Okay number-crunchers, we realize you don’t have the most exciting jobs in the world and sometimes you need a little distraction from Excel. Totally natch. Checking out ESPN, Perez Hilton, Going Concern, Facebook is even encouraged in some circles.
Some of you might even be so bold to see what the latest uploads on YouPorn, XTube, et al. are. Fine. We get that. It’s just your biology running wild right? We totally understand. What we can’t understand is those of you that are blatantly watching two girls, one guy, and a Clydesdale reenact the Kama Sutra in your cubicle.
Of course, when somebody catches you drooling on your keyboard, you have to act completely dumbfounded about how such a graphic display of human and equine love could have ended up on your screen. Somehow your superiors don’t buy your stammered out explanation and you’re out on your ass. Time to find to new job that’s not so uptight anyway, right?
So when you’re sitting in the interview with the potential new boss and he/she asks you why you left your last job, how do you explain your penchant for bestiality in a way that gets you hired? The Journal seems to think honesty is the best policy. Just admit what you did and swear that you’ll never, never, never do it again. We’re not convinced this would go over well but whatevs.
Anyone been fired for “inappropriate” Internet use? Did you cover it up in your next interview with “management and I had differences”? Or did you do your damnedest to find a workplace with a less stringent web use policy? Discuss.
Getting Fired for Inappropriate Web Use [WSJ]
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PCAOB: The Rodney Dangerfield of Bureaucracies
It’s tough being part of a bureaucracy, especially if you’re doing something as glamarous as babysitting auditors. The CIA, FBI, NSA have got it easy. You get to catch bad guys, use guns, and Hollywood makes movies about you. Aside from the warrantless wiretaps and otherwise general big brotherishness, it’s cool.
The PCAOB doesn’t get that luxury. They get to poke around auditors’ work and then tell them how much they suck at it. Not so fun for anybody. They also get to write auditing standards. Take the watchdog aspect, multiply it times infinity, and that’s about the amount fun we’re talking about for writing rules on auditing.
But now people are saying they’re too slow in writing these I-already-want-to-kill-myself boring rules? Yep:
“Given how little they’ve accomplished in the standards-setting area, they don’t get a passing grade,” says Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant for the SEC.
Turner says he and a group of investor advocates wrote to the PCAOB in 2004, asking it to improve fraud standards. But the work remains undone, he says.
Bill Gradison, the board member whose term expires in October, calls the criticism fair. “We’ve been much slower than other standards writers,” he says.
By comparison, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, which sets international auditing standards, among other duties, finished revising its own standards in March. The process, which included 37 standards, took about five years
Man, now comparisons to the Europeans. They’re looking for some new blood at the PCAOB though, since Mark Olson is retiring as Chairman and another board member’s term is expiring.
But don’t you go calling them lazy! “the PCAOB is taken seriously by the auditing community and deserves credit for trying. ‘Anyone who says it isn’t is off the wall,'”
What a ringing endorsement.
COMPLIANCE WATCH: Oversight Board Sets Sluggish Pace [WSJ]
Colonial Bank Shouldn’t Make Any Late Summer Plans
So all that fuss over at Colonial Bank? Accounting irregularities, natch. According to Reuters, “Colonial BancGroup Inc (CNB.N) said it faces a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) related to accounting irregularities at its mortgage lending unit, and the struggling lender warned it may be put under receivership.”
The SEC is also taking a peek at the bank’s participation in TARP. Book cooking for taxpayer funds may have its poster child. Top notch, Colonial. Top notch.
Colonial BancGroup faces criminal probe, FDIC action [Reuters]
‘Swashbuckling Industrialist’ Tom Petters Is Going to be Responsible for Putting Senior Citizens on the Street
For those of you that were maybe developing a soft spot for Tom Petters because, among other things, his own lawyer doesn’t think too much of him, the latest testimony in TP’s trial should help squash your sympathy.
Janet Leck, a 79 year old widow, was convinced by Frank Vennes, Jr. — an evangelist who “steered unwitting investors to [Petters]” — to invest her money with Tom Petters. At one point Vennes, apparently having reconnected with the Almighty, told Leck that he was ending his business relationship with TP because of ‘things he was seeing in Mr. Petters’ personal life’ and was returning her money.
Now, one could assume that Vennes was getting the creeps from Petters because either: 1) he realized that Petters was a complete man-child that couldn’t finish a copy of Go Dog Go! or 2) typical hooker/llelo chicanery.
Two years after dumping Petters for his sinful ways, Vennes decided redemption was in order (or, most likely, he just missed the hookers) because he went back to TP and got the Lecks to invest with him again:
She re-mortgaged her home and drew out $190,000 in equity to invest with Petters, she said. Leck said she relied on the $3,400 monthly payments from that loan for living expenses until September 2008, when authorities raided Petters’ home and business looking for evidence that he was running an alleged $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme.
Now, unless she can restructure her mortgage, Leck said, “I’m looking at foreclosure. …I will move from my home of 30 years.”
In other overwhelmingly convincing testimony, investment banker Michael Liss described Petters, “as a ‘swashbuckling industrialist’ who had an arsenal of ‘ridiculous’ excuses for not paying his debts on time.”
Ridiculous excuses like, “Do you treat your other swashbuckling industrialist clients this way?” or “I’m busy ripping off senior citizens. Do you mind?” OR “My ass is going to end up in dumpster any second, sorta busy.”
Petters trial: Retired widow fears losing her home [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]