journal features

CIA no more

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2019.01.01

Whoopsie, I seem to have forgotten to renew my Certified Internal Auditor designation. The designation that I worked so hard for over the course of a year, but which proved to have been a net negative for my career! I literally get more job leads from my LinkedIn profile when that designation is *not* present.

Happily, I made up for the lost effort by taking the masters degree in which the University gave me a credit for the CIA designation. So the CIA designation was a means to an end that saved me quite a bit of time and cost.

And I can't deny I learned a lot. Not only about risk management, but also about the differences between risk and its controls and the practice of assurance work. And about accounting, managerial accounting, finance, economics and non-IT operations risk controls.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges