Bookkeeping Courses Broke My Heart.

OK, not bookkeeping courses per se.

It was the girl really, but it comes to the same as the two are intertwined.

I met her in a bar where she was on a student drinks night with her fellow students from Pitman Training.

She was stunning and she seemed to like me too, which just goes to show there's no accounting for taste. I engineered a reason to speak to her and quickly heard from her accent that she was a bit posher than me if you believe in all that class system stuff, which I sort of do.

She said she was taking bookkeeping courses en route to gaining an Accounting Technician qualification, which was quite a coincidence as my aunt had left me a nice bit of money in her will to spend on developing my education with a view to starting a career.

I think my aunt had spotted that I'm a bit of a waster so she had made a proviso that I had to use the money for training for a job rather than drinking it all away.

I didn't really fancy working but this girl really took my breath away so I decided to enrol on some bookkeeping courses alongside her so I could spend more time with her.

Yeah, I know that on balance it was a mad idea but the girl was beautiful and at the same time, I would get the money from my inheritance, so it was all good!

And as it turned out, I'm now a qualified bookkeeper so I didn't waste it.

The first thing I had to do was phone Pitman Training on 020 7025 4700 and tell them I was interested in bookkeeping courses for a career and they invited me in to talk to a course advisor.

I rolled up and spoke to some guy who was really focused and before I knew it, I was enrolled on an Accounting Technician programme. I know - I'd never heard of it either but it turns out to be a big deal in the world of accountancy.

Anyway, I thought I'd be able to sit next to the girl in class and try all kinds of shenanigans but it turned out to be self-paced training where there are no actual classes in the traditional sense, so I just had to make sure I went when she did, which required a bit of skulking about and waiting in Starbucks across the road.

Using my excellent tracking skills, I got the chance to talk to her quite often. I managed to get her out on a few dates and of course, I fell head over heels in love with her.

You know the feeling. Where you're off balance all the time, sometimes happy, sometimes in despair, unable to eat or to sleep.

Unfortunately she didn't fall as heavily for me and she was more interested in her studies than in me, so she dumped me.

I was devastated as somehow in the book in my head I had got to a page way ahead of her. This put me so off balance I didn't know which way was up and I couldn't face going to the training centre for weeks.

As she wouldn't return my calls, I decided to go back to college to see if I could see her but she just blanked me so I was forced to study and admire her from afar as they say.

Anyway, my aching heart seemed to make me throw myself into my studies a bit more and without really trying, I started passing the exams in my bookkeeping courses.

I passed Basic Bookkeeping (with distinction), Purchase Ledger, Sales Ledger and Final Accounts 1 and 2.

While all this emotional turmoil was going on, I started doing my Sage Line 50 course and the "can't eat, can't sleep" stuff wasn't helping. The thing about Sage was that they wanted you to really drive it to provide computerised accounts while most people just want to do data entry on the system and let somebody else do the good stuff.

It was pretty hard to concentrate with my emotions being such a mess and I couldn't get her out of my head.

But then I just thought that if I could pass Sage Line 50, I'd impress the girl and get her back somehow.

Of course, I was wrong and she soon found someone else, which really hurt. In fact, I was sick but I tried to rationalise it by telling myself the main thing was that she was happy.

That didn't really add up and I was starting to get tired of feeling like such a loser so I hit on another way to move forward.

I would pass the exams in all my bookkeeping courses with distinctions and get my Accounting Technician Diploma and find a really prestigious, well-paid job to make her fall in love with me and come back.

As luck would have it, I quickly got a job as Financial Controller with a start-up company involved in computer systems.

To tell you the truth, the job was too big for me but they were prepared to take a punt on me and it stopped me from mooning about all day and I didn't have time to think about the girl, who, I should add, still wouldn't return my calls!

The job was quite absorbing as I didn't really know what I was doing but at least my Pitman Training education meant I had practical knowledge even if I didn't have any experience and I muddled through.

Gradually the heartache wore off and I met another girl at work who is more fun than the last one so I guess everything turned out for the best in the end. And all thanks to Pitman Training's bookkeeping courses!

If you want to learn to be a bookkeeper, but definitely don't want to fall in love, why not give Pitman Training a call?

Notting Hill - 020 7792 5214

Holborn - 020 7025 4700

Manchester - 0161 923 6814

Or contact them by email. Hope you don't get your heart broken!