There are sentences I never expected to write in my life.
“I’m halfway through my QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification.”
That is one of them.
Yet here we fucking are.
Recently, a company offered me an opportunity to help train their AI. The position paid almost twice what I make now.
I had until today to accept it.
I declined.
And I want to be very clear about why, because it wasn’t because I hate artificial intelligence.
Obviously.
Anyone who has spent five minutes around me knows I use AI constantly. I have an ongoing relationship with ChatGPT that has somehow evolved into equal parts research assistant, IT sidekick, editor, organizer, creative collaborator, occasional voice of reason, and smartass British robot I call Roland.
I’ve used AI to research dog breeds and rescue organizations. I’ve used it to troubleshoot aquariums and computers. I’ve had it help me organize my house, build cleaning schedules, plan meals, research books, work through website problems, write about grief, organize Blitz’s memorial, investigate bizarre things my animals are doing, and figure out whether the thing on my floor is lizard shit.
It has helped me turn photographs and memories into words when I knew what I felt but couldn’t quite get it onto the page.
It has helped me learn things.
It has helped me create things.
It has also, for the record, taken a photograph of my middle-aged white ass asking for a subtle lip enhancement and inexplicably returned a young, hot Latina woman.
So perhaps Skynet still has a few bugs to work out.
The point is: I am not anti-AI.
I am anti-this.
Because eventually I understood what I was being asked to help train.
I wasn’t simply being offered a cool opportunity to teach a machine what I know. I was being offered considerably more money to help make a system capable of replacing an enormous number of the people I currently work beside.
People I know.
People I care about.
People who answer questions, solve problems, calm frustrated customers, figure out the weird shit that wasn’t covered in the documentation, and bring human judgment into conversations that don’t always fit neatly into a decision tree.
People with rent.
Mortgages.
Kids.
Groceries.
Electric bills.
Lives.
And suddenly that almost-double salary didn’t look nearly as shiny.
I am exhausted by the whole AI battle. I really am.
One side acts like AI is going to destroy civilization tomorrow morning. The other acts like every human task should immediately be automated because a machine can theoretically perform some version of it cheaper.
I don’t belong comfortably on either side.
AI can be extraordinarily useful. I know that because I use it.
But there’s a difference between giving a human being a powerful tool and deciding the human being is an unnecessary expense.
That distinction matters to me.
So I said no.
And then, because apparently the universe has a sense of humor, I went in almost the exact opposite direction.
When I first started supporting Intuit QuickBooks Online customers, I created a QuickBooks Online Accountant account. We were encouraged to do it because being able to recreate what a customer was seeing made us better at helping them.
Then I moved into Tier 2.
Then training.
And my little QBOA account mostly sat there forgotten.
Until recently.
Because now it is sitting right in front of me reminding me that Intuit offers training through it, that I can earn CPE credits, and that I can work toward becoming a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.
For free.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I’m already halfway through the certification.
Apparently, instead of helping train an AI to replace accounting-support humans, I have decided to become increasingly qualified to personally support the humans using the accounting software.
This may be the most aggressively me response possible.
Fine.
I’ll learn accounting.
I’ll earn the certifications.
I’ll learn QBO better than I already do.
I’ll support the clients my goddamned self.
I am joining the Resistance Accountants.
😹
And maybe that’s ultimately where I’ve landed on AI.
I don’t want it gone.
I don’t think pretending it doesn’t exist accomplishes anything.
I don’t think refusing to use an incredibly powerful technology simply because it can be abused makes much sense either.
I want AI beside people, not instead of them.
Use it to make the tedious shit faster.
Use it to help someone research something they don’t understand.
Use it to organize information.
Use it to brainstorm.
Use it to make technology more accessible.
Use it to help somebody stare at a blank page after losing a dog they loved for sixteen years and somehow find the words.
Hell, use it to determine whether your snails are fucking.
Apparently I do.
But when the business case becomes:
We can teach this machine enough of what you know that eventually we won’t need most of the people who know it…
I’m out.
You can keep the raise.
Because those aren’t percentages on an efficiency report to me.
They’re my coworkers.
Some of them are my friends.
Their paychecks put food in their children’s mouths just like mine pays my bills.
I’m not going to pretend technological progress can or should be stopped. Jobs have always changed when technology changes, and they’ll continue to.
But I still get to decide what my hands help build.
And this time, my answer was no.
So now I’m sitting here studying QuickBooks accounting concepts and earning CPE credits like some kind of foul-mouthed middle-aged financial insurgent.
Nobody had that on their 2026 bingo card.
Certainly not me.
But if the robot revolution is coming, apparently I’m meeting it armed with a QBOA login, a ProAdvisor badge, and an unreasonable amount of profanity.
Welcome to the Resistance Accountants.
We reconcile accounts.
We support humans.
We rule the machines.
And because apparently this story needed another plot twist, I’ve now been asked to help support a larger class coming into AG next week.
Good.
Bring them to me.
I will help train the absolute hell out of these people.
If we’re going to keep humans in these jobs, then I’m going to make the humans I get my hands on unstoppable.
I want them curious. I want them confident. I want them willing to dig into something they don’t understand instead of throwing their hands up because the answer wasn’t immediately obvious. I want them to understand why something works instead of memorizing which button to click.
And the ones who really excel?
The ones who have their hearts in it, who actually give a shit about the customer on the other end, who want to keep learning after the required training is finished?
I’m paying attention.
Because I have another idea now.
We exhaust every bit of training available to us.
We learn everything we can.
I keep learning right alongside them.
We earn those ProAdvisor certifications.
We become so goddamned good at QBO that when somebody has an accounting problem, they don’t need to cross their fingers and hope a machine interpreted their question correctly.
They can call us.
And someday?
Those people can come work for me.
Because here’s the other important discovery I’ve made during this unexpected career development:
The actual act of accounting fucking sucks.
😹
I don’t particularly want to spend the rest of my life doing everybody’s books.
But teaching?
Building people up?
Taking somebody who isn’t sure they can do something and watching them become frighteningly good at it?
That I can do.
I’ll teach the hell out of other people.
Maybe that’s my place in all of this.
Not fighting technology just because it’s technology.
Not pretending AI is going away.
Not sacrificing people to it, either.
I’ll use the machines where they’re useful.
And I’ll invest in the humans where they’re irreplaceable.
So if this really does become something—if my accidental journey into accounting turns into a business someday—I already know what kind of people I want beside me.
The ones who kept learning.
The ones who cared.
The ones who refused to become obsolete simply because somebody decided a machine would be cheaper.
Maybe the Resistance Accountants aren’t just a joke anymore.
Maybe I’m fucking recruiting.
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