Taking Flight

After one of the last audits I had this feeling, which I want to believe besieges every professional once in a while: A creeping thought of senselessness in one’s profession, culminating in the question: “What am I doing here anyway?”

Being an engineer by profession and a constant proponent of IT management processes, I wanted to approach, examine and ultimately correct this situation by starting with a root-cause analysis of the problem. I’ve identified four possible roots. Admittedly, as auditor one tends to acquire a strange paranoia over time, so the reasons ranged from a) An omen of my looming mid-life crisis (I heard about it: maybe that’s how it feels?); b) Just having seen Halloween coming up later this month (which could of course explain any creeping feeling of horror); c) Hearing vehement complains about the excessive audit burden my auditees must endure (which happens more often than one might think); d) Having found IT delivery practices that made one toe nails curl up (I regret this graphic language, but it’s worth to mention because number d) counter-balanced c) in an interesting way);

Liberty and Justice and Audits for All!

Clearly, this time of the year is anniversary-season. D-Day has just been commemorated for the 65^th time and US Independence Day is just around the corner, admittedly with a less spectacular combination of digits. There is another date worthwhile to remember and to celebrate: June 15, has come and passed and sadly been all but forgotten in our collective memory. That day has deserved better as it lends its date to commemorate an event that had occurred 794 years ago. This date ought to be remembered as the origination of all liberation days; the ‘mother of independence days’. 

Opportunity Makes a Thief

What made me instantly think of this proverb when I learned about a recent piece of legislation, which went into congressional records under its obscure official title as “Bill H.R. 1 of the 111th Congress of the United States”, I don’t know. The bill, better known under its common – the term “popular” does not seem apt – name “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)”, or short “The Stimulus Bill”, surely provides ample opportunity to spill ink. In my case red ink, which we auditors like to be associated with (Please note: I’m not trying to examine our profession’s particular challenge to survive return-on-investment questions posed by our senior managers. I’ll save that for another time).

As an auditor I am naturally hesitant to join the motley crew of political, economical and intellectual pundits who have been dissecting, interpreting, and, inevitably, either praising the bill as bold move rivaling the declaration of independence or loathing it as greatest threat to modern American civilization or mankind altogether. It appears futile taking any position in judging that bill, as it hinges on one’s personal or public beliefs. Besides, all positions seem to be taken already anyway. So what can an auditor, one that’s specialized on Information Systems and Services auditing for that, add that others have not already? Taking what seems a radical and rather unorthodox approach, I chose to read the bill before forming an opinion. That of course explains the delay of six weeks before I could write this article. I can’t help but feel sorry for all those legislators and pundits that lacked the luxury of time and felt compelled to vote on the bill or critique it without reading it first. One should not rush to judgment only because the term ‘ARRA’ sounds like JFK pronouncing ‘Error’, I thought.