#59: Julie Thompson - The Last Line of Defense

What happens when the people responsible aren’t responsible?

When is learning on the job dereliction of duty?

Do I really want to work for a company with a bad reputation?

These and other penetrating questions are addressed when auditing aficionado Julie Thompson joins The Rabbi and the Shrink.

https://auditingalliance.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejuliethompson/

3:00 Why is auditing the last line of defense?

Anticipate problems and prepare for when they inevitably happen

Trust but verify --  no gotcha

Like ethics, auditing calls for constant improvement

Do you want to work for or with a company with a poor reputation?

The power of objective opinion

8:45 What makes a good (or ethical) auditor?

Am I qualified for the job being offered?

Pressure to overlook problem situations as “outliers”

Downplaying as “low-risk”

Neglect in one area implies neglect in another

Van Halen and the red M&Ms

15:30 Covid masks on airlines or in places of business

Lasting effects and oversight

Internal vs. 3rd party follow up

23:00 What happens when people who are responsible aren’t responsible?

Inexperience = insecurity

Fear of asking questions or inefficiency

The enemies of ethics

Rationalization, fear, and deflection

The whistleblower’s dilemma

David and Goliath

32:00 The word of the day:  contumacious

stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient.

Mark Twain’s three kinds of lies

We have to have a sincere desire to do what’s right

Judaism’s internal self-audit

Transcript

Margarita Gurri: 0:03

Welcome to The Rabbi and the Shrink. This is Dr. Margarita Gurri, the shrink misbehavior expert and this is my favorite Rabbi

Yonason Goldson: 0:13

Yonason Goldson

Margarita Gurri: 0:14

The good rabbi and I are delighted today that we have one of my dearest friends. I was gonna say dearest and oldest, but boldest is touching hours. And her name is Julie Thompson, and she is the auditing Alliance professional. Welcome.

Julie Thompson: 0:30

Thank you. I am so glad to be here. And I appreciate the invitation.

Margarita Gurri: 0:34

Well, I've been nagging you telling you I wanted to have you on. And you've been very busy because you've been doing good things. So I'm allowed to brag on you a bit. And since you're a dear friend, I'm going to brag a little differently than I normally do. I met Julie at a meeting for the National Speakers Association, the Florida chapter, she was just in the back of the room with me. And we didn't speak a lot at first, I got to know her by your deeds. Rob, I'm sure there's a good story that that you can tell about that. And I we just seem to get along. And so we've been friends for a long time. She's, she's a secret, hidden CPA. I didn't know any of these credentials, because she doesn't brag. So that's my job. She's a CG Ma, which I had to look up. It's a chartered global management accounting, which is not something every everyone does. She's a CPE, a certified professional environmental auditor. And she's got a certificate in diversity, equity and inclusion, which I think is way cool. This is Julie, someone's always trying to better herself for herself, and for the sake of her industry. So much so that in 2021, she won the environmental auditing Lifetime Achievement board award from the Board of Global Environmental Health and Safety, credentialing. For contributions that work. She was just always there furthering the agenda. And now she is I think it was last year 2020. Right, Julie, that you founded the auditing Alliance? In 2020? Yes, well, last year, in 2020.

Julie Thompson: 2:14

You and I'm coming up on a two year anniversary? No, isn't

Margarita Gurri: 2:17

that something? Congratulations. Thank you. And I'll ask you to tell more about that. She founded it because she noticed that there was a need. And some of her earlier work led her to how she's defining us. And now she's getting so well known that they're in the process of working on standards and ethical codes in an updated way. So you're allergic to standards that aren't defined? That's good. I like that. That was very good. All right. So welcome. You and I've talked about it, we know that auditing is the last line of defense. So what is auditing defending? And what does it have to do with ethics?

Unknown: 3:00

Well, first of all, I don't know that I would say auditing is actually defending so to speak. But it is often described as being that last line of defense organizations typically set up processes and systems so that it works the right way, in theory all the time. But as we know, sometimes things either aren't designed correctly, or there may be human error, or some other reason why things don't go as planned. And you need the auditors there. So most people are familiar with either IRS because you can get audited, or there's at least that fear of being audited. Or you're familiar with financial auditors in many organizations, including governmental organizations. So there are also laws and regulations that require auditing to be done primarily in that financial realm. So when you shift that over into my arena, which is environment, health and safety, you have the same types of goals, you still expect to see the systems there so that things go right all the time. But it's the spin is from an environmental health and safety perspective. So you're trying to prevent or make sure that if something bad does happen, that it is handled as quickly and effectively as possible to minimize either someone being hurt or, you know, hopefully, not actually dies from something, but also negative impacts to the environment, which could be an actual release, but it also could be part of your routine operations that something you know, you're using a raw material that isn't the best alternative from a green so to speak perspective. So, there is a lot of controversy in particularly the EHS world probably more so even than the financial world about whether or not you shouldn't just trust your employees to do the right thing I mean, you typically are not going to hire someone that you don't trust you certainly, if you find out that you can't trust them, after you've hired them, hopefully you're not keeping them on. But there is the argument to be made. And I would say I am one of the the ones that would subscribe to trust, but verify. You know, if you really do have trustworthy employees, I don't see any reason why they should worry about someone checking and making sure that they did do things, you know, correctly, it's not always just about the doing it correctly, either, it can be looking for opportunities for improvement. So maybe everything is working, the way it was designed, you haven't had any incidents or accidents. But that doesn't mean that over time, you can't improve. So how does that tie in to ethics? Well, in all kinds of ways. First of all, the auditors themselves have to have ethics, the organization's have to be ethical. And we can get into different aspects of that I would Margarita, when you and I have talked previously, I have even mentioned, I think, as an individual, whether you're an auditor or not your ethics start with where you choose to be employed. And that's whether or not you work internally at an organization, or whether you're a third party providing services to another organization. So an example that comes to my mind is, if you think that there should not be sexual discrimination, but you find out about a company that maybe you thought you would like to work for that they have a history of that, or there's a lot of lawsuits going on at the time that they have been, you know, in maybe their criminal, but maybe their civil lawsuits, or settlements, for that matter, that might provide non disclosure, regarding the circumstances and the outcomes, you have to decide is that really a company that you want to work for? And if you are, in fact, a third party, I think you face the same issues, but you face them more often. Because you probably don't have just one client, you need to be looking at every single client. And you have to be thinking ahead of time about what are those criteria? And what kind of research are you going to do. Having said all that, I also believe, though, that people do deserve a second chance. If you know, just because you've had, let's just say if you've missed behaved in the past, it doesn't mean that you can't correct that behavior, improve that behavior, and hopefully avoid doing those same things, you know, going forward. But I think there are a lot of ethical questions rolled up in all of that,

Yonason Goldson: 7:43

you've certainly given us plenty that we can talk about for the rest of the show. Surely, in particular, the the idea that we come back to again and again, is that ethics has so much to do with mindset, it's it's a desire, to do things well, to do things right, to improve, to create a culture, where we're all responsible for ourselves and for each other. And that what you offer is something that's often a almost always a critical element, which is to bring in an outside or an objective pair of eyes. Person who is knowledgeable, a person who knows what to look for, who can identify problems, and can be trusted to point out things that we despite our best intentions, might often miss, because we don't know exactly what to look for. I totally

Unknown: 8:45

agree. And you have touched on some of the some of the things that you would look for in an auditor, that can also bring in ethical issues. So particularly, I would say for third party auditors, but even if you're an internal audit, and you work for a large organization that may have different business lines, you may be asked to do an audit. And one of the questions you need to ask yourself that is an ethical question is, am I qualified to do this? Do I have that knowledge? Do I have that expertise? Or am I just going to say yes, I'd love to do that. Because you need the money. You want the money, you want the experience? And you kind of figured I won't tell them because I think I can kind of pick this up as I go along or I'll study at night and figure it out. So there are ethical issues related to you as the auditor, your professional background experience and knowledge that also come to play. And I think that I've certainly seen in my career path people that have taken on audits that they were not necessarily didn't have that experience and knowledge and probably should have turned it down or at least made The oddity aware of it before accepting that and saying, Here's what I like to do. And I'd like to take this even as an opportunity to learn, but make sure that they're aware instead of keeping that to yourself.

Margarita Gurri: 10:16

A lot of ethical issues I've seen, what are the factors that make it difficult to resist some of the temptations to not be the most compliant of auditors to let people fudge things? What are those temptations?

Unknown: 10:35

I think that there's probably some crossover between whether you're an internal auditor or third party auditor. So before I get to maybe some of the commonalities, and maybe some of these will just come out. But when I think about internal auditing, and in my background, by the way, I have been both an internal auditor and a third party auditor, I have been in an accounting department where I was the audit teed person. So I, you know, I've, I've been on basically all sides of this. And one thing that I definitely recognize is particularly in internal audit, if you work for a large organization, and particularly one that is publicly traded, or that they are frequently in the news, you will often find that there's a lot of pressure, if it's financial auditing we're talking about, but the same thing can be true in Health and Environment, Health and Safety, that things are really you know, it's the one off or that's not material, or, you know, oh, we're gonna get that corrected, and it doesn't matter anymore. And it's to meet the expectations of the public, whether it's the SEC, whether it's investors, whether it's the news media, could be your customers. And that is definitely a challenge when your livelihood and if you've got family, but even if you're a single person relying on that, depending on where we are with respect to the economy and other job opportunities, there can be a lot of pressure from that. With respect to being a third party auditor, you can have similar types of pressures where the client wants to downplay or say that it is the one off situation, when you may not even be given a chance to do enough testing to verify that it really is a one off, I can give you an example, that I see often in the environmental health and safety world, which is you go out to a facility. And you're in areas where employees and visitors should be wearing safety glasses, you will also often see those that they are either hanging on a string around people's necks or they're on top of their hard hat or in their pocket or nowhere to be seen at all, but they certainly are not in their face. That is one that many organizations, when that's brought up by auditors, their reaction is Oh, that's low risk. So we don't need to worry about it, you know, the fact that we're using dangerous chemicals that could you know, burn someone or if someone fell off of a high platform could kill them. So we aren't really you know, we don't really think that it's that important with the safety glasses. I would say I disagree. And certainly someone could end up with an eye injury or even losing their sight. So because it doesn't happen very often. And because there are also risky other or additional risky situations. I think a lot of times we downplay the importance of that. And again, you get a lot of pressure.

Yonason Goldson: 13:55

It's another implicit point that you're making here truly that if you see neglect in one area, there's a good indication that you're going to find it in other areas as well. And there's there's a famous story. I believe it's the band Van Halen that David Lee Roth, was he the head of the group, they would they would have this in these elaborate sets, that they would make the head of the the organizer responsible for setting up because they just couldn't carry that much equipment with them. And there's a long contract of details, highly detailed instructions. And buried in the middle of it was there had to be a bowl of m&ms with all the red m&ms removed. And people thought this was just this sort of excess of these rock stars. They they're they're just temperamental, or whatever it actually was was a tripwire. He would go in He would look for the m&ms, he would check to see if they had taken the red ones out. Because that was his indication they had read every detail. Because the prompts on the SATs were so elaborate that if things were done properly, people get to get hurt. Yes. And so, on the one level, we have to know what we can do. We have to know what we need to rely on others for. And then we have to have some sort of a system for, as you said, Trust, but verify.

Unknown: 15:33

Yes, that's a great example right there. I love that one

Margarita Gurri: 15:37

can do to see that the rabbi so he's got good stories. And that that one was, you know, ancient Jewish wisdom,

Yonason Goldson: 15:44

I was gonna say is handed down for generations. Generations. Yes.

Margarita Gurri: 15:51

I think another example that you and I talked about once, especially when COVID started, and then as everyone got sick and tired of COVID, and even more than they were after day two, was the idea of wearing masks. And many people wear them like this. Or they wear them like this. Right? But very few people wear them like this. Yes. It's fascinating to me how I know the quality of an airline, for instance, when like for delta, one of the things that endear Delta to me is that you know, you know, you and I fly alone. So I'm on a plane, and they do the social distances to the extent that they can on an aeroplane. And if they see someone without the mask, they would go like this. They would just say no, they weren't scolding me, they were just pointed out. I love that. And with their staff, if it wasn't, they would talk, you know, if it was falling, they would tap tap them on the shoulder to remember, I thought that was lovely. But how often? Do people get cranky with you? What percentage of the time? Do people get cranky with you, when you point out something like the safety glasses, or the mask, or something else that can is considered minor, which I don't consider minor but they do what percentage gets cranky.

Unknown: 17:09

I would say it's actually a small percentage, that would actually get cranky. However, it will, I would say more than once, when say the safety glasses have been brought to someone's attention, they will go ahead and put them on. But if you walk away from the situation, but happened to come back in a short time, it's probably more than 50% of the time, they've already taken them off again. So they will not be cranky, they will actually acquiesce. But the the law, the lasting effects of you bringing to their attention may be questionable. Now from an audit perspective, though, that may give you even more support as to why that's a legitimate finding, right? Because now you've not just seen one person do it once, but they turned around and did it twice, even after it was brought to their attention. So it's not an oversight at that point.

Margarita Gurri: 18:08

Where it is your obligation as an editor start and stop, you notice the problems are do have to ensure compliance with solutions,

Unknown: 18:18

but not in general. So again, I need to kind of segregate between internal auditors and third party auditors because with internal auditors you are deaf are usually going to have some sort of a document that lays out exactly what the department is supposed to do, what your goals are. And there will be some guidance in there about what do you do with respect to number one, even recommendations to correct the situation. And then number two, in verifying that was corrected, whether you came up with or participated in that recommendation or not. And at what point is that fair game to go back and re audit. The difference between that and a third party auditor is you typically would have a contract or an agreement for each individual audit or maybe it is auditing the whole organizations that could potentially could be multiple locations, but in that it will include the details about what is expected. So this can be very different organization to organization. I have been an auditor for more decades than I care to share. And when I first started in as a CPA in public accounting, we didn't very regularly get involved in helping to develop recommendations. But having said that, some of that's pretty easy. You booked a number wrong, you know, your transaction system isn't working right so that that's a little bit different. But as time has gone on Over the years, there's been questions about the value of auditors how do we share or make sure that organizations recognize that this is a valuable service. So some particular internal audit departments have shifted some of their time to where they've become more of a provide more of a consultancy role. Oftentimes, when you see that transition, then you see that the company that they work for, will say, hey, while you're out there, you've done the audit, we'd like you to either develop the recommendations or work with the people responsible for that to develop the recommendations. And then you've got Okay, so you've you've developed this, those recommendations may or may not be included in a report. But whether they are or not, you may also have some responsibility to go back and verify that whatever those recommendations were that they got implemented, or that they're in process of being implemented, they may be longer term or big dollar investments. Or it might even be shifted, if it reminder to say, hey, we're on a three year audit rotation, we'll just check that when we come back in three years. And third parties, it can be the same thing, you might go back to the same locations, or you may, in both situations, you may be able to accept documentation that's sent to you electronically. So if they had a problem on a report, they may need to send you copies of a letter where they notified a regulatory agency about the change or a revised report, or memos from our meet, I'm sorry, minutes from meetings that document what they're doing. So you have a role in meeting compliance, where the organization meeting compliance, but unless you've shifted over into that consultancy role, it's somewhat indirect.

Yonason Goldson: 21:56

You remind me that the the Jewish concept of repentance is not just about plopping my chest and saying I'm sorry, it's about recognizing, where I've gone wrong, why I've gone wrong, and creating a plan for not repeating the same mistakes again and again. So as you're describing this consultancy role, whether you as the auditor take that role, or whether somebody follows up with it, it's absolutely indispensable. Because knowing what we've done wrong is not going to guarantee it gets fixed, unless there's some genuine motivation and a concrete plan of action. And, of course, that applies not just to our businesses that relate to every aspect of our lives.

Unknown: 22:45

I totally agree. And I have an example for you, I worked for a client several years ago, that my first year that I was auditing with them, and this is a large company that has a number of locations, I was a third party auditor, but a lot of the team actually worked for the company, their their structure was that they primarily actually had internal auditors. So I went to several locations with I believe it was about two two other people. We got to one location, and unfortunately, one of the other auditors felt quite seriously ill. So the third auditor took them to the hospital, and they left me behind to continue the audit because I wasn't going to be of any service at the hospital. Well, we've gotten to that point in the audit where we were supposed to verify things that had been found in the previous audit. Or I'm sorry, I shouldn't say we were supposed to verify them. They handed me a list and said, Here's all the things that were found in the previous audit, you can work on this. That was the extent of my instructions. So they they left and I pull up this list and I start looking through it. And I'm thinking, Well, I'm supposed to work on this, what exactly am I supposed to do? Well, my prior audit experience kicked in at Oh, clearly, they want me to go verify these. Well, turns out, they didn't actually want me to verify them. I never did figure out exactly what they did want me to do. But when I went in and verified all of these, which by the way, had been signed off by the location and by the internal audit department saying that they had all in fact been fixed. Only one had been fixed on some pretty significant environment, health and safety issues. Wow. And so that of course, the became a much larger issue in and of itself. So, to me, that's a an extraordinary example. I will say I have never found something like that to that extent. But that was a company that felt like we hire good employees and you know, the verification piece is minimal. So

Margarita Gurri: 24:53

that's a little scary, isn't it? Yeah, I think with with the issue of ethics, then I think it's pretty clear cut something needs to be done. One of the things I liked that what you're doing in your auditing alliance is you're providing professional development for continuing education units for for whatever credentials various groups have. And some of that is understanding not only how to have those discussions, but how do you manage those ethical dilemmas and those dilemmas that are just workplace efficiency dilemmas. Right. I mean, that's, that's hard. So where do most beginners fall down on that? They see a verified list that is not quite accurate. Where do they usually fall down there? What's what skills and mindsets? Let them down?

Unknown: 25:48

I think as a new auditor, you often feel I don't know if it's shy or intimidated, or a little bit of both insecure even. And if you run across something, you are actually literally afraid to ask someone, you know, you don't go and say what do I do with this? Now my case I had tried to reach out, but I couldn't get anybody that had an answer right away. And I didn't want to waste time. And that may be another concern that a new auditor has is I want to be efficient in what I do, as well. But I think there's a new auditor, the biggest issue is being afraid to ask

Yonason Goldson: 26:28

questions. I talked about the three enemies of ethics. And enemy number two is fear that we're projecting all the different consequences that that might happen. If we act or don't act, rather than balancing those. And if I'm afraid to act, well, what are the consequences if I don't act, restore a certain amount of equilibrium? And not just look at not just take the line of least resistance? Or go with with the go with the flow, as we've seen in California? Because it's, you know, I'm doing my job. It's sort of like now the auditor is saying I'm in compliance. Whereas that might not be enough. So hard

Margarita Gurri: 27:17

job So Rabbi, what are one in three of the enemies?

Yonason Goldson: 27:21

Number one is rationalization. But we're so

Margarita Gurri: 27:25

good at that. We are indeed

Yonason Goldson: 27:30

dangerous, highly practiced at it as well.

Margarita Gurri: 27:34

Oh, it's a hobby. Yes, no.

Yonason Goldson: 27:38

Right. And the third one is deflection. Someone else did worse.

Margarita Gurri: 27:44

Wow. That's

Unknown: 27:46

I really liked the that you brought up the rash, rationalization. And again, what I find interesting is you will find that both auditors rationalize and oddities rationalize. So the oddities tend to rationalize, it's not a big deal. It's in material, nobody's gotten hurt so far, which is also the deflection aspect to But oftentimes, when auditors are faced with these ethical decisions, then they start to try and rationalize why is it okay to let the client or the oddity wins, so to speak on this? Can I justify saying, you know, we're not reporting about the safety glasses issue or something else? So you can see that rationalization from both sides?

Yonason Goldson: 28:32

Maybe that's kind of the whistleblowers dilemma, too. Yeah. I may be setting myself up for pain and trouble and, and difficulties that I don't really deserve to undergo, easier for me to just keep my mouth shut.

Unknown: 28:51

Absolutely.

Margarita Gurri: 28:52

You know, it takes so much courage to do the right thing. And it also takes skill communication skills, and like you talking about them being insecure. I love the fact that you give people that network that if they're not sure about something, they know where to turn to your auditing. So I I very much appreciate about what to do that since I do know you. Julie is one of the most ethical, thoughtful people I've ever met. And so I have I'm in good company today. So if I don't know what to do I know who to call. How do I handle this? What if I don't do it? What do I do do it right.

Yonason Goldson: 29:35

Now you said something, the beginning doctor that that really resonated with me so that you know truly by her deeds, you knew her first by her deeds. And that's really you know, anybody can talk a good game. But it's really our actions that demonstrate who we are. You know, the biblical model for this is David and Jonathan. Oh, And the sages say that there is no greater example of true love. Then David and Jonathan so interesting, they pick two friends, rather than a husband and wife or intimates. And that's part of the point is there was no physical relationship there. And in the in the famous story of David and Goliath, all of Saul's army, they're terrified to go out and confront this giant and, and David, who's not even a soldier says, Well, somebody's got to do something. And he goes out, and he faces the giant, and he wins. And then he comes back. And King Saul says, Who are you? And of course, here's a great opportunity for self promotion, right? And he says, I am, I am just the servant, the king servant, the son of his maid servant is he he humbles himself to the greatest, I'm just doing what needed to be done. And then it tells us that Jonathan, who is the prince, he is the is going to be the next king. He sees David, he witnesses this whole event. And his heart became bound up with David's had never spoken to each other. Never. And he said, This is a person who represents the nobility of mankind and the Jewish people. And this is a person that I feel bound to, and eventually he gives up his his claim to the throne for David because he recognized that it's, he's he's the better choice. And, you know, if we can conduct ourselves in a way that inspires others. We all win. Well done.

Margarita Gurri: 32:02

Well said Indeed, in our Julie does that. That's amazing. So I'm thinking now it's time for the word of the day. And when we come back, we're going to ask you for some final words of wisdom, and ask you so you can give it some thought about an adventure that you're looking forward to good rabbi, what is the word of the day, sir,

Yonason Goldson: 32:24

word of the day, in the context of our conversation really opens up a whole cascade of thoughts, which I'll try to keep to a minimum. But the word is contumacious contumacious, which means stubbornly perverse or rebellious, willfully and obstinately disobedient. And I thought this wouldn't be a good choice, because one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain is that there are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics. Oh, that's what he means is that we can gather information in a way that supports any conclusion we want to reach. That is so true. But what truly what you're doing is you're demonstrating how the gathering of information is, is just one step of what has to be a sincerely driven desire to make things better. And the other idea that that comes to mind is in Judaism, we have a concept as the Hebrew word is called Asheboro nephesh. It translates roughly as an accounting of the soul. But really, what it really means is a self internal audit. Not just for our businesses, but for ourselves, to take stock of ourselves to evaluate and sometimes that are causing us to have people trusted advisors that we can ask, give me some honest review, give me some honest criticism, tell me what I need to hear. Not just what I'm not just what's going to make me feel good. Because if, you know, we can hide our obstinacy, and and our and our willfulness, behind the veneer of piety and virtue, and we're not serving anybody, we're certainly not serving ourselves. We're not serving the people around us. We're not serving the world we live in. So kudos to you for demonstrating to us the value of that concerted effort to recognize where we need to improve and how to actually turn that awareness into action.

Unknown: 34:46

Well, thank you, that was very nice. And I appreciate again, the opportunity to be here. I cannot believe how time has flown. And I would just encourage people to stay true to to themselves and to their families and to companies that they work for. And that is going to take a strong ethical backbone.

Margarita Gurri: 35:11

And it helps to have a society. So the auditing alliance.org has all sorts of interesting blog items and events of professional development. I think when you're in good company, it's easier to have not only surety, of that something needs to happen, but maybe how to do it. And when the why is always there. We know it's the right thing to do. But we can rationalize that. But sometimes we just don't exactly know how to start. So I think you have a great place to start. So Madam Julie, what is the next adventure for you?

Unknown: 35:48

Well, the auditing alliance has been virtual, since it started back in June 2020. And we are at the beginning stages of planning an actual in person event. If COVID will cooperate, then I hope to have that lined up for either October or November. And if not, we might have to push it off until next year, but we'll see what happens there. But I'm very excited about that. And specifically having to do with ethics, we do try and provide at least one hour of training around ethics, every single quarter for auditing alliances and other people, many of those discussions, even though they may have a little bit of a flavor of auditing, they're actually have much broader application

Margarita Gurri: 36:36

as well, they should, because auditors more than other groups, you're your biggest line of defense is your brain and your mindsets. And you have to know how to think about things and how to assess yourself as well. So yes, you know, how to communicate about things. How do you set the limit? What is exactly your obligation? How do you do that? That's not so easy. And there, there are books for that you. You have to talk with experienced people and give it some serious thought. So bravo, I'm excited for you with your view. And I hope that if you can't do it in person, I hope you still do it live through your resume or whatever platform you're using. We will good. I will look forward to hearing more about that.

Yonason Goldson: 37:26

And you know, there's a something that I think we have in common auditors, ethicists, accountants, actuaries, people outside look at us and think we're kind of dry. So Julie, what do you do for fun?

Unknown: 37:43

Well, right now we're in the middle of a home renovation.

Margarita Gurri: 37:47

Not fun, if you think that's fun. And I'll give you haven't told the rabbi, how long have you been in the midst of this disastrous renovation?

Unknown: 37:59

I didn't think you'd tell on me.

Margarita Gurri: 38:01

Well, it's not your fault. You had a series of environmental disasters. I know how long has this house and you've been so stalwart in your efforts to remediate I have been so impressed and exhausted hearing the details. So when did it start? What year

Unknown: 38:19

it started in 2016.

Yonason Goldson: 38:22

Oh my goodness, the lie

Unknown: 38:24

I found a pinhole water leak. And unfortunately, it went down between walls and because of the type of flooring I had, it actually went underneath the flooring. Now it looks like the water was only leaking for maybe two weeks after that. But as a result of mold and water, they when the the specialists came in to take care of all that they also found my garbage disposal had corroded from the backside. So the pinhole leak was at one end of the house, the garbage disposal at the other end, and with continuous flooring and so forth, the entire house is going through a renovation, I now see a light at the end of the tunnel and for the first time I'm not sure anymore that it's the train it might actually be the end of the tunnel. Yeah, and it is getting to be a little bit more fun Margarita now that I know what that late is.

Margarita Gurri: 39:16

What when you're done, let's pretend for it's all the way done. I know no houses ever all the way done, but let's just pretend that it can happen. What fun thing you're gonna do then?

Unknown: 39:27

Well, I have all kinds of things I will actually be able to do a little bit more traveling for fun rather than those for work because I won't be trapped here waiting for contractors that may or may not show up. I also have taken up knitting. So I want more time to knit and or crochet appreciate before but the knitting and I want to get back to exercising but very specifically rollerblading. I am anxious to get back to that.

Margarita Gurri: 39:54

Well, that sounds wonderful. I'm, um, I just see the rabbi pushed you for fun Oh, yes, I had to push you for fun. I mean, you know how many lines of defense to push you for fun, but you are actually a fun person. But I think just you know, when we're in the midst of lots of things, it's hard to put ourselves first. But if we're going to be wonderful ethical people, we have to be a little selfish and put ourselves first. Is this truly not selfish and helps us serve the greater good, so angry? did good.

Yonason Goldson: 40:30

And Dr. Do you have a last word for us today?

Margarita Gurri: 40:33

The last word is, when we talking about auditing, we're talking about a fine line between being too harsh and too soft. And what is the what is the official thing that needs to happen for compliance? But I hope we don't stop the compliance. What is the aspirational goal? And how do we communicate it so everyone can find their best self, whether it's a business, or a person doing their own ethical auditing or fun audit? Whatever it is, I hope everyone has the courage and sense of joy that the world can be a better place if we all do. Well. That's all I have to say about that. Thank you for joining us on The rabbi in the shrink. And Julie, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. We're grateful.

Unknown: 41:27

It was my pleasure. Thank you for listening to the rabbi and the shrink every day ethics unscripted to book Dr. Red Shoe Dr. Margarita, Drewery or Rabbi Jonas and Goldson as speakers or advisors for your organization, contact them at the rabbi and the shrink.com. This has been a doctor Red Shoe production