why I went to college

This week started with the announcement of an internal audit at work. The news of this audit meant absolutely nothing to me. Being that I barely know what my job function is supposed to be, the idea of an audit, whether internal or external, was of little concern. And no concern was paid to this audit…right up until the moment I learned that the audit would require extensive work from my department…which, considering that I compose the entire department…meant me.

As it turned out, this audit entailed a random inspection of client files, all of which had to be in precise order, logged in accordance with company procedure, and have every dollar accounted for, lest the corporate big-wigs could face Enron status jail time if the books are chosen for audit by government folks.

And as I began pulling out files, I came to realize that my predecessor had done very little in terms of ‘work’. Two years worth of paper work and client account files had been stashed haphazardly in random cabinets around the office. Unfortunately, these lazy pieces of paper didn’t have enough ambition to file themselves. Shortly after this first realization, I discovered that during this two year period nothing had been logged. How this had been overlooked is a mystery to me, but now the task had fallen into my lap.

Thus, my week…which was to become laden with extra helpings of overtime…were spent filing and logging past shipment dates which needed to be cross referenced with correct invoice numbers. With every passing minute I could actually feel my IQ points slipping away, a sensation which is somewhat similar to ice cream induced brain freeze without the tasty portions of ice cream and the eventual warmth that returns to the chilled brain. I found my eyes frequently glazing over and, on several occasions, I am convinced that I just barely snapped myself out of it right before a full blown coma set in. As I sat on the floor in the middle of my office, surrounded by towering pillars of papers and carbon copy receipts, I couldn’t help but think that this surely wasn’t why I had spent so many years in school.

And I desperately tried to look on the bright side…which I’m told I don’t do nearly enough…by telling myself such things as, ‘most people probably wouldn’t have realized that client names beginning with the letter ‘T’ should be filed after those beginning with the letter ‘S’, not before’, and, ‘it takes a lot of skill to stuff that many papers into a single manila folder’.

Yet I still couldn’t help but feel that a couple of trained monkeys could have done just as good a job.