Almost exactly one year has passed since the crisis first brewed where I last work, and things continue to deteriorate. There were 15 people in the accounting department then, and 15 people have quit, been fired or laid off since. Two clerks remain from the contract turnover, and one other was there last summer.
The customer began to raise problems about a month before its contract with the government expired, and another company was scheduled to assume the business. It needed a hard financial close, and the people responsible were not comfortable with what they thought was going on.
One member of their financial group met with the subcontractor CFO and his assistant comptroller late one week. When she didn’t hear the answers she needed, someone apparently talked to the CEO. On Monday, the two men were fired.
That left the department with one remaining assistant comptroller and a new GL manager who had been hired to replace the one demoted back to her last assignment. Rumors say the new woman aligned herself with one of the budget analysts who had not been hired for the assistant comptroller’s job, and they spent more time undermining their acting boss than doing their jobs.
Just before the customer’s deadline, the man who handled the reports sent to the customer sent his significant other in with his resignation. He finally decided what to do after 28 years: he put his health and aging parents first.
Now there was no one left who had ever reported to the customer at fiscal year end. The customer had to send back the whistle blower it had saved in December, and instructed him to do what it took. He booked a $14 million dollar loss.
As soon as the close was complete, the last assistant comptroller walked out.
Two months later, the woman who always handled the subcontractor’s invoices at the customer’s has a new job, and her supervisor has transferred elsewhere with their new employer. Neither wish to deal with my old company anymore. The CFO may have disparaged her because she was a woman, but she was the only person who understood how to retrieve the necessary financial information from the customer’s databases to do any kind of cost tracking or reconciliation.
The whistle blower is telling her replacement and his new boss he doesn’t want anything more to do with his old employer. He noted in his last visit they had changed so many things he no longer could act effectively. So far, everyone promises to honor his request and let him get on with his new job.
That leaves the contractor department responsible for releasing work to the subcontractor to deal with the now 17 million dollar loss. They know the contract requires them to make up the difference, so they’re cutting back spending to hoard enough money.
So far I haven’t heard of any layoffs among the skilled crafts. More likely, the decrease in business means less overtime and fewer men hired for the summer. The lost take home pay has now spread from the accountants who caused the problem or were the first victims, to the men who generate the revenue to cover everyone’s paychecks.
The CEO is well aware of the problems. He’s gotten rid of the man he replaced, and the man who was the contract liaison last year. The head of human resources has also been demoted and the engineering manager left. The contract has devolved back to the man who handled it before the takeover and no one has taken over the day to day operations from the previous engineering manager he fired last winter.
The CEO’s apparently made it clear to whoever is left in accounting they will be fired if they don’t find the 17 million before the end of the fiscal year. No one yet knows where the 3 million went last year, and many people have spent hours trying to find it.
The new accounting team is headed by the treacherous GL manager who’s now the acting finance manager. The equally untrustworthy budget analyst is now the GL manager. She considers it a demotion because the person who had the job a year ago didn’t have any formal training in accounting, indeed didn’t have a four-year degree. Apparently, she still thinks she should be at least an assistant comptroller, even though she didn’t meet the minimum requirement that she be a CPA.
They’re aided by the woman who’s been responsible for developing rates. She demanded she be considered for the GL manager when it opened, on the grounds she at least had a four-year degree in business and knew something about the company. The fired assistant comptroller refused to take her seriously, and hired a women who had been in the military and was working for a bank.
They’re in the phase when they’ve found no simple answers and are begging for help. The whistle blower and the man who left in May have refused. The demoted GL manager is very unhappy because her boss has sent her back and expects her to help them and continue her existing job.
The only one who has accepted an invitation is the man who may have set this all in motion years ago when he developed financial reports so complicated no one with standard accounting experience could understand them. He’s now a paid consultant helping develop the rates.
At this point it no longer matters very much what happens. If the customer finally decides the cost of covering the subcontractor losses more than offsets the costs of cancelling the contract, the hunt for the lost funds will continue. The customer is still quibbling with the previous subcontractor over their final settlement with far fewer dollars in dispute.
If the customer cancels the contract, most employees will be absorbed and the work will continue for the crafts. If the men who pulled political strings to get the contract and subcontract in the first place pull some more strings, maybe someone in Washington will sidetrack the final search. After all, in the world of lost money in Iraq, what’s 17 million dollars?
But until they either find the money or the hunt is called off, people will search, and people will worry about getting fired, will continue to get sick or see their personal relationships suffer. It’s down to the tedious work that needs to be done, with no reward, only punishment for those who’ve survived. Only the fired CFO still received his bonus.
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