Pre-busy season audit resolutions.

Every year so far in my short career I become officially unassigned right before busy season. Basically once SAS 70 reports have been signed off I am free and clear until Mid January. I have been on vacation since Christmas and by vacation I mean that I have been on call via Blackberry and working only 1 to 2 hours per day. (This is huge for me, I would never stop doing firm business if the significant other didn't convince me that I have a working problem.) So I have taken the time to come up with some professional resolutions for the new year in between reading the news, playing video games, pressing the Stumbleupon button and doing all the chores.

There are four things:

1) I will not let my career get my partner's life harder - The job asks a lot but family is really more important. I can stand to make less money if it means that my family is happier. I will do this by focusing on her needs and letting go of more of my competitive nature when it comes to promotion and evaluations.

2) I will be as passionate about coaching as I was when I didn't know anything. When I first started at my firm, I would stop to teach anyone anything but as my responsibilities have grown I have not made as much of an effort to go above and beyond to teach people. I have started to do this during SAS 70 season, and I am hoping that it will translate to busy season. The big thing for me is not losing focus on what my job description actually is in order to pursue more responsibilities at the manager position. The managers that I respect the most take the time to coach in a patient and effective manner, and for some reason I haven't done the best job at emulating this as a best practice. Shame on me.

3) I will write consistently - My goal is to get to a post in this blog a week and one "tweet" a day. One interesting tweet, that is. Sometimes I twitter things just because its lunch. I will get better at witting about what is going on in this great profession and use this blog as a tool to learn and spread knowledge.

4) I will streamline the task management system I already use, and not look for new ones. - I am the kind of person that likes to organize but hates being organized. When I first got promoted to senior I spent a lot of time reading David Allen and trying to fit that to what I was doing from the day to day but in reality what I have done in my quest to be more productive is tear down perfectly good productivity systems for no reason. So no new software, no new applications, no new planner forms with random timetable mechanics and icons that make no sense. I am just going to stick to my Evernote+RTM+Toggl+Big Ass Mead notebook system (or the ERTBAM system) and any improvements will be toward making it more efficient.

Well there it is. I head back to work next week, teaching a class on evaluating and relying on controls for hedge fund and private equity mutual fund audits. Teaching is the best way to get back from vacation.

SEC - Old remarks about Principle vs Rules Based

SEC speeches are always entertaining. Last month, Roel Campos, SEC commissioner made a particularly entertaining speech (technically public remarks) concerning the principles vs rules based approach. The remarks focus on US vs UK securities regulations and how they are similar (some of our rules are really principles), and why they are different (retail investors sue easy?). He closes by talking about how the regulator's approach in London is used as a selling point for UK markets, and how that is a dangerous place to be, if in time the competitiveness of financial markets have a more direct effect on regulation.

http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2007/spch061407rcc.htm

It's a fun Friday morning read. Wasn't there a time when SEC regulations were used as a selling point by US markets? If you securities regulation exist for positive reasons, couldn't they always be used as selling point?

Audit like a champion .... today.

TGIFriday Auditor's

A fact of life is that you can't last any amount of time in this job without figuring out your own work/life balance priorities. This is not solely related to auditing, as many industries have a constant grind, but it has been my experience that the Work/Life experience has the most variations in our industry, and this becomes very obvious on the day that disco made fun ... Friday.

There are three types of Friday Auditors, in my experience

1) The Roller[Type Auditor. The Roller busts his butt Monday through Thursday, but spends time for himself on Friday even if he has to work Saturday because of it. The roller will only respond to external client demands on Friday no matter what how high you are and how much you yell at him. Depending on his age he probably had some commitment that kept him up late (For, Younger auditors that would generally be clubbing, older auditors that would generally be quality time with the spouse and kids.) It doesn't matter if he is unproductive on Friday because he's either already made it up or will make it up on Saturday. The hours roll. You can usually spot a roller because at 10am he will randomly read news articles to you, and continue to do so for the remainder of the day.

I often conflict these people, Because I am a

2) Dolly Parton-Type Auditor - Working 9-5 (or 7 to 6 in my case) is a fantastic way to make a living. If She is physically here during "normal" work hours then she is giving 110%. Friday is just another day. If you are her manager, She is hoping that so many deliverables would cross you inbox that the idea of working the weekend would sound ridiculous. She plans her week so that she can make this tight schedule. It all culminates on Friday afternoon when she clears her final items, and has two whole glorious darn days of nothing work-related. She is usually working at a steady pace throughout.


And then there is ...

3) The Friday Afternoon - Type auditor - For the life of me, I don't get this, so I can't expound to much on it. But some auditors love to to do close out loose ends as late in the week as possible. I know someone has had the experience of the 430pm manager or senior review meeting. That is because of this guy. It doesn't matter when you complete or delegate something this person will get it done on Friday afternoon. In his mind the task is now "on the line" and worth his time. These guys generally think more in terms of weeks in stead of days and often time even forget what date of the week it is. Not to be biased, but this guys a pain for everyone involved, except his superiors that love Mondays.

What types of Friday auditors have you observed on your workday? How do you get the heck out of Dodge on a Friday?

Practice makes purpose.

Greetings to whoever is so lucky to actually find my new little piece of the interweb tubes.

This is Boom! and I have started this simple blog for 3 reasons, that will probably not sound terribly appealing to most people.

1) Track my personal thoughts and life
2) To practice generating content on a regular basis.
3) To (this is the exciting one) practice discussion auditing practices and the regulations and affect my industry. This also includes discussions of the softer skills of management and productivity.

At some point, I plan to start a "full on" blog concerning this final bullet point and have this just be personal. I have been hammering out in my head how to speak about this topic in a way that would be entertaining and educational, and I have come to the conclusion that the only way to do this is to kind to dive in laptop first.

Real quick. I am a senior associate at an auditing firm. Its a rather large one, but that really doesn't make me any more or less qualified (or provide me with any more staff). I am an MBA, which means I know more supply chain management vocabulary than I will EVER use. I specialize in auditing mutual funds, investment advisers and Type II SAS 70 report of the aforementioned companies.

Personally, I am black, funny, overweight and trying to save for a ring for my lady-friend of 2 years.

I am off to research my first real post. Let me know if you have any topics in mind and I'll see what I can do.