Auditors

Its said that there are two things certain in life: death and taxes. The second implies something which seems almost as certain as itself: auditors. If you've sat down and done your tax return yourself, you're probably feeling pretty smug about how much you've managed to deduct from your assessable income. But what if you're being dodgy, and the $5000 you said you spent on reference books for work were actually spent at the pub after work? Who are the guys who are going to make sure that you've filled in your tax return properly?

Thats right: The Tax Office auditors. They're a necessary evil to keep those who might fudge their tax in line, and to try and catch those who do. For those of us who actually fill in the tax return with legitimate numbers, they're a plain nuisance.

Its not only the tax auditors who get on peoples' nerves. It seems that auditors of all types have to stick their hand in the pile of crap that is your life to make things harder for everyone. Not only that, the fact that the US decided to make things harder for their companies by legislating the dreaded Sarbanes-Oxley requirements have made it so that you can't seem to scratch your back in a corporate environment without getting drawn into the Red Hole of Bureaucracy (RHB). So not only do auditors have to look at the stuff they were always looking at 10 years ago, they're also looking at what you're doing to stay SOX compliant. This is great news for accounting and auditing graduates as theres now plenty of work compared to before the whole Enron scandle hit, and its hard not to find a job if you look hard enough. However, for the rest of us, it just makes life that much harder.

Now we have to deal with things such as Business Continuity Management (BCM), so that when the building you work in decides to fall over after some terrorists have decided that they'll turn into martyrs, you'll have somewhere to go. This is all very well and good. We'll have a plan so that we'll still have jobs if the building blows up. The problem is that if this happens while everyone is working at the building, its not going to help since everyone who knows about the management plan isn't going to be alive to put it into practice.

Theres also other things, like application handbooks which are written so that nobody actually understands what its talking about unless they actually know what its meant to be saying.

Fantastic.

After all thats done, they'll work to put as much red tape in front of your normal work so that after they're done, you won't be able to move unless you feel like untangling yourself from the red cocoon you'll undoubtedly find yourself trapped in. And those are just the external auditors.

As for the internal auditors, they'll make things just as hard, but they have a tougher job. They have the added problem of wading their way through the additional red tape the external auditors put in to slap on some more slightly more pink tape.

The other problem is that they will continue to work with the people they give tape to. External auditors can give 'recommendations' which turn out to be mandatory, and then go away for about a year before coming back for a few weeks to see if its all been done. Internal auditors will give someone a task to do, and have to sit around giving stuff to everyone else in the company while the first one fumes and bitches about the stuff they're given. By the time he gets back, the original person and everyone who he works with and sits next to will hate them. Grrr.

Yes, auditors, we know you're just doing your job, but we loathe you.

*Cough cough*

I think I'm sick.

Ah well, been there done that eh? Its nothing special.

I wonder if I should go to work tomorrow... Its not like I have anything urgent to do. Hmmm...

Things you don't want to hear after a job interview #262

I was walking around the city the other day on the way the bus stop, and this woman said "I just didn't feel like hiring her."

If these are the kinds of justifications for decisions about peoples' careers that are made on a regular basis, I think we're in trouble.

No wonder a lot of people can't find jobs. They must be the type that people just don't feel like hiring.

Politics at work

I thought I'd try to stay away from politics at work. The problem is that the only way you're actually going to stay away from politics is if you have one manager, and you don't work with anyone else, which could be a little boring.

So, my way of trying to avoid politics is attempt to piss the least number of people I can possibly piss off. This includes shirking responsibility, attributing work to other people, and pleading ignorance for lots of things. As I haven't really been given much responsibility yet, its working quite admirably. As one workmate put it recently, "You get along with everyone!" I do, but I just bitch about them behind their back to a select few.

It helps that I've been given tasks I don't really know what I'm doing with only because nobody else will do it or wants to do it. Either because they don't understand how or because they don't see the use in it. I understand how and the use in it, I just don't have the knowledge to fill in the gaps in the template. Its something which only comes with experience, or talking to other people and pissing them off. I usually just attribute it to someone else, thereby handballing responsibility.

That last paragraph doesn't really make much sense, but we'll soldier on.

I drink a lot more now as well. If I happen to have a crap day, some of us will just go down to the pub and laugh about it for a while. It helps because then we see the funny side and not take it so personally. Most of this is due to people who are brick walls and don't really help the situation all that much.

Other than that though, I don't get involved in any power struggles. I don't actually think that there are any power struggles where I work, because everyone is fairly sure of their place and moving up means going overseas. Since nobody really knows whats overseas, they don't really know what they're competing against.

Thats my rant for the month.