I’ve written a lot of blog posts over the last 18 months. Actually that’s not true. I have started, continued, rewritten, deleted and given up on a lot of blog posts over the last 18 months. I think maybe 2 of them spread their wings and flew out into the ether before I could press “unpublish”, forensically dissect them, rewrite them a couple of times before chucking them in the recycle bin, never to see the light of day. Some of them were quite good, a few were mediocre, and at least two were so bad that they were actually quite good if you read them ironically. Actually that’s not true. They were absolutely dire. One day I might rescue them from a tatty notebook which I dropped in the bath, painstakingly rewrite them, spend several hours editing them, and then delete them forever. Just for fun, like.
I wouldn’t call it writer’s block; nor was it a lack of inspiration; I’m fairly certain that my muse didn’t abandon me, because she never actually existed; and it certainly wasn’t due to an absence of mediocrity in my life which warranted being shared with you, my dear, sweet, faithful (possibly non-existent) and anonymous reader. I just got bored of the words flowing out of me. And when I’m bored of the words I come up with, I am pretty certain that they’ll be boring for everyone. Trust me, I’m a Compliance Officer. I know when the words coming out of my mouth are boring.
And that isn’t intended to be disparaging about Compliance Officers. We care so that you don’t have to. We know the subtle differences between laws, rules, regulations, codes of practice, guidance, guidance notes, guidelines, requirements, recommendations and what it really means when regulators say “you may wish to take the opportunity to refresh/revisit/update……..”. And we aren’t afraid to explain those subtle differences in mind numbing detail. Why? Because we can.
How many Compliance Officers does it take to fix a lightbulb? 201. One to change the light bulb, and 200 others to get asked ad nauseum if there isn’t a different, better and less time consuming way of changing the lightbulb, and whether or not we really need to change the light bulb anyway? Can’t we just leave it as it is and get on with making more money?
To be fair, that’s not what my colleagues at my current theatre of endeavour tend to do. Possibly because I am a one-person Compliance department, so there is nobody else to ask. Generally they ask me “do we really have to do x”, to which I reply “yes (with reference to reason y)”, and they say “ok then” whilst looking mildly disappointed. Which is basically what Compliance Heaven would be like if there was such a place as Compliance Heaven. I think we probably get shoved into a supplies cupboard somewhere near purgatory and told to count the pencils until hell freezes over. So that’s nice.
As a child I never dreamt of being a Compliance Officer. Funny that. I never had dreams of reading pages and pages of laws and regulations, explaining to people what they meant and how they needed to be applied in the workplace, checking to see if people are actually doing it properly, and then being told that I just say “no” to people, tick boxes on worksheets, and find ever more complex ways to make our organisations less profitable. Strictly we don’t need to do the last one by the way, but it’s good to have a hobby.
My dad and grandad used to argue about the war. The War, that is. The Second World War. The one that Britain won all on its own, only to have honest British Tommies portrayed by American actors in films about it, and for goodness sake don’t mention the fact that the Russians helped. [That’s not what really happened, but I suspect you know that, oh enlightened reader.] Specifically they used to argue about whether or not my grandad used to stick “out of order” signs on telephone boxes during air raids. According to my aunt and uncle, my grandad genuinely did some brave and interesting things during the Second World War. Sadly I never got to hear about them. I got to hear – over and over again – about whether or not my grandad used to stick “out of order” signs on telephone boxes during air raids. For variation – for variety is, after all, the spice of life – my Nan and Grandad would have heated discussions about how many clothing coupons you needed in order to buy a new tie during the Second World War. This was in the 1990s by the way. When the Berlin Wall came down, the Gulf War happened, Margaret Thatcher resigned, Brian Lara scored 501, Diana Ross missed a penalty, and Mr Blobby had a Christmas Number 1. So obviously there wasn’t anything topical to discuss.
Occasionally I look back with fondness on those salad days as I explain to people that Jersey’s Regulatory Handbook has been updated to reflect an amendment to the Financial Services Law as a result of a change to the interim version of the recently modernised Proceeds of Crime Law because somebody has pointed out that it doesn’t align with the newly published version of the international guidance on countering the Financing of Terrorism. And then get asked, “do we really have to do that?” “Yes.” “Why?”
And yet, in an oddly masochistic sort of way, I love my job. I have the kind of logical, process driven, unemotional sort of brain that loves nothing better than dealing in facts whilst everyone else gets emotional about it. As a child, then an adolescent, then a young adult I spent many an unhappy hour saying “Why?” when my parents delivered some pointless instruction or another in the direction of me and my brother – instructions which seem ever less relevant with the passing of time – only to be greeted with an increasingly loud and less patient rendition of “Because I said so!”. You know the sort of thing:
- Clean your football boots before rugby practice! Why?
- Put the dog’s blankets into a tidy pile! Whyyy?
- Rinse your toothbrush after you’ve used it! Whyyyyyy?
- Don’t fight on the stairs! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
“BECAUSE I SAID SO!”
“But Boots get muddy during rugby practice, dogs love mucking up piles of blankets, my tooth brush is covered in a cleaning agent I use for brushing my teeth, and where else are we going to fight? On a flat surface where there’s minimal risk of harm?”
“JUST STOP ARGUING AND DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!” Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?
So maybe I did dream – albeit subconsciously – of being a Compliance Officer. Or rather, maybe I wanted to do a job one day where I’d give recommendations, someone would ask why, and I would respond calmly and authoritatively with a passing reference to Guidance Note 50 as it pertains to Section 7.6.1 of the – oh wait, they’ve stopped listening. And that doesn’t matter. Because they don’t need to know about Guidance Note 50, because I know it for them. And nobody else needs to care about smart chips being taken out of fridge freezers and being repurposed to turn drones into military attack toys. Because I care. And if anyone asks why we need to do open source checks on someone who signs cheques for Czechs, I can tell them why.
All of which is an impressively long winded, circuitous and round about way of explaining that the reason I’ve barely published any blog posts for ages is that I stopped believing that anyone would be interested in what I’m writing. Which is a common enough fear for someone whose self esteem has been severely damaged by the effects of long term chronic illness. Because everyone gets bored of the fact that – as long as there is a Y in the day – something’s wrong with my body. Trust me. I get bloody bored of it too. Being fatigued, sore and fed up to the back teeth of it is demoralisingly dull. It’s just so much less hassle to smile wanly and say “yeah, I’m ok”. Just as it’s probably easier to argue about “out of order” signs on telephone boxes than it is to say “I love you but I struggle to be in the same room as you for long periods of time because I know that we’re going to end up arguing eventually”. Why?
So anyway, here’s the thing: as a good Compliance Officer it is basically irrelevant whether or not someone is happy about needing to follow the rules. It just has to be done. Just as it doesn’t matter if 17 people read this and decide to become Compliance Officers – trust me, it’s not as sexy as I make it sound – or if the usual 7 people read this and say, “very nice, but you kind of lost me with the whole Guidance Note 50 stuff”. You don’t need to benefit from reading this, although it’s a hell of a bonus if you do. It doesn’t have to make your life more manageable, although I’ll happily wear that particular feather in my cap if it does. And it doesn’t matter if this post doesn’t win me the “best blog post written by a Compliance Officer which appears to be fairly mundane but actually contains a mildly interesting bon mot about life” award, although surely that is enough of a niche market that I’m in with a chance, right?
Because ultimately it benefits me to write this. It makes my life more manageable, which means that I can be a more positive influence on other people whether I feel fanbloodytastic or want to throw things at the wall whilst shouting rude words at the top of my voice because yesterday wasn’t my lucky day, today isn’t looking too good and it will rain all day tomorrow so I might as well not bother getting up. I write it because I can. I know all about the subtle intricacies of my job so that you don’t have to. I care so that nobody else needs to. And, odd error of judgement or basic oversight caused by brain fog aside, I’m pretty good at it. Regardless of what my ego says about me behind my back.
Oh, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever truly know whether or not my grandad actually stuck “out of order” signs on telephone boxes during air raids, but I like to think that he did. It makes me happy to imagine that he cared about that level of detail so that other people didn’t have to. All men die, but only some live, so let’s make sure we are the ones who are living rather than the ones slowly dying inside. And if that involves putting “out of order” signs on telephone boxes during air raids, who am I to judge? But I can tell you this: I do know that a men’s shirt cost 8 coupons and women’s (or men’s, I suppose) stockings cost 2 coupons. I looked it up. So that you won’t have to. You’re welcome.
The Mundane Adventures of Captain Fibro 