If your employer is of a shrewd nature and didn’t spring for Herman Millers, you need to get off your asses right now! Find out why, after the jump.
And yes, Gmail appears to be down.
Related Posts
Grant Thornton Will Now Let You Tell Everyone How Great the Weather Is
We’re happy to report that the generosity at Grant Thornton continues. We found out earlier in the week that those of you that did something special, which may or may not involve an outift that wasn’t of your choosing, would be included in GT’s small bonus pool.
According to a tip we received, The Baumer and Co. has now decided that those of you that remain will be rewarded with the ability to make banal status updates at work:
During the experienceAugust all-personnel call, Ed Nusbaum announced the firm’s plans to open access to several external Web sites from Grant Thornton’s network. These sites include social networking and personal email sites such as Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and MSN Hotmail.
I am pleased to announce that access to these sites is now open.
This unexpected show of appreciation is almost overwhelming. As a tribute, leave cliché responses to this latest development in the comments. In this particular case, the more cliché, the better.
PwC’s Re-thinking of the Bell Curve Ranking
A tip we received yesterday mentioned that PwC has been progressively narrowing their performance rating scale. P. Dubs originally had the 1 to 5 scale, then moved down to 1 to 4, and now uses 1 to 3.
Obviously, this leaves less room for interpretation of one’s ranking as it compares to the other firms. As far as we know, E&Y and Deloitte both use 1 to 5, and KPMG has the indecipherable 9 box which is somehow combined with a 1 to 5 scale (we think?).
More, after the jump
So let’s talk about this whole mess. You don’t have to be a Elijah Watts recipient to figure out that, at the very least, PwC is making their rankings clear: 1 – you’re well connected; 2 – you’re lucky; 3 – you’re gone. On the one hand, there’s less confusion. On the other, it’s the firm’s way of squeezing people out based on “performance” rather than admitting that they are impervious to the struggling economy.
The rest of the firms are doing the same thing but due to the unwillingness or inability to make their ranking system less mystifying or subject to manipulation, forced ranking will continue. PwC seems to be the first firm to integrate a system that “legitimizes” it.
Discuss in the comments P. Dubya’s move here and why it works/doesn’t work and what the firms should be doing to improve their ranking systems because as it stands right now, it’s total bunk.
Crowe Horwath Sticks to Their Guns and Gets Fired
Crowe Horwath either has some shrewd auditors working there or they need to work on their people skills because First Place Financial Corp. just kicked their asses to the curb over irreconcilable differences.
The whole thing came down to the “material weakness” versus “significant deficiency” debate you auditors love so much.
More, after the jump
On September 1, 2009, Crowe notified the Company that it was its opinion that the Company had not maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of June 30, 2009. This was in contrast to Management’s opinion that it had maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of June 30, 2009. After subsequent discussions, the disagreement remained. The essence of the disagreement concerns a single internal control weakness which resulted in an error in valuing loans held for sale as of June 30, 2009. Crowe determined that this internal control weakness was a material weakness while the Company determined that this internal control weakness was a significant deficiency.
The shitty control in question missed an error that overstated loans held for sale by $2.17 million and understated the net loss for fiscal 2009 by $1.41 million. Crowe said that this was cause for the material weakness and First said nonsense poopy-pants, it’s not material, so it’s a significant deficiency.
Well, it was obviously mule vs. mule because First Place’s audit committee ultimately decided that firing Crowe on Tuesday was the best course of action.
Maybe First Place are the assholes. WTFK, really? Whatever the problems, KPMG gets the pleasure now. If you’ve got any further information on this one, want discuss MW/SD (vomit) or just feel like speculating, discuss in the comments.
First Place Details Disagreement with Auditor [Business Journal Daily]