Can You Reject an Auditor?

We had a sub auditor from our NB being kinda a know it all jerk who would wait till the 4th review and "Discover" new items. My CEO was livid. He asked if we could prevent him from doing our audit again. I googled his name and found he has a website with regulatory news and a subsection that is behind a paywall. I think it was $45/ year. I purchased it. We didnt get him the next time but if we had I would present our business together as conflict.

I actually had an auditor snap in my company VP's face because he wasn't getting attention as quickly as he wanted it. That's right, snapped his fingers at him like I do my dog. Needless to say, we asked that he did not return. I know that's extreme, but things like that happened.

In another case, we had issues with another years later. The auditor was at out main site for 3 days. No issues. Got along with everyone. Then we traveled to our remote site. When they met my counterpart there, you could tell something was up. Nothing the gentleman said could be right. The auditor would argue and nag him about everything. So many times I had to go to the auditor and say "do you have a finding? No? Then move on". It became a miserable experience for everyone and ate up valuable time.

It is perfectly fine to request a new auditor if they are not providing the professional service you are paying for.

Mikey324 said:

I actually had an auditor snap in my company VP's face because he wasn't getting attention as quickly as he wanted it. That's right, snapped his fingers at him like I do my dog. Needless to say, we asked that he did not return. I know that's extreme, but things like that happened.

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Somebody snap in my face and he'll be missing a hand just prior to being tossed on his a&&. Y'all should have ended the audit right then and there.

Mikey324 said:

The auditor would argue and nag him about everything.

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Again, it's time to end the audit and say get your %utt out of here! Arguing and nagging are not topics contained within an auditor training course and probably not acceptable by the CB..........Probably being the optimum word.

If during the course of an audit if I don't have people relaxed and laughing I'm failing. That's what I preach and that's what I do as some here in the Cove could verify.

Randy said:

Somebody snap in my face and he'll be missing a hand just prior to being tossed on his a&&. Y'all should have ended the audit right then and there.


Again, it's time to end the audit and say get your %utt out of here! Arguing and nagging are not topics contained within an auditor training course and probably not acceptable by the CB..........Probably being the optimum word.

If during the course of an audit I don't have people relaxed and laughing I'm failing. That's what I preach and that's what I do as some here in the Cove could verify.

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Both were bad. The snapping resulted in the CB losing our business, although that was really just the final straw.

Mikey324 said:

Both were bad. The snapping resulted in the CB losing our business, although that was really just the final straw.

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I would guess so. I've had the "pleasure" of working with a couple of those attitudes years ago and they're history now. There's been a time or two that I've had to take a team member aside and remind them about attitude and the fact that 1st we're guests, 2nd we're owed nothing, 3rd we're providing a service to them and they don't serve us.

Wow... It hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns with every auditor, but some of these examples are unprofessional enough that I would expect "consequences". The least mature auditor I encounter on a regular basis has a particular personality quirk that we accommodate despite it almost never being directly relevant to the area he is auditing... he always asks to see "the source code". I suspect he is a frustrated former programmer (of some variety) and feels like putting eyes on "source code" gives him some peculiar insights. Picture an amateur craftsman who just likes seeing what tools you have on hand. Once, this gentleman had eyes on a process where there was literally no source code, and he strongly pleaded that we should show him something like source code, no matter how tenuously connected to the process. He is an otherwise reasonable auditor, but on this topic I feel like he has conclusively proven himself to have a very peculiar hang-up.

The least professional "audit-like" experiences I've had have been with "fauxditors"... that is, people who thought they were auditing but had nothing like a plan to follow, and were incapable of explaining their methodology beyond "I'll know something is wrong when I see it." I have had more run-ins with folks like this than I care to recount. The most bitter example I have is from an experience where I was providing audit support by lining up the OE documents for the person having face-time with an auditor. My "fauxditor" was placed in the back room, and all that person did was to slow us down by demanding to see minutae about the projects under audit... along the lines of "I bet you didn't do ____, they'll get you!"... they were so bad that they got booted from the room.

I also want to note, that although the auditor may know the standard better than you do you know your product better than they do.

Some auditors want to establish that they are the smartest guy in the room. Actually, I can work with that. I'll give em that and act very interested when they suggest things. As long as its all verbal commentary I play along and dont rock the boat with them. I dealt with a father who could blow up at any second. I learned how to read people and my time in the military and it has helped me. Know that people sometimes comfort themselves by establishing their supremacy and as long as it doest create non value added work I am ok with that.

Absolutyly! Only had to do it once in 17 years. It was the auditors 2nd visit, the first time had concerns but gave them a 2nd chance. No findings either audit, just very unprofessional, had people in tears on the production floor, more interested in what we were having for lunch!

QChas said:

Absolutyly! Only had to do it once in 17 years. It was the auditors 2nd visit, the first time had concerns but gave them a 2nd chance. No findings either audit, just very unprofessional, had people in tears on the production floor, more interested in what we were having for lunch!

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There is no need for an auditor to stroke their own ego to the point someone cries. That person should not be in the field.

Started reading through this Thread again after reviewing posts over the last few months and I've developed a hypothesis .... A good number of auditors today seem have "S**T for brains.

Why? One can only venture guesses and one guess I have is that Lead Auditor Course tutors/instructors may themselves lack competence in the field.