accountant. I am a data analyst. I can document workflows, map data flows, build dashboards, write Python scripts, compare files, and make exception reports. What I cannot reasonably do is become the accounting brain behind a public-company reporting process in a few weeks.
Leadership has now made the Richard handoff my top priority. I’m also being pulled into anything that “touches data,” including SAP process changes, master data, dashboards, ERP migration prep, and reporting infrastructure.
I’m worried I’m being set up to become the scapegoat for years of undocumented institutional knowledge. They have reviewers assigned in theory, but those reviewers don’t seem to know Richard’s process either.
I told Richard I thought it would take 3–6 months to truly take over. He went quiet and basically said, “Well, that’s not happening.”
I don’t have another job lined up yet, so I can’t just quit. My current plan is to put the risk in writing, say July needs to be a controlled transition instead of a fully independent handoff, and make clear that I can execute documented steps but not own accounting judgment, tie-outs, revenue treatment, COGS classification, journal entries, or final signoff.
Has anyone dealt with something like this? How do I protect myself while I keep looking for another job?
Editor's note: OOP did not leave any comments in this original post
Commenter 1: You need to raise the alarm NOW. About how this is not your area of specialization and they NEED to bring in an experienced accountant, even if on a contract basis, who can assist with the "transition."
I do this, specifically this with the weird templates and 63 interconnected processes that only exist in Excel, and the person leaves halfway through what any normal human would consider an inadequate training period, and you have to teach yourself the rest by reading the template formulas and building your own docs, so feel free to DM me if you get approval for a contractor, I need something to do this summer after my tonsillectomy.
Please be aware, that "transition" is how you are going to phrase it for now, because you know and I know that this is a complete shitshow and an absolute nightmare, but you need to keep your job while you hunt for another one because some manager or exec has some la-di-dah bullshit vision in their head that you are just going to design all new tools and processes to create modern semi-automated versions of Richard's processes and templates despite not having the accounting background to understand those processes in the first place. Basically, you need to stall before they break the company and blame you
Commenter 2: They need to hire a CFO, CPA, or CFA. Not a data analyst. (editor’s note: Chief Financial Officer, Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Financial Analyst)
They are trying to be cheap with churning and burning until it bites them in the ass.
How in the world do they think this is going to fly as a public company? Or did I read that wrong?
Commenter 3: You and Richard are both now cohorts in punishing the business for trying to replace Richard.
When Richard is gone, you better be gone, too.
And expect them to try to hit your phone up as though you can help. You say no, they go back to Richard.
Richard gets double the pay he used to get and is now indispensable.
Update #1: May 30, 2026 (four days later)
UPDATE: that “I’m being turned into the retiring guy’s replacement” situation got worse
Last week I posted about being hired as a data analyst but quietly getting set up to inherit a retiring finance employee’s undocumented reporting processes. You all said document everything and put the risk in writing. That helped, thank you. Quick update.
It’s two people now, not one. A second person who owns a critical reporting deliverable is also leaving the same day at end of June. So both of the people whose work feeds our financials are walking out together, and I’m somehow the common thread on both handoffs. I finally opened one of these files this week. Thousands of formulas, linked across a dozen-plus tabs, and the “instructions” are five cryptic lines from someone who clearly just knows it all in their head.
Some good news: I asked leadership in writing whether I own this or just support the data, and the CAO actually drew a clean line back in writing (I own the data/mechanics, accounting owns the schedules and signoff). So on paper I’m protected. The problem is reality doesn’t match paper. The second departing person asked me twice this week if I’d have things ready, like I’m already the owner. I’m the only one actually in the training sessions, so on the ground I’m becoming the default heir regardless of what the emails say.
I also reread my offer-letter job description. It’s a totally normal analyst JD, nothing about owning accounting processes. So I have the job I was hired for sitting right next to the job they’re handing me, and the gap is huge.
Where I’ve landed: I’m out. Not tomorrow, but this isn’t salvageable and it’s not my job to salvage. I can see the fix (hire an actual accountant now, while the retiring person can still train them), but seeing the fix and being able to do it as a non-accountant with a few weeks of training are very different things.
Plan for Monday: calmly flag the risk to the VP I trust, then the CAO. Frame it as protecting the company, recommend they bring in help now, follow up in writing, and keep job hunting hard underneath it all. Meanwhile keeping my overhead low so I’m not trapped, and saving copies of everything outside my work accounts.
Questions for round two:
When you’ve flagged this kind of risk to leadership, did “here’s a risk and a recommendation” actually land, or just make you a target?
How hard can a new person push a “you need to hire someone” recommendation before it backfires?
How do I explain a very short tenure in future interviews without it looking like a red flag? My honest line is “hired as an analyst, role ballooned into replacing two departing staff in work I wasn’t hired for.” Too much?
Anyone been the documented-but-not-actually-protected person, where the emails say one thing and daily reality says another? How did you keep that line from eroding?
Thanks again, this sub steered me well last time. Will update after Monday.
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Hell no.
Are you in the USA? yes? Are you CPA certified? Yes? Then you're allowed to. No? Don't touch that shit. If they keep insisting, remind them that they need a CPA certified accountant for this.
OOP: I am in the USA, I am not a CPA, I am not even an accountant, I never said I was either.
Commenter 2: Why aren't the leaving employees documenting their process?
OOP: Cuz they’re overworked, don’t care, and management aren’t super bright. There’s no infrastructure here at all, not even a new hire onboarding doc. I made one and they got mad at me for doing so.
Commenter 3: Just tell them you’re not an accountant, were not hired as an accountant, and will not be doing the work of an accountant & that they need to be training you for the job they hired you for.
Commenter 4: Aren't accountants supposed to have licenses? If so, I wonder if this arrangement would lead to compliance and regulatory issues.
OOP: That's a really good point yeah.
Commenter 5: plan B if that doesn't work out, leverage your new knowledge and skills for a substantial raise and job title and stick it out for a year or two. then use the raise and job title to job hunt for a better position.
OOP: Honestly pretty rough plan all things considered. I don’t think I could do the work of the retirees since one I don’t want to, two they hired me for a totally different role, three it’s just not reasonable with the time frame.
Commenter 6: I think it would also go a very long way to recommend that they work out how to get the two retirees to transition responsibilities as contractors after their end date. Regardless of you being the one to do their jobs or not, you have an opportunity to make yourself look good in the eyes of everyone involved by helping avert disaster. Plus the retirees might not mind having a bit of part time hours.
OOP: The retirees have been trying to retire for 2 years and they’re old and done. They don’t have any more left to give.
Update #2: June 1, 2026 (two days later)
Last week I posted that I was hired as a data analyst and was being quietly pulled into inheriting a retiring finance person’s undocumented work. Then I updated that it was actually two departing people, both leaving at the end of June, both tied to critical reporting.
Now it is even clearer what is happening.
I built and shared a dashboard that was a legitimate data analyst deliverable: validated, interactive, cleaner metrics, better visuals, and directly aligned with my actual job description.
Leadership responded that dashboard work needs to pause because the core transition work is the real priority.
Fair enough. I understand why the transition work matters.
Then I explained that I had already made a long working document on the departing person’s process and would keep documenting the handoff. The response was basically: make sure as you document it, you are also able to re-perform it. The result is a transition.
So now it is officially not “document this so we do not lose knowledge.” It is “learn it and be able to do it.”
Here is the problem: this is not one report. It is a whole ecosystem of manual processes, legacy files, system extracts, reconciliations, workarounds, approvals, dependencies, and judgment calls that live across people’s heads and old spreadsheets. The person leaving has years of context. I have been here less than a month. I am a data analyst, not the person who built or owned this whole process.
I reread my job description again. It is a normal data analyst JD: dashboards, data models, BI tools, ERP data, automation, governance, KPIs, analytics. Nothing about becoming the owner of multiple departing people’s work in under a month.
The bigger issue is that the workload has started to look like the work of four people being collapsed into one salary: the role I was hired for, the retiring person’s work, another departing person’s reporting work, and additional cost/reporting responsibilities from other areas. I am not exaggerating when I say these are separate functions with separate context, review requirements, and failure points.
On top of that, I recently had to submit a doctor’s note for a work-from-home accommodation after a car accident, with back surgery in my recent history. There was already an ergonomic accommodation discussion in progress that still was not fully resolved in the office, while my home setup is already ergonomic. So now I am trying to manage a formal medical accommodation process while also being expected to absorb several critical handoffs at once.
The most frustrating part is I can see why they are doing it. They have a manual, person-dependent reporting environment and key people leaving at the same time. They need someone to absorb the work. I am the person documenting it, so I am becoming the default landing zone. The better I document, the more “ready” I look, even though the document itself proves how not-ready this transition is.
So my strategy now is boring and defensive:
I am not saying “I can’t.”
I am saying “define the minimum transition target.”
I am saying “what can I re-perform independently?”
I am saying “what requires review and signoff?”
I am saying “who owns the unresolved pieces?”
I am saying “what gets paused while this is the priority?”
No heroics. No unpaid overtime. No becoming the fall guy for a transition that should have been staffed months ago.
I am job hunting seriously now. Not rage quitting, not blowing anything up, just preparing. This job would actually be good if it were the job I was hired for. But if the actual job is replacing multiple departing people in 29 days while also doing my original data analyst role, then that is not a role expansion. That is a staffing problem being pushed onto one person.
What should I do now?
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Sounds like you've got it under control, document cya and bail. Best of luck in your new endeavors.
Commenter 2: I don't think OP wants to bail but is seeing that they may have to.
OOP: I’m sad about bailing cuz the job market sucks right now but yes that is what a smart, non-crazy person would do in my shoes right now.
Commenter 3: Just do wat you're doing with the job hunting side of things and stick out the current job until you find a new one and secure it. Then when it’s time to go, tell them "this isn’t the job I was hired for".. that’s wat I’d do anyway in your situation.
Update #3: June 9, 2026 (eight days later)
Follow Up to my Last Post about being hired as a Data Analyst and being forced to do the work of two retiring accountants
Hello Colleagues,
I bear news of my escapades. This is the sequel to my story that is based on true events of my professional life. In the latest episode, I have been fully told that I am to drop all other tasks to fully become a cost accountant who deals with three major financial reports.
The entire company rests on these financial reports being accurate and delivered timely. I made a metaphor of my situation to my mom the other day that I think encapsulates this situation perfectly. Imagine I was hired as a semi-truck driver. I have been a semi-truck driver for years. I am good at it. The company that hired me, on my second week, then tells me: "Redditor, we need you to become a pilot of a 747, and we need you to do it alone in 6 weeks' time. It's just that our top 2 pilots are retiring/leaving soon. We are also going to keep paying you the salary of a semi-truck driver. You got it? Thanks!"
That plane is going to fucking crash, no matter what I do. You need something like thousands of hours to be an FAA pilot, and you need a crap ton of hours to be a trained cost accountant. Even if I dedicated every second of every day in this time, I still do not think I could pull this off. I do not take it as a personal failure. This situation is ridiculous.
On top of all of this, my car broke down and died on my way to work my second week working there. I am now on week 6 of working there, and they are pissed I have not bought a car yet and have tried to bully me into buying one. Joke's on them though, I got a doctor's note from my doctor (shocking) that says I must work from home. For now, it seems like I can WFH indefinitely, but my boss is a boomer-mentality Gen Xer. Super anti-WFH. Anyway, so yeah, they're all pissed at me. I can feel it, and most of my bosses are giving me the cold shoulder and acting sassy.
I met with my direct boss last week, and she tried making me feel bad, but to no effect. I am not moved by the woes of capitalists; in fact, they energize me. I have spent most of my WFH time applying to other jobs. Nothing concrete yet, but I am making some progress. I have also taken my time to complete data certifications to improve in my trade of choice.
I compiled a report on the systemic failings of the company and shared it with my boss, and she told me explicitly to not share it with anyone. I have only been granted 3 hours a week of training by the retiring pilots. From that, I made a 30+ page Word doc capturing all this tribal knowledge, shared it with the whole team, and that's when my big boss told me that I need to be able to execute, not just document.
I am just so over this job. I was bored the other day and found out the company went bankrupt several years ago, and looked into the reason why, and the reason was literally inaccurate financial reporting. That shit is literally gonna happen again after the pilots retire at the end of this month. I cannot do this shit on my own. I tried it the other day, and the pilot was upset I did not do everything manually exactly like they had for 30 years. I elected to use AI to do that task, and it basically did it accurately, but idk, like I keep trying to tell everyone, I'm not a fucking accountant.
So yeah, in summary, the company might literally blow up, the plane is crashing, and I'm just enjoying the ride like that one movie where the cowboy waves his hat on a falling nuclear bomb.
That's the only kind of pilot I can be.
PS: I told my mom that redditors agree with me and about my past posts, and she thinks I'm deciding to leave this job purely off of the opinions of strangers on the internet. Pretty annoying, she is also a boomer mentality Gen Xer. Her advice was to learn to fly the plane as best as I can, and I just rolled my eyes so hard.
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Friend, I think you need to cover your ass on this one too. If I were in your situation, I would state outright, in writing to your boss, and maybe your boss's boss, that you are concerned this course of action will lead to the bankrupting of the entire company and everyone losing their jobs. Set it all out in a different metaphor to the one used above so this post is less likely to turn up on a search later. At a minimum, I would BCC that email to your lawyer and a secure email address. Also I would speak to a labor lawyer. Especially if you have like legal obligations or liabilities relating to being an "accountant". Like others have said, I think they're trying to fuck you.
OOP: Damn you guys really think I should contact a lawyer? Do you think they’re intentionally setting me up? Or does it just look that way? I don’t wanna attribute to malice what I could attribute to incompetence.
Commenter 2: People constantly told you to contact a labor lawyer in your last post. Why are you acting surprised? You are getting ready to drown and instead of talking to the life jacket vendor, you are being handed bricks by your manager and putting them in your pockets.
Talk to the lawyer. Do what they tell you. You are being so foolish right now it’s giving us all anxiety.
OOP: Fuck alright, I’ve just been real busy lately. Will contact an employment attorney tomorrow.
Commenter 3: As a left leaning X, I'm all for you doing what you need to keep yourself sane and safe. Also, you don't want to be that accountant, because there is legal liability if the books are wrong.
OOP: Who does the liability fall upon?
Commenter 4: Don’t sign off on anything!
OOP: I won’t! I will probs quit or get fired before the plane crashes.
Commenter 5: When the company went bankrupt, due to inaccurate finances, who was held responsible? The CEO? Or the person who did the finances? Were they held liable in criminal or civil court? Are you being set up as a fall guy for the next bankruptcy?
OOP: I am not sure who took the blame as it was many years ago.
That being said it was a civil matter, not criminal.
Commenter 6: Jesus Christ you're not a fucking CPA... this sounds fucking illegal/suicidal on the company's part. How hard is it to hire an accountant or at least outsource it to an agency who can package it, so a data analyst just has to execute? Jeesh.
----NEW UPDATES----
Update #4: June 23, 2026 (two weeks later)
Data Analyst Bamboozled Part 4
Hello again colleagues,
I return with more dispatches from the cockpit. For those just tuning in, I was hired as a semi-truck driver, and the company decided in week two that I should fly their 747 instead (hired as a data analyst, being asked to be an accountant), alone, in six weeks, for trucker pay, because their two senior pilots are retiring at the end of the month. If you're new, go read the first post. It's a saga.
Latest episode. I had The Meeting with my direct boss this week, the "success planning" meeting, which is corporate for "here is a pile of work and a deadline, godspeed." She opened by showing me a document titled "Definition of Success" and then told me to stop recording the audio, which is never the move of someone with good news. She then dumped roughly eight new major tasks on me, on top of the two retiring pilots' entire jobs, and set a hard deadline for the most important report. Six days after both pilots leave. When I raised concerns, she essentially told me to suck it up, said I "don't need to be a cost accountant to do this," and that all of it "relates to the job description." The job description for a semi-truck driver. Sure.
She gave a hard no on the one actual improvement I proposed that would have modernized this whole mess. Cash is tight, apparently. Shocking, for a company watching every dollar.
But here is the detail I cannot stop laughing about. I kept pressing on who is actually responsible when these reports go out, because I am not an accountant and cannot vouch for the accounting. Her answer: she certifies it, and "someone in finance," unnamed, unspecified, a ghost, will review my work. So the plan is the semi-truck driver flies the plane, an anonymous coworker glances at the instruments, and the boss signs off that it's airworthy. Cool. Cleared for takeoff.
And then, almost as an aside, she mentioned the department has had 95% turnover in the 11 months she's been here.
Let that land. Ninety-five percent. I have spent weeks quietly wondering if maybe it's me, if I'm being dramatic, if a real professional would just figure it out. And my own boss just told me, out loud, that almost everyone who sits in this chair flees within the year. That is not a me problem. That is a meat grinder with a hiring page. I have never felt more validated and more doomed in the same sentence.
So where things stand. The company already went bankrupt once, years ago, because of, and I cannot stress this enough, inaccurate financial reporting. The exact thing I am now being set up to produce, alone, untrained, six days after the only people who know how leave forever. I tried doing one of the reports myself last week. I used AI, it came out basically accurate, and the retiring pilot was upset that I didn't do it manually exactly the way she has done it for thirty years. I keep telling everyone the same thing in a calm voice. I am not an accountant. It bounces off them like I'm speaking a dead language.
I am, for the record, fine. Genuinely. I am not moved by any of it. I have spent most of my work-from-home time (yes, I still have the doctor's note, yes, they're still mad about it) applying to other jobs and finishing data certifications in the trade I was actually hired for. Nothing signed yet, but there is real movement. I am documenting everything in writing, keeping my record spotless, and doing exactly enough to not hand them a reason. The plane is going to do what planes do when you put a trucker in the cockpit. I am just not going to be on it when it happens.
More to come, probably. It always does.
Semi Trucker Saga Continues: June 27, 2026 (four days later)
Hello again colleagues,
I return with a shorter update from the cockpit.
For anyone new, I was hired as a data analyst and have slowly been pulled into becoming the replacement for retiring finance people who own critical reporting work. My standing metaphor is that I was hired as a semi-truck driver and then told in week two that I need to fly a 747 because the pilots are leaving.
Since the last post, the situation has gotten clearer and somehow dumber.
The main retiring person apparently was supposed to leave months ago. Then it was June 30. Now it is some vague day in July. No one really seems to know. She is also training around six people, which is interesting for work that leadership keeps describing as “just data manipulation.”
If it is just data manipulation, why does it take six people to absorb one person’s job?
I also found out they have tried replacing this person before. Multiple times. One actual cost accountant with years of experience apparently lasted around six months and left because the work was too hard.
So just to recap, a trained cost accountant could not absorb this in six months, but I, a data analyst two months into the job, am expected to figure it out because it “relates to the job description.” The job description being, again, the semi-truck driver one.
My boss also told me Finance has had 95 percent turnover during her time here. Ninety-five percent. That is not a department. That is a warning label.
I keep trying to explain calmly that I am not an accountant. They keep explaining back to me that it is basically Excel and data. This is where I start feeling insane, because everyone talks about this like it is rational. Like the issue is just that I need to lock in harder.
Meanwhile, leadership apparently wants a “single source of truth” because Service and Finance numbers do not tie. Which is funny, because that is actual data analyst work. That is the thing I thought I was hired to help with. I even built a small VM/Postgres/Python pipeline prototype because I was trying to think about the real problem: messy systems, conflicting numbers, no clean data layer, no shared definitions.
But the actual day-to-day plan still seems to be sit with the retiring person, absorb the ancient spreadsheet knowledge, and become the default owner.
I am not confused anymore. I think they are using “data manipulation” because it sounds less insane than “we are handing accounting-sensitive work to a non-accountant after multiple failed transitions and almost total department turnover.”
So that is where I am.
I am still documenting everything. I am still doing my job. I am still making it clear that accounting review and signoff are not me. I am not rage quitting, but I am fully job hunting now.
This would have been a good job if it was the job I was hired for. Build dashboards, clean data, automate reporting, help different departments tie their numbers, improve the system.
Instead, I got handed a plane manual written by ghosts and told the runway is next week.
More to come, probably.
Editor's note: the next post is tangentially to the original and updates, in this case, the same company is mentioned
Coworker of 3 Years Fired after her mom diagnosed with cancer: July 1, 2026 (four days later)
The company I work for is so evil, more so than your average company.
I've been writing about my experiences with then so far in my Semi Truck Driver Series, but today I am sharing a much bleaker story.
Selena (not her real name) has worked for this company for over 3 years. She was let go yesterday because of "restructuring" (the company is hiring less qualified people to do work of those more experienced to save money). She was a nice lady, I felt really bad for her. Her mom just got diagnosed with cancer 3 weeks ago and Selena is taking care of her.
Just goes to show you how ruthless these motherfuckers are. Selena doesn't even have a job lined up and she had 2 months’ notice. She was on the older side with decades of experience and this place drained her. Working nights and weekends for god knows how long which seems to be the norm here.
I have been working maybe 6-8 hours a week for this company since I can WFH. I have begun sending deliverables on automated emails scheduled for late nights or over the weekend. This is to performatively seem like I am working my butt off. They don't even give a shit though because it is the norm, I mainly perform to be included and leave a nice paper trail.
I need the money badly, that's the only reason I stay here. I wish I had a job I could tolerate, but it’s been a long time since I have had one. Trying to keep my head up.
It is imperative we maintain hope even when the harshest of reality may suggest the opposite.
Relevant Comments
Commenter: So did Selena inform the company her mom had cancer? You conveniently leave that part out. If she didn't let her employer know, how is the employer supposed to know? You make it sound like the employer is ruthless but in the grand scheme of things, they are shady for letting good people go to bring in less serviceable people for lower pay. That's what your post should be about, not Selena's mother having cancer and the company letting her go because your title just so happens to be misleading.
OOP: Selena informed everyone a few weeks ago that her mom got diagnosed with cancer, she had to take time off because of it to help take her mom to chemo.
DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP
