Second helping

It’s quality audit season here at the office, so this means many of my colleagues are competing to see who can do the best Chicken Little impression. My favourite part is when they burst into my office the day before the audit, laden with files and miscellaneous bits of paper and start babbling at me. Usually contained somewhere in the stream-of-consciousness drivel are the words, “what must I do?”

Ah, so nice to be needed. Nevertheless, any potential warm and fuzzy feelings engendered by my temporary elevation to major cog in the machine are sharply offset by my irritation. The thing that gets to me is the sure knowledge that the person staring at me with wild rolling eyes across my desk wouldn’t be there if they had bothered to pay attention at the last audit.

So, in my official capacity as ‘Guy Who Deals With Quality Stuff’, it falls to me to try and instil calm and find some way of leading the gibbering supplicant towards the light of truth – or proper planning and verification records, as the case may be.

Just call me The Idiot Whisperer.