THERE IS A QUIET atmosphere in the offices at ME Murrell and Company except for the crisp, friendly voice of the receptionist occasionally answering another call from clients of the accounting firm.
Heads are down, brains appear to be in overdrive and the only conversation to be heard is coming from the office of the chief himself, Marcel “Bill” Murrell.
It is one of those three days of the week when he comes in to spend “three or four hours” working at his desk.
Dapperly-dressed and chirpy, Murrell laments that on the day of the interview his son Marcel wouldn’t be able to participate.
“You can’t see him today because we have to file taxes today. I tried getting him just now but he is very busy. He can’t think anything else but taxes now, he and my son-in-law.”
True enough, Marcel Jr is sequestered in his own office, buried in figures, preparing tax statements for clients of the accounting firm.
From the look of things there is no mistaking it is crunch time in this accounting office. The atmosphere is no lighter not far away where audit manager Eric Smith sits at his desk, bent over a stack of paper, barely taking time to look up.
Fifty-five years at the helm of his own accounting firm – the first black Barbadian to be in that position – and octogenarian Marcel Sr continues to be involved in the day-to-day operation as one of two partners in the business. His son Marcel Jr. is the other partner.
This is indeed a family affair with Marcel Sr, Marcel Jr and the latter’s daughter Marisha all involved. Smith, who is married to the daughter of the firm’s patriarch, was recruited as a staff accountant by his father-in-law immediately after he left Harrison College.
Marcel Sr begins to recall the early days when he had just started his business.
There were nights when his children climbed on his lap while he continued to work.
This did not influence his son to come into the business. When Marcel Jr finally managed to tear himself from the workload, he said: “Actually, I didn’t want to do what daddy was doing. I wanted to be an accountant from the time I was ten years old.”
He was good at mathematics and intrigued by figures, surrounded by people who made figures their business – his grandfather, an uncle and others who were all accountants.
“I just somehow at the time tied mathematics to accounting and it just so happened to be something that daddy did,” he explained.
“I can safely say I was around eight or nine when I began to understand what my father did. We would come to the office and wait on him to come home.”
But even then, it was more about the Murrell children having fun playing around with the adding machines and fraternising with office staff like retired senior executive administrator Elaine Williams who spent 46 years with the company.
He could not have known then that his father had a vision for the Murrell name to be carried on in the business he started.
In 2000, he made his son a partner.
Marcel Jr, who manages the office, said: “Despite the fact that I am involved with audits and taxation and financial services, [the job also entails] ensuring that the office door stays open, that resources are allocated, and that human resources are adequately managed.”
“It has always been my father teaching me the ropes of not only how to conduct the field of accounting but how to manage people and I think that is one of the things I would have learnt from him.”
Crunch time in the office and the Murrell family (from left) Marcel Murrell Sr, his son-in-law Eric Smith, grandaughter Marisha and son Marcel Jr are pictured conferring on clients’ business.
These are lessons Marcel Jr is passing on to his daughter who has also chosen the field of accounting.
There could be no better place to get her feet wet and build the foundation she needs for the wider world of business to which she aspires, than in the family business.
Turning to Marisha beside him at the table taking in the whole discussion, Marcel Jr said, with a fatherly nuance, “It is great having you here now.”
Looking away, he added: “But the opportunity to spread her wings may arise and I encourage her to seize it because I can see her sights are set beyond the confines of this business and she is looking beyond this stage to even further than Barbados when it comes to work and a career.”
Marisha who currently works as an intermediate accountant said: “It has been very informative watching them lead. They do guide me in how to approach the client, how to approach my work, the work ethic, and they preach efficiency in everything that I do.”
She has escaped the initiation her father had. For him, he was treated the harshest in the office.
The young “Bill” arrived at his father’s business at 8:30 a.m. on January 3, 1983, all excited and ready to get behind a desk and crunch numbers in the cool of an air-conditioned environment. Instead, he was assigned by his father two hours later to assist with an inventory count at a shop, weighing and counting all the bags of white flour, sugar, potatoes, onions, snuff, rice and yams.”
“This experience taught me a lesson: that whilst at work, I was another employee who had to start from the bottom and work my way up with no favours from the boss,” Marcel Jr said.
The clients he now serves are third generation of the people who supported his father in those early days.
They are the reason that Marcel Murrell Sr continues to have a presence in the business he started.
