@GoingConcern “Professional Rogues”
By Francine • Aug 26th, 2009 • Category: Pure Content, Writing for OthersMy new post is up @GoingConcern
“Not only is everything I tell you true, but the truth of what these guys do is often stranger than fiction. Each day I can choose from a long list of incidents – egregious violations of personal and professional ethics and accounting standards as well as disregard for legal and regulatory compliance and lack of independence in thought and action.
Here’s a recent rogues’ gallery of some “professionals” not acting very “professionally.” “
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Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. For more info, check the "About" page.
At first glance this post seems like the person who wrote it has this vendetta against the companies mentioned, almost to the point where one might think that the writer was wronged by these people and now has their chance in the spotlight to get even, that was until I remembered the following lead off of the “You Can Quote Me On That” item on the homepage of re:theauditors:
Francine McKenna, an ex-PWC director and a fierce critic of the “big four” accounting firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young) . . .
So, I ask, what can we learn from this post past the fact that there are some auditors, tax professionals, etc that are no better than just about any politician?
At first I thought the comments of your first poster led me to believe that they were living in dreamland, when they started off with “So another words the audit industry is no different than other large companies. Who knew – I thought these were the boyscouts. The ethical standards for accountants is no higher than lawyers or doctors and it may in fact be lower some could argue.”
That was until they pulled themselves awake with “Lets not be myopic. It’s all relative”.
The reality is as an industry of ____ (I have no idea of the number of practicing professionals in this industry, so maybe FM can fill in the blank), though the effect can become tsunami in scope, isn’t the percentage of these incidents is miniscule in comparison?
We should hold ourselves to a higher standard. And pillory those in our profession who do not. We get paid beaucoup bucks to hold others to those standards.
Relativism can be dangerous. I’m glad someone is at least speaking up.
Unfortunately, the thousands of stories of people doing the RIGHT thing, day after day after day, is far less sexy than the handful of stories of people doing wrong.
The last time I checked (and I’m pretty sure I checked well), there’s absolutely nothing sexy about wrongdoers and those who do not fully uphold themselves to ethical standards. I’d rather have wrongdoings over-exposed than having it unchecked and unreported, and not having a single soul know anything about it – that to me would be more worrysome.
@Clown College
Next time a doctor messes up huge on your procedure or the procedure of a loved one and, God forbid, costs someone their life, just try and think about all the times they did things right…
What people here have argued is that there is a systemic problem in the profession that allows for these colossal failures to occur. You can tell all the people who lost their life savings in the Enron/Anderson collapse and see if it provides them any solace that there are people out there trying to do right. I’m sure if each audit performed by a firm were properly scrutinized, you’d have a huge number of substandard audits coming out.
If we follow your logic, we shouldn’t report the issues in any occupation (police brutality, politician corruption, pervasive issues in the healthcare system, etc) because there are many people who go to work everyday and do the right thing. It’s been mentioned before that information on the up side of the firms is out there and readily available, this forum is an avenue to tell another side of the story.
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