Left hand turn

I was chatting to one of my mentorees yesterday, a senior partner at an accounting firm that specializes in corporate auditing.

We got around to the case of 7-Eleven and their habit of paying workers a quarter of the minimum wage.

I suggested that this problem could be solved through the tax audit process by just adding an extra tick box on the audit report whereby the directors confirmed that the company has complied with all minimum wage regulations.

This way it’d be a directors criminal and personal liability issue. Problem solved.

To my surprise my tax auditing colleague went left. He proposed that companies should be able to pay workers whatever they want. Old school slavery-derived conservative values.

I countered, nicely, that we need to either properly enforce the rules that we have or remove them. Which?

Mumble. Mumble. He had realized by then that I wasn’t one of them.

These types only truly reveal themselves when they are pissed. At other times just little chinks get through. You have to be alert.