Audit overload – LLC rename – Bureaucracy storm – DIY survival - Chicken math: roosters out | quails in - Offspring night
This is my audit schedule for August. Some bars are doubled, and some audits were overlapping with others. After each audit, if you are a lead auditor for a global multisite company, you have to do a lot of work creating and uploading documentation. It is paid time, and it is okay, but only if you have some kind of gap between audits. In this schedule, you are doing that in your own time.
Keep in mind that in August I also went through the onboarding process—not only in two new companies as a subcontractor, but also in my old certification body, because the subcontractor processes are different. As a person who hired and did onboarding for subcontractors, I was very curious to do a test run of those processes myself.
In August, I made a few very stupid decisions and took actions that will make me work double for the rest of the year:
First action: I asked DNV to create a different email for myself for security reasons. I had privileged rights as a manager and received a lot of emails and reports, so I assumed that with a limited license I would not receive that many emails or any information that would be uncomfortable to know when working as a subcontractor for competitors.
That is exactly what happened, and from a moral and ethical point of view, it was a good decision. But from the perspective of me as an auditor running multisite audits, it was an incredibly stupid decision.
In August, I did not have access to the audit reports and documentation I had created before August, and even if I could upload them, I could not change them because, for Microsoft, they were created by a different person. So I created double work for myself, having to redo everything from scratch as if I had never worked on those projects.
Another problem was that all subcontractors have a limited web-based license. What Microsoft was thinking when they created that license, I do not understand. What was the idea and practical purpose behind that license? It does not work for anything. You cannot download documents, you cannot change them, and you cannot do anything except receive meeting invitations and join meetings from a web browser. You cannot share your screen (For an auditor? Seriously?).
But the most laughable point is that to get a Teams invitation and attend a meeting, you can do that even if you do not have a Microsoft license at all. So what was the point of that limited license? To see documents? But the company can make you a tenant with temporary rights. Anyway, I started learning all these limitations the hard way, having so many audits (security audits!) and not being able to do anything from the work account. But at least I started to see what my auditors were complaining about after Microsoft changed licenses a hundred times.
Another very stupid thing I did, which created a perfect storm in November but started in August, was deciding to change the name of my LLC because the old name did not reflect what I was doing. The problem was—and you will not find this information anywhere—that a sole proprietorship LLC is treated like a person doing business alone, and if you have no employees, you file taxes only once per year. Only at that time does the IRS learn about your company name change. The year before, I changed the address, and it is the same process. I figured this out only when DNV, during the onboarding process, said that the EIN did not match my company name (well, of course—it was changed, and the IRS does not issue a new EIN letter). I met with the IRS in person, and they told me they cannot issue an updated EIN because there can be only one. I went to the bank, and the people there were very nice. They accepted tons of documents, my explanation, and the IRS explanation, and changed the name of the company based on that. Spoiler alert: direct debit payments stopped processing, and my phone was suspended a month later because the operator did not update the address or company name, and the bank declined the direct debit invoices. But I only found out about this a month later. August was crazy, overwhelming, and very bureaucratic.
Surprisingly (probably because I was frustrated and stressed too much and needed some DIY), I managed to finish a really long fence and even installed lights on it. I finished the double perimeter security and the goat shed—everything—in that crazy month. I cannot believe it now. I was even able to speak at a couple of night events and participated in one networking event.
Chicken math was also very heavy on me. I was able to sell a Fayoumi rooster and Ayam Cemani roosters (too many roosters!), but I had to give a hen with each of them. I do not know if it was worth it. I miss the Cemani hen. I still have 12 Fayoumis, and even the Fayoumi rooster was gorgeous, but he had some territorial arguments with other roosters.
After that, I got quail eggs for hatching, and by the end of the month I had five quails. What?! In my defense, I want to say that I already had the entire infrastructure for them—everything. It was just missing that final bit: quails. So my subcontracting and freedom started a bit tough, but at least all audits were remote, and I was able to finish the new fence and secure the perimeter before we went for the second try to see The Offspring in Virginia Beach.
Here I have to say that I have been listening to The Offspring since 1998, and my weightlifting started with them. Every time I listen to them, my pulse rises because my body thinks it is leg day. I also feel that we have a lot in common with Dexter Holland, who has so many personalities and so many completely different interests in life.
That time, we went to Virginia Beach not for the whole day, but just before the concert and left right after, so we were away only for a few hours. I just had to keep the conversation going with the bear so he would not think that I left him babysitting my chickens. Three raccoons were a bit confused about the agenda, but we agreed on their boundaries. So everyone was safe and sound, and the concert trip went really well without any incidents at home.
