Life of an auditor

We just had our “planning meeting” the other day, i.e. the meeting where the senior and above in an audit team get together and go through the big issues that need to be tackled for the upcoming audit. I must have zoned off at least 5-10 times during the meeting. It can go head-to-head with boredom at times, but it gives you an understanding of what the partner really cares about. The way I see it now (sure it might change down the road), Partners only care about the hot topics that either the client might be violating or needs to be in accordance with. These hot topics are always in the internal documents circulated to the higher ups to keep them abreast of the happenings. Their capital,i.e. their finances are on the line, so they have an extremely vested interest in making sure the firms don’t take a hit. This pressure then descends onto the senior managers/ managers, who want to make partner and so need to impress the current partners since the partners vote to approve new members o...