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{{a|people|{{image|Wakeup|jpg|''Simulacra and Simulation'', yesterday.}}}}[[Internal audit]] as we know it today is possible only thanks to the [[information revolution]], whose enabling technology naturally captures, time-stamps and taxonomises every neuron fired across the chaotic [[Cartesian theatre]] comprising a modern corporation’s immortal soul. Once upon a time those, neurons found material form only in the terse syntax of printed memoranda, languidly stewarded between the organisation’s in-trays and pneumatic nodes by wheezy mailmen with green visors and sleeve garters. In that time of darkness there was nothing much to audit, and no-one paid much mind to the curmudgeonly old chap in the basement office who was asked to do it. | |||
But boy has that changed. | |||
Modern internal auditors are ''anti''-[[subject matter expert]]s: men and women who understand the deadline for everything, but the point of nothing, their blessèd lot in life is to assess your [[compliance]] with the measurable criteria they behold on their clipboard because — not being [[subject matter expert]]s — ''they have no means of assessing anything else''. They are stewards of [[legibility]], that is to say. | |||
Your department’s commitment — probably given, in a typical moment of weakness or inattention, by the [[GC]] who was [[GC]] three [[GC]]s ago — to review annually the firm’s fleet of template [[confidentiality agreement]]s is a fertile hunting ground for the kind of “[[operational error]]” incidents which are [[IA]]’s meat and drink. | |||
It will not matter whether anyone ''used'' the template, much less that there was nothing ''wrong'' with it — your failure to do what [[Chip]], in your absence,<ref>Indeed, likely before your employment, in a kinder time, before the great financial crisis.</ref> committed to do, [[quod erat demonstrandum]] is grounds for censure. | |||
Similarly, one hazards instant dismissal should one not complete all [[computer-based training]] by the designated time — there will be many system-generated email reminders, make no mistake — no matter how pointless the topic<ref>Health and safety in employment and records management are always good ones.</ref> or asinine the training on it — if in doubt the answer is “all of the above” —may be. | |||
By contrast, your total incompetence when negotiating a [[indemnity]] will fly leagues over [[internal audit]]’s head, because not a man-jack among those who work there would have the first clue what [[gross negligence]] even was, let alone what amounts to it, much less how one would recognise an [[indemnity]] if it slapped one in the face, whether suitably [[carve out|carved out]] or not. | |||
Result: almost no [[Legal eagle|lawyer]] in Christendom understands the proper application of an [[indemnity]], but [[internal audit]] have never been the wiser. In the mean time, the financial system seems to have weathered our collective feyness about indemnities all right. So far. | |||
The secret, for the most part, is to steer clear of [[service level agreements]], [[key performance indicators]], [[target operating model]]s. Articulate your contribution to the ongoing well-being of the firm in gnomic utterances: deprecate all measurable aspects of your performance. The experienced commercial solicitor is a vessel for ineffable wisdom. Her output is incomprehensible genius — its very genius is that it ''is'' incomprehensible, and no-one: not she, not her colleagues, not her counterparts, can fathom what it all means — so this is largely manageable. | |||
===Who monitors the monitors? [[IA]] as [[AI]] === | |||
The ''reductio ad absurdum'' of the foregoing: [[internal audit]]ors have recently hit upon the need to internally audit ''themselves''. To the extent this is not auto-erotic, it is potentially dystopian — then again, the auto-erotic is the same glass, half-full, as the dystopian is half-empty. | |||
But might that forthcoming moment, whereupon [[All watched over by the machines of loving grace|machines who lovingly watch over us]] begin to watch ''themselves'', be the greatly-anticipated inflection point at which a [[corporation]] — famously, a [[Legal personality|person]] in ''legal'' fiction, able to sue and be sued, but not share a pint down the local — becomes self-aware? | |||
Wake up, Neo. [[The Singularity is Near|The singularity is near]]. | |||
{{sa}} | |||
*[[Audit paradox]] | |||
*[[Substance and form]] | |||
*[[Computer-based training]] | |||
*[[Bloatware]] | |||
*[[Technology paradox]] | |||
{{Ref}} | |||
{{egg}} |