Life of an Auditor: Fieldwork (pandemic)

For additional context, kindly read the first part: Life of an Auditor: Fieldwork (pre-pandemic

Since the community quarantine was imposed, our company has been working from home. A work from home arrangement is currently in place and it says that we would work from home until further announced otherwise and that we would only go to the office or the client’s premises in very rare circumstances.

In the first few months, I think the majority of us would agree, it was a huge relief.

Imagine waking up, getting a cup of coffee, sitting on your desk and voila!!! You’re at work! well, technically, unlike before that I have to travel a minimum of 1-2 hours just to get to my work and that mainly depends on the traffic along the way. 

As a person working in Makati, I can’t even start to talk about the traffic in Makati. I think that you would take 2 hours just to travel from Makati to Makati, that’s how extreme it was. I'm not even exaggerating here. So for many of us, work from home arrangement was a huge blessing.

But as time went by, I started missing fieldwork and I already wrote all about it in my article, “An Extrovert In Quarantine”. I started dreading being locked up, so when I heard that an engagement team needed extra members for a fieldwork…

I’m pretty sure you know what I would say next, HAHAHAHA! 

I immediately volunteered as a tribute! 

I know the risks involved since we will be exposed to a lot of people, but our transportation was always arranged ahead of time so that we would always have a private car when we travel. Our hotels will also be pre-booked and we even went ahead and got swab tested just to make sure that we are all safe. 

And I’m pretty much thankful that I said yes to some but I turned down a lot too, because I know some of you might agree with me that it’s really tiring to go out lately and I’m honestly concerned for the welfare of my family. 

It’s one thing to get Covid-19, but it’s more dreadful to know that you brought the virus in your home and a family member got infected.

With all of the additional safety precautions that I needed to bring, alcohol, the face mask, face shield, the paranoia and immediately taking a bath immediately after going home. You can hear me say something that I never said in my life before, I get tired of going out. 

But during this pandemic I got some of the most interesting fieldworks I have ever been on and I would really love to share some with you!

Manila City

Not much happened in this fieldwork, we just counted grocery items again, it's just the same for my previous ones. We stayed there for a week but I think the most interesting part was when we get to count frozen foods! We went inside this huge freezer which was around -10 degrees celsius! 

We were required to wear thermal jackets and thermal boots, we weren’t even allowed to bring pens because the ink might freeze up and we couldn’t write, so we had to use pencils. We also need to go out from time to time to warm up ourselves because it was really freezing inside.

(I can't find a royalty free picture but I do hope I painted out a picture for you)

Bataan City

I honestly think this is the most interesting fieldwork I have ever been on and one of the most tiring ones. 

This fieldwork was an inventory count for a petroleum refinery, they just basically transformed crude oil into usable oils for our vehicles. This count was conducted on the 31st of December, when all of the people were busy cooking and preparing for new year’s eve, we were busy climbing up stairs to climb up oil tanks. Our duty there was to measure the types of oil stored in oil tanks and if you haven’t seen one, I got a picture from google because we’re not allowed to bring phones inside because it has radiation and might cause a fire. 

This is tiring because we have to manually climb up the stairs to the top and I had 8 oil tanks assigned with me. We also walked from one oil tank to the other so my legs were really trembling after this count. 

Don’t worry though, we got home around 5pm, in time for the new year but I can’t jump properly when the clock strikes 12 because it was a really tiring day.

Bulacan 

This time, we visited a factory that produces paper or carton boxes for packaging. Again, there are no pictures because it wasn’t allowed in the plant for both privacy and radiation issues. It was amazing though, how paper was made. 

They were being produced by tons which was like mind-blowing. We also visited several plants in one day so this was a tiring day too. We need to do it in one trip to lessen the exposure so it was really put up in one trip.

Bonifacio Global City 

I think some of you might watch K-dramas, and do you know the famous part where they always have company elections? 

For this fieldwork, I have to be a COMELEC (Commision on Elections) for a company election. This was so nerve-wrecking and it proves that what happens in K-dramas also happens in real life. HAHAHAHAHA. The eerie environment, the whispers and mumbles who to vote for, the suit and tie, the Louis Vuitton bag with matching shades and so much more.

The election was conducted with formalities and legalities, which is of course required, but I didn’t really think that it was as extreme in the movies. I actually didn’t know that this was a part of our job too! But I do know that auditors are hired for pageants too to help in the computation of the scores, so it’s not really surprising that we get to do this. 

I can say that even though we only get to travel by land and I should be in London right now, but I can’t, because the world is still under pandemic. I really am thankful for the fieldworks I have been to because most of them are really unique and fun adventures!

I didn’t regret saying yes to them and I do hope the world starts to get better so I can finally hop on a plane and go for a vacation!

I hope you had a fun time with me, see you around!

Lead image: Photo by yousef alfuhigi on Unsplash