Appraisal Time…

For the starters, PwC has recently introduced an online appraisal system. The trainings were organized in the (Big) Board Room of newly constructed office at Gurgaon. Yes, you heard it right…trainings for filling up the appraisal forms. I guess that’s y they call it MNC. And this is how we make the simplest things complex in our very own way! I cant recall attending any audit-related training for a long time, but this one was mandatory!!! And among all the deadlines, this one is the last kind of deadline anybody would be expecting…2nd March 2007 is the date by which I am supposed to fill in my appraisals and evaluate appraisals filled by my juniors. So “appraisals” is my this week’s project.

The funny part is that we are supposed to get the appraisals done after each assignment but its only towards the end of Financial Year (dats how I have been accustomised here to define the time of the year), auditors – or at least the PwC Auditors – start getting prayerful. Auditors are not particularly religious lot. So why the prayers then? The auditors are praying not for spiritual salvation but for a far more earthly thing: the annual increment!! And no ones prayer is ever answered, or so it seems. To the question, How was the increments and promotions this time?, the answer is a dismal one, With great difficulty, and only after using a magnifying glass.

When will we auditors learn? When will we learn the fundamental difference between Pelf (money) and Self (the ego and ethics). Pelf belongs to the world of Top Management (read: partners of the firm); Self is kept safely inside the hearts of (field level) Auditors. I am sure a partner would come out with this sort of reply: We understand you don’t get any little share of the hefty audit fees obtained on the basis of your work done. But why do you want all that money? See how much experience you are getting in PwC. You are interacting with CEOs and CFOs of all the big corporates. Your issues observed are being discussed all throughout. How much self-realisation you achieve in all this.

And then, partner would say, you are given chance to go abroad on secondment. The perdium (I don’t know the spelling) which is given is over and above the regular salary. Think of the times when you go to UK, US, Canada or Australia. I have never been sent for secondment to UK, US, Canada, Australia or anywhere abroad for that matter. Though they never miss any chance to keep me outta Delhi, be it Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow or Jaipur. I went to my manager last year and asked him to send me Out. He sent me to Pune saying dats outta Delhi!!!!!!

Another incentive, partner offers, is that the cocktail parties organized by Client (even that too client!!! Seems we all have been adopted by our client), where CFOs come up to you and elicit your views on the latest issues identified, treatments and control perspectives of new product launches, effects of the financial policies on company’s financial position and discussions on ethics and integrity (which I appreciate would be lowest in me even when you pool in the cops or the prisoners in Tihar Jail). I once gatecrashed (I am not saying I have done such kind of act only once, I am just narrating an incident over here) a cocktail party where someone came up to me and 'elicited' my views on where the loo was, having mistaken me for displaced lavatory attendant. I escorted my Guest to the loo, which I needed to visit myself, where he kept eyeing me suspiciously until I offered him a paper towel in expectation of baksheesh. (though he dint give me any baksheesh…cheap Indian)

Partner finally would say that the difference between Pelf and Self is nominal, involving simple transpositioning of numbers. Pelf is when you take any number from 1 to 9 and put lot of zeroes after it. Self is when you take any number from 1 to 9 and put a lot of zeroes before it. Are your prayers answered?, asks Partner. Amen, I concur.