Well, I think I have the answer to my previous post about my broken team and the ledger corrections. if I look at this properly, it's funny--in a sad or maddening kind of way.
I'm nearly halfway done. I've had meetings this past week with the accountants, the zombie boss, the Board President. I've written instruction letters and encouragement letters, reviews of meetings, copied everyone.
I've asked zombie boss for past records to be made available. Those were dumped in zombie assistant's office so that everyone understands I am creating crap they must walk around. LOL! Zombie Assistant got the message, I'm sure. So does everyone who walks into her office to find it trashed.
I've been shown how to access the office computers, but this weekend, with the dumped paperwork to look at, the computers are locked. I will be making a phone call in the next hour to get in, thus proving that they are needed after all. (!)
They've also hidden all the pencils. There are only magic markers of the Sharpie type. How are they getting any work done? I'm laughing. I have plenty of pencils. All I have to do is go upstairs and get one! But they made me take extra steps--just as I am making them take extra ones.
And in the books, I've seen inattention, which was no surprise. Inaccuracy, which is no surprise either.
I've also seen dead apathy, where it was easier to forgive charges with a phone call to the accountant than to send a letter asking for the money. Favoritism--those who have been given a ride for years on small amounts and large. And its opposite, where some people are assessed every charge or screwed in every small way possible. This won't do.
And then I've seen evidence of panic, as things get moved onto ledgers, moved back off, transferred, re-added, but without checking the full ledger for accuracy. A lot of double-billing for late fees that now must come off for some months--all panic. No billing for late fees whatsoever for other months, on the same ledger. Just dumb.
Last of all, I see outright lying and cover-up--the loss of hundreds of dollars so that I would not ask about certain accounts, so that they could say the balance on these problem units was zero. I now understand why this effort is so threatening to them.
Pettiness
This effort has mostly uncovered steadily aggregating amounts of lost money, all because of laziness, inattention, pettiness. The worry I had about a broken team in the previous serious post was a little off. This team has never been. The worry I had about 'exposing' them for petty reasons--that's true and not true. I think I wrote that post as much to myself, as a warning not to descend to those tactics. I'm past that now. But I can't help but expose their petty reasons, because the ledgers shout them out at every turn.
We have a problem. The problem is not really the money amounts--significant yes, back-breaking, no--but the way trust has been breached, continually, Owner by Owner, across the spectrum. The Board will be meeting over the first half of the accounts this week. I have a three-page report prepared, a ledger ready for them to see, and a book of two-part memos nearly finished, documenting all of the adjustments, properly or improperly made. The Board is going to get angry, but they're going to approve the adjustments in the spirit of expediency and also large-mindedness--in some places, you can't go backward. Then they will scrutinize the zombies in, I know, a much closer way.
So, on the moral front, I'm in good shape. I know I'm right, and I can forge ahead. . .
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