The Audit Mentality: Part II

The Audit Mentality: Part I painted a picture of the best case scenario of the Audit process.  An extremely knowledgeable person traveled from site-to-site and became the agent of disseminating "lessons learned" between the sister plants without the plants actually having to acquire the scar tissue of a painful, first hand lesson.

Audit Mentality: Part II discusses the common dead-ends that "Audits" evolve into.

Woodpiles

Matching the capability of employees with the tasks that need to be done is one of the dilemmas that confront modern organizations.   In simpler times Management could either terminate or demote somebody who demonstrated the Peter Principle.  It was understood that the enterprise was a life boat in a stormy sea and that the seaworthiness of the life boat was far more important than seating arrangement within the life boat.

Today, people "own" their jobs.  A corporation cannot lightly deprive a person of their position without facing litigation and other blow-back.  This is pure silliness.  If the employee actually "owned" the job they should be able to sell it on eBay.  (There is a credible story of a factory employee in Flint, Michigan who auctioned off his "coffee pot" when he retired.  He netted $32,000 from the sale.  He "owned" the coffee pot but not his job.)

A particularly sticky situation is when an employee with critical skills works under a mediocre boss.  It gets down-right ugly when the mediocre boss is a "protected species", a person who self-identifies as a member of a "historically economically disadvantaged minority."

One of the few win-win scenarios involves popping the cork out of the bottleneck by promoting the mediocre boss into an auditor. That frees up the critical employee for reassignment without exposing the corporation to court intervention.

Win-win except for the people who must deal with the newly minted, mediocre, status-focused auditor.

These auditors swagger about the production floor.  They generate non-value added requirements and then spank production oriented people who do not grovel with sufficient ardor.  They publicly pillory operations people three pay-grades above themselves for minute infractions.  There is no pushback or recourse.  They are auditors.

An example:

An auditor decided that some arcane metric needed to be charted on a shift-by-shift basis.  Further, they demanded that the chart be posted at the production stations for their auditing convenience.

An executive decision was made to physically store the charts in the production team room (200 feet from the station) due to the difficulty of maintaining the paperwork.  Non-value added paperwork has a tendency to disappear out on the plant floor.  The charts existed and were up-to-date.  The auditor stomped her feet and her hollering stopped one level short the Corporate VP level.

The next audit had the same auditor but the plant contact was the same species of economically disadvantaged minority.  The paperwork was still in the production team room where it would not be ignited by weld sparks.  The plant passed the audit with four stars.  The only difference was that one more non-value added position had been created and filled by promoting a historically economically disadvantaged minority.

A second pathology

A second pathology involves using the audit process to "educate" new employees.  Young, dewy-eyed, impressionable employees are handed generic audit forms and directed to audit specific areas.  This was the aggravation my Beltway cousin endured.  He worked for a contractor who maintained a massive database on a mainframe.

The audits were written for networked personal computers:
-Is antivirus software up-to-date?
-Is Java (and other known security risks) most recent release?
-Is MS operating system most recent release?
-Is the computer plugged into a Federally approved, 1500W surge protector?

90% of the auditors who show up have no clue which questions actually apply to the mainframe environment.  The facility only passes the audit when 60 year old auditors who used to work with mainframes cross off two-thirds of the audit questions as Not Applicable.  The facility is placed on a provisional operating basis and a mandatory improvement plan is implemented when they do not pass the audit.

The facility rarely passed the audit.  The facility was never shut down.  That would shut down the Government.

Conclusion

Auditors throw a long shadow.

The first auditor had an uncanny knowledge of man, machine and product and how they interacted.  He was able to see problems from fifty feet away as he walked.  This degree of awareness is what we want to clone with the auditing process.

The second auditor (woodpile) ascended to the position due to mediocrity, vanity and a sense of entitlement.  They also exhibited a personal agenda not in the best interests of the customer or the Corporation in-total.  Cloning this person creates a toxic environment.

The third auditor (newbie) creates an environment of make-work and needless anxiety.  Resources that could be focused on providing service or making processes more robust are diverted to addressing nonsensical issues.

The Audit Mentality

One of the things I commiserated with my Beltway cousins about was the complete saturation of the modern workplace with The Audit Mentality.

Theory

My best understanding of audit theory is that minimum standards are set at the very highest levels.  Then, each level below that adds additional detail pertaining to the execution of those standards.

The very lowest level should have the most detail regarding the execution of each task along with multiple "checks" to ensure that all of the minimum standards are met with 100% certainty.

Each level then "audits" the level(s) below them to ensure that all of those multiple process checks are actually being done. 

The theory is that the auditors are actually auditing the auditors the level below them.  The intention is that the lower level auditors will be "recalibrated" by the higher level auditors.  It is intended to be a force multiplier because the lower level auditors will perform 20-to-50 audits on their own between recalibrations.

An Example

Tools wear out on the factory floor.  Product checks are made on a regular basis to ensure that minimum standards are met.  A check might show, for instance, that the widgifier no longer embosses a curflumpet of adequate height.  The protocols at the very lowest levels might dictate that every whooville produced since the last check be quarantined and the height of the curflumpet checked.  Further, serial numbers might need to be recorded and filed of product quarantined and reworked.

Additionally, the new widgifier will likely have a requalification procedure where all curflumpets are measured until the process statistically demonstrates it is capable of producing a quality product.

The forces of chaos and disorder never sleep.  Sometimes the widgifier pukes on a night when the line is running short-handed.  Sometimes the designated spare is nowhere to be found.  Sometimes an executive decision is made to find a similar widgifier, turn a few adjustment screws on-the-fly and to make it work.  No blood, no foul.  Right?

The Corporate auditor is walking down the aisle in the cool light of morning.  A swarm of plant personnel form a phalanx around him to fend off production people who are wont to speak plainly.  He is being led to a sanitized cell to "approve".  The Corp auditor stops and pivots to his right.  He points at a cell.  "We will audit that cell."  The plant people poop their pants.

The audit finds irregularities.

You can learn a lot by asking simple questions

I worked "off" shifts most of my last few years.  Mostly, I wanted to avoid needless aggravation.  Sometimes I would stumble across these auditors and have a chance to ask a few questions that were unfiltered by the Plant designated "keepers"...the phalanx.

I told that particular auditor that our keepers were in awe of his other-worldly ability to find the worst cell in the entire complex as if he were a heat seeking missile.

I asked him how he did that.

He looked at me as if that was not a question he was asked very often.  He must have been reassured by my grubby appearance and my beaten-down continence.

"Here is the deal.  I used to be a Skilled Tradesman before I was sucked into management.  Tradesmen have standards regarding "workmanship".  For example, electricians have standards regarding the number and spacing of  tie-downs  per run of wiring.  They also have standards regarding making straight runs of cable whenever possible to make the tracing of wiring easy.

When I am walking down an aisle and see an air tool that has hose that is either missing hangers or the hangers are uneven...I know that an unauthorized tool replacement occurred.  What are the odds that other irregularities will be in that cell after an unauthorized tool change?  About 100%, I would say."

That is the way audits are supposed to be.  Performed by people who have been there, done that.  People who cleaned up real messes on the production floor and know the pressures that people are under and the shortcuts they are most likely to take. 



---To be continued.---

Bacon Scouts

One of my Facebook friends sent a link to this Bacon Store in Muskegon, Michigan.

Did someone say bacon? Muskegon-area butcher's ranked among nation's best

EGELSTON TOWNSHIP, MI -- Bacon or sausage? It's that old breakfast conundrum that John Drummond just may have found an answer for.

Michigan's bacon king has invented bacon sausage, which is just one of his wildly popular specialties.

"I can't keep it in my case," said Drummond, owner of John Drummond's Butcher Shop in Egelston Township. "It's like having bacon and sausage at the same time."

It is a well known, true-fact (as opposed to the false-facts bandied about by those who disagree with me) that putting the word "Bacon" in the title of a post automatically doubles the hit count.  I intend to test that fact.

Bacon Scouts, whose mission is to find the best bacon in the country, has ranked Drummond 11^th in the nation -- the only Michigan butcher shop in the list of the country's top 13 bacon producers.

Five each are from Wisconsin and Minnesota, while Iowa and South Dakota each have one producer on the list.

He sells the bacon and the sizzle.

He may be a good butcher, but he's also a smart business man. He brings a frying pan with him to the new Muskegon Farmer's Market, where the smell of cooking bacon is hard to resist.

Top 13 bacon ratings found HERE.

BACON: Even the little guy can invest in pork bellies.

Unaccompanied Minors at the Border

The Administration is invoking H.R.7311 -- William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 as the basis for NOT repatriating the surge of unaccompanied minors who are overwhelming our southern borders and will presumably morph into Democratic voters.  .  The Administration points to the bipartisan nature ofH.R.7311 and say, "In your face." to critics.

H.R.7311 is legislation that targets sexual slavery and exploitation.  A very small portion of the text deals with allowing minor children sanctuary.  The vast majority of the text deals with measures with and/or against the "home" countries to curtail this heinous practice.


For example, H.R.7311 mandates that visas be terminated or not-granted for the perpetrators of the sexual slavery.  Invoking H.R.7311 as the basis for nullifying other immigration protocols mandates that evidence be collected, lists made and butts kicked. 

I am 99% sure that we are getting the sly wink and a nod from the Administration.  Nobody is collecting evidence.  Nobody is making a list of the alleged perpetrators.  There will be no "consequences" for those countries that host these (fictitious/fabricated) crimes. 

The vast majority of the minor victims of the sex trade are women between 14 years of age and 19.  According to this source, 75% of the unaccompanied minors are male. These unaccompanied minors are NOT victims of the sex trade!

Invoking one or two paragraphs of H.R.7311 is a cynical scam to justify public expenditures that pander to a political base.  It guts a law and thereby denies protections to actual sex industry victims.  It overwhelms our border in a time of chaos.  And it destroys all of this for the political gain of one party.

D'Souza's America: Imagine...

Mrs ERJ and I went to a movie in a theater

We picked D'Souza's America: Imagine the World Without Her.  It came highly recommended by Mrs ERJ's brother.

Critique

D'Souza gets an A for effort and for the sound track.  There are things I would have done a little bit differently, primarily on the "You did not build that" theme.

We lose when we allow the opposition to define the argument.  The Obamas and Warrens of the world frame their argument as if money/resources simply sprang into being as though it had tunneled into this universe from a distant, parallel universe that is veiled from view.

(Proof reading "A-ha!".  The world of productive labor is a distant, veiled universe to many so it is a particularly apt metaphor.)

In fact, the money in my pocket is there because a mutual agreement was made between myself and an on-going commercial enterprise.  I joined my efforts with those people who were already in place.  We shepherded ideas from brain, to mylar (or computer), to prototypes and then built tools to productionize and take to mass market.  Those tools were purchased with money (capital) borrowed from the savings of legions of other workers.  Some of those savings were in the form of pension obligations.  Other savings accumulated due to insurance premiums collected in excess of immediate payouts.  Other savings was the old fashioned, "I whittled down my purchases so I have a little extra to squirrel away."

The government did not put that money in my pocket.  That money landed in my pocket due to the joined effort, and savings, of many man and women (including my own) engaged in free enterprise. 

There was a time when enterprise was recognized as the seed corn that led to future harvests.  Indeed, the Interstate system was built for the purposes of National Defense and to advance commerce, not so community organizers could travel from Chicago to St Louis and Detroit with greater convenience.  Even today, States compete for large factories with promises of infrastructure improvements to support them. States recognize that revenue, ultimately, comes from productive citizens

The Politics of Envy and Resentment

Envy and Resentment are ancient evils.  The Biblical account of Genesis has the Devil convincing Adam and Eve to eat from "The Tree of Knowledge".  At first Eve argues against the sin.  Adam was presumable present in body but did not verbalize any objections.  The Devil persuaded them with the argument that eating from The Tree of Knowledge would elevate them from "less than God" to be "as God."  The first sin? Envy!

The second sin recorded in the Bible is when Cain murdered his brother Abel. Cain murdered his brother because he was resentful of the favor shown to Abel.

Two of the Ten Commandments (20% of the Ten Commandments!) start out "Thou shall not covet..."

Many contemporary people are ambivalent about the Divine nature of the Bible.  Most of those people will readily agree that the Bible has proven a robust rule-set for moral behavior that leads to a civil and productive society.  A salient feature of that rule-set involves the prominence of the codes prohibiting "Envy" and "Resentment".

The evil of "Envy" and the poison of "Resentment" are being cultured in America today.  D'Souza points to Saul Alinsky as the fountainhead of these toxins.  His disciples are pushing the Alinsky agenda into the farthest reaches of America. 

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

A trip to the Recycling Man

One of my coffee drinking buddies supplements his retirement income by doing a little bit of recycling on the side.  We have a mutually beneficial relationship.  I clean up my garage and yard by hauling my recyclables to him.   I tell him what I am in the market for and he finds it and sets it aside for me.

For example, I want to build a small blacksmith forge.  My friend found me a clothes drier that I parted out for the fan/motor/ducting.  He also found me a length of railroad rail to use as an anvil.

Today he was parting out microwave ovens.  Magnets, transformers, capacitors, copper wire.

Picture from HERE

During idle chit-chat he informed me that shopping carts make stealthy fish traps.  People are used to seeing them in the rivers, especially beneath bridges. Another reason they are stealthy is that people associate certain classes of people with shopping carts and the mere act of pushing one renders the pusher invisible.

Picture from HERE

The rear of the cart is hinged and a little bit of creative thinking can turn that into a trap door for fish and turtles.  Part of the beauty of the shopping cart fish trap is that same trap door is large enough to make removing the catch a snap and that the shopping carts are very ruggedly made.  Something like poultry netting must be stretched across the top.

My friend even suggested enhancing the bottom of the trap door with the grille from a BBQ to create a row of curved, springy wires when the catch is entering.  With a little bit of judicious snipping, those same springy wires can present sharp points to any catch attempting to escape .  Basically, his advice was to play with it until you reliably caught fish.

I learn something new every day.

Addendum

This is a quick primer on trapping fish.  It is not intended to be comprehensive

• Position your trap in a jurisdiction that does not outlaw trapping fish or find some native-American ancestors or be prepared to possibly run afoul of the law.
• Position your trap in water deep enough to hold fish
• Position your trap so the entrance is downstream.  Fish will follow the scent plume back to the trap and the scent plume is entrained in the current.
• Position your trap so fish following the scent plume will be funneled by natural features into the entrance to the trap
• Position the bait near the upstream end of the trap
• Bait appropriately
• Tying bait in an old sock makes it easier to hang
• Bait for catfish includes but is not limited to pet food, fish offal from previous catch, road kills and bar soap.
• Dissolving soap  produces a plume of short fatty-acids (fats/oils) and sodium ions (like in blood).  It is also cheap, compact, stores and transports well.  And contrary to olfactory evidence, it has not been made illegal in most US jurisdictions.
• Bait for carp includes but is not limited to baked goods (old donuts will catch carp the size of Homer Simpson), perforated bags of frozen sweet corn, spoiled fruit.

Inspect your traps daily (or nightly).

The Federalist Papers

I just started reading The Federalist Papers for the first time.  I am a late bloomer.

The Federalist Papers are a series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in an effort to drum up support to ratify the document we now know as the United States Constitution.

These essays were published under a common pseudonym, Publius.  They were written and published at a break-neck pace.  Today we would call it blogging.

The quality of their thoughts and their ability to transmit it via the written word is awe inspiring.  They did not dummy down any of their arguments.  Their audience was the opinion leaders of New York.  One suspects that literate people were....well....more literate back then.

Example of writing by Hamilton:

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.  -Third paragraph of the first essay.

According to the grammar checker in Microsoft Word, this paragraph has a Flesch reading ease of 7.5 and a Flesch-Kincaid reading level of 25.  Obviously, this was written for literate audience; people who are capable of focusing and integrating complex ideas.  It was not written for stupid people or for people who multitask or otherwise allow themselves to be distracted.

One comment from the introduction stands out:

...the message of The Federalist reads: no happiness without liberty, no liberty without self-government, no self-government without constitutionalism, no constitutionalism without morality - and none of these great goods without stability and order.  Clinton Rossiter, 1961

It is instructive that Constitutional scholars of fifty years ago had no inhibitions stating that morality is a critical link in the chain that binds civil society.  Today, "scholars" perform verbal rain dances to "prove" that morality is a quaintly old-fashioned concept best tossed into the dust bin.  Their vision includes some metaphysical (cannot be rationally described or mathematically modeled) transformational process whereby the shear mass and inertia of our State guarantees perfection on this side of eternity.

My money is on Hamilton, Madison, Jay and Jefferson.  You can keep the change.