I Feel Defeated But Not Sure If I Should Quit

Audit Manager Series: #02

The Week She Stopped Recognising Herself

Wen Qi had four clients on her plate that quarter, each at a different stage of audit. Falcon Textiles' audit was ongoing. Northgate Pharma had a long list of outstanding review points not yet cleared. Brightfield Tyres was racing toward its reporting deadline. Summit Realty, her first-year client, was still getting used to working with her team. None of that, on its own, was unusual for a manager at her level.

Then, over about ten days, everything seemed to happen at once.

Her partner pulled her senior off Falcon Textiles to help cover another higher-risk audit, promising he'd sort out extra support by the end of the week. The week passed. Each time she asked, the answer was some version of still working on it.

With Falcon short-staffed, Wen Qi absorbed the gap herself, on top of Brightfield's looming deadline and Northgate's outstanding review points. She was in the office past midnight most days, and back at her desk before seven in the morning. She was exhausted.

Midweek, Summit Realty's CFO called, upset about the long list of schedules required from his accounting team. He told Wen Qi that his previous auditor never asked for so many schedules to be prepared. Wen Qi spent an hour explaining the reason, and promised to remove some schedules from the list. In that moment, she feared her own team would be upset with her for making that promise.

On Thursday, the day Brightfield's final draft financial statements were due, she was still halfway through her review. The finance director called her directly after he failed to reach the audit partner.

Finance Director: This is the third time I'm calling about the draft. We have a board meeting on Monday and I still don't have final numbers. I don't know what's going on over there, but this isn't acceptable.

Wen Qi: I understand, and I'm sorry. I'll have it to you by Monday at the latest.

Finance Director: Are you kidding me? We need the final draft today.

The call lasted four minutes and in that short span of four minutes, the only thing that Wen Qi did was either staying silent or apologising. She offered no excuses. This went on until the FD hung up in anger.

She sat at her desk for a long moment afterward, staring at nothing. Her hands were shaking slightly, and she hadn't eaten since last night. She wasn't sure if it was hunger or something else.

That evening, she sat at the bus stop and watched two of her buses come and go. She couldn't make herself stand up to board either one. She wasn't crying, not exactly. For those few minutes, it offered her some respite, only because no one could reach her there.

For the first time, she let herself think the sentence she'd been avoiding for weeks. I don't know if I can keep doing this.

What Could Possibly Be on Her Mind

By the time she reached the bus stop, Wen Qi wasn't thinking about Falcon's staffing gap or Summit Realty's schedules anymore. She was thinking that she had failed. That a good manager wouldn't have let Brightfield's review fall this far behind. That the finance director's anger was an accurate feedback on her own incompetence, and it's only a matter of time that everyone else would see it too. Whether any of that is actually true is a separate question. Right now, exhaustion is doing the talking for Wen Qi, not the truth.

 If you're an auditor, did any part of Wen Qi's week feel familiar? What do you think she should do from here? Tell us in the comments, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.

 Your Audit Mentor