This has been a very bad week for me. I spent the last couple of months preparing for an ISO 14001 audit. The audit occurred o7/21-7/22. While the end results weren't too bad, the week was agony. To begin with I got practically no sleep from Sunday night through Wednesday. Tense was I is an understatement. Finally Wednesday night there was a heck of a thunderstorm and I slept like a baby through it. Thunder and lightning have a calming effect on me.
We were grilled for two days about our energy policies, recycling, maintenance procedures, etc. I literally felt that I was being interrogated in a POW camp. The auditor wanted to put us in separate rooms and interview us over our garbage policies for goodness sake. I remarked to him that he forgot to bring his hi-intensity spot light.
I really really hate these things. Even after the audit is over, we have to wait a month to get the results then spend additional time correcting nonconformances or observations. I agree with the concept of 14001 about saving energy, making the world greener and safer and all that stuff. But doing it through the ISO 14001 organization is a terrific waste of time and money. We have real jobs too, and the auditors fail to understand that. At one point one of my coworkers actually said"You know these are really great ideas, are you going to supply us with the three extra people we need to perform these tasks?
I know it won't happen, but I really wish we could dump ISO 14001 and do it independently our own way. I'm confident we could make it work much better without those knuckleheads from Europe interfering with us. I don't know what they do there. They either have extra bodies to do ISO or they only have 40 hour work weeks. My work week usually averages about 55 plus 20 hours a week commuting on top of that.
I've vented enough, sheesh!!
We were grilled for two days about our energy policies, recycling, maintenance procedures, etc. I literally felt that I was being interrogated in a POW camp. The auditor wanted to put us in separate rooms and interview us over our garbage policies for goodness sake. I remarked to him that he forgot to bring his hi-intensity spot light.
I really really hate these things. Even after the audit is over, we have to wait a month to get the results then spend additional time correcting nonconformances or observations. I agree with the concept of 14001 about saving energy, making the world greener and safer and all that stuff. But doing it through the ISO 14001 organization is a terrific waste of time and money. We have real jobs too, and the auditors fail to understand that. At one point one of my coworkers actually said"You know these are really great ideas, are you going to supply us with the three extra people we need to perform these tasks?
I know it won't happen, but I really wish we could dump ISO 14001 and do it independently our own way. I'm confident we could make it work much better without those knuckleheads from Europe interfering with us. I don't know what they do there. They either have extra bodies to do ISO or they only have 40 hour work weeks. My work week usually averages about 55 plus 20 hours a week commuting on top of that.
I've vented enough, sheesh!!
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