How Did It Get To This?

I'm sure I posted about how we nearly lost our auditing licence eighteen months ago or so due to the incompetence of a colleague. Well it's that colleague whose retiring next year and whose clients are being split between Laura and myself. I am now going through each of his jobs reviewing the files and making notes of what needs to be done and boy is it a job I wish I didn't have to do.

I don't know where to start because each sentence starts with the words, "I don't want to put him down," or ,"Look I don't want to slag him off," which are the equivalent of the "with respect," line that ultimately means, "sorry but you're a complete tosspot."

The quality of work is dreadful, the recording, the notes etc is truly depressing. I actually had to stop at one point and think "why am I doing this?" We have a peer review system in place but to be honest it hasn't served much purpose until recently and I actually feel guilty about not following up on the fact that it wasn't working.

There's a real feeling among staff that Bob has wasted the last thirty years of his life and I find that sad. During the thirteen years that I have known him he has consistently avoided using the computer to its full potential and relied on the goodwill of junior staff to help him out. The hour or so I spent with him and the Quality Assurance inspector was the most embarrassing of my career, his work was pulled apart mercilessly and until the last week or so I didn't realise how bad it was. As a result of that visit we weren't allowed to submit any of his work for review, something that simply added to the pressure of my job because it meant all the reviews have to be carried out on my client files. Of course pressure is all relative but if we were to lose the audits we have it would mean at least one possibly two people would lose their jobs. And yes I know that if I do my job properly there's no reason to fail the reviews but the reality is that something can never be perfect because that arouses suspicion further up the line.

Of course this means I am left with a situation where I have to approach clients who we, as a practice, have acted as auditors for donkeys years and yet the files show little or no knowledge of how the client operates, it is really depressing.

As an aside I noticed the other day that I have now reached the glass ceiling in terms of salary and benefits, I arrived at this conclusion by looking at employment websites as part of the salary review process. It was a strange moment really, the realisation that at just 50 I have reached my full earnings potential.