I am dumb and have never held a job that required audits, so I am curious (ha) about this process.  Like what is audited and why?  Do you audit before a 3rd party (like a CPA) does another audit?

I am still visualizing bunny ears on a scorpion

She now has me pondering the ability to scare people by wandering around with a KU Jayhawks clipboard (I live deep in the heart of enemy (Mizzou) territory)  

nothing dumb about being smart enough to avoid this in your career.

the CPA stuff is financial audits, which I'm somehow still inexplicably too involved with, so I'll be bitching about that first of the year.

These are quality audits.  The cliff note version is a company that's ISO certified is required to meet certain standards to maintain certification, and regular surveillance audits from an external auditing body to verify standards are being maintained.

In our structure the management rep (me) is the head of the quality system which is all the procedures we have in place for manufacturing, document/record control, etc.  all internal controls which affect production or customers are covered by ISO standards and our in house procedures which meet those standards.

internal audits are a requirements so I have a team of 11 internal auditors and we audit parts of the system on a schedule, plus I can have anything audited on an ad hoc if I see something which displeases the management rep in me.  As we do t have a qc department and all of my internal auditors were drafted against their will and way busy with their own jobs because we run super lean my schedule getting hijacked and audits not always being...how do I say this?  Not everyone audits the way I do...so lots of oversight and reviewing of their reports, sending them back as incomplete becaus they can't follow the checklists I spoon fed them...sorry, cranky because I spent 4 hours of my Saturday editing internal audit reports so the external auditor doesn't question the literacy of my team when he reviews them.

so basically all we can do is audit internally and check contro, samples of the thousands of records and hundreds of documents he will review randomly.  And stuff like are all non-conforming parts tagged and the tags properly filled out...it's a recipe for a control freak like me to get very anxious before an external audit.  Because I can't see everything and it doesn't take much to get dinged with a minor nonconformance which will require follow up and paperwork and basically be a pain in my ass until resolved.

so basically the hierarchy is this...i work with other exec mgt and production managers to create processes > production managers/supervisors are responsible for making sure people work according to procedures > internal audits make sure no gaping holes of non compliance > a lot of good vibes needed to make sure nothing shits the bed during a surveillance audit.

so I go around telling people what they are doing wrong and help them suck less....and then this Mon and Tuesday the external auditor will spend 8+ hours walking through every department and process with me pointing out all the things I missed and how I suck.

im lucky our external guy is fair and he's a nice guy...but it's a lot of "on" time for someone like me...the only time I not joined at the hip with people is in the bathroom on audit days.  

And we have some serious issues in one department which aren't  my fault because they've been documented - but it will be pretty bad if my last minute Hail Marys couldnt whitewash it enough (along with some hopefully happy holiday cheer) to get us by. 

thanks for explaining @HerNameIsBuffy  That sounds AWFUL and I'm glad I've never had a job that requires audits now!