Meet Scott Morrison of Elizabethtown KY, a Lead Auditor with the registrar SAI Global. Morrison has a problem with Oxebridge, and out of the blue he felt it was necessary to lay it all down. Mind you, I have no idea who he is, never heard of him, and can’t find any record of him having audited any of my clients. So I have no idea what prompted this meltdown, but something really, really pissed him off.<\/p>\n
Morrison began with a completely unsolicited email accusing me of an invisible profit motive, as well as some unspecified emotional issues, as the driving force for Oxebridge’s reporting on the ISO 9001 certification bodies and their auditors.<\/p>\n
Hello Chris, we\u2019ve talked before, years back.\u00a0 I hope you\u2019re doing well.<\/p>\n
For a person with your accomplishments and \u201cfame\u201d of sorts within the Certification Industry I\u2019m still puzzled at your distain for CB\u2019s and AB\u2019s which are very important components of an industry that you have profited from for a long time now. \u00a0Congratulations.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you understand that your role and our roles are linked?<\/p>\n
Your lack of respect for 3rd<\/sup> Party Auditors is obvious but not justified in my perspective.\u00a0 You attack us at every opportunity.\u00a0 Not sure why?\u00a0 Did you have a traumatic experience with a CB company or CB auditor that you can\u2019t let loose of?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m well aware that not all auditors may not meet your esteemed criteria, we, like every other organization have bad-apples, but I don\u2019t feel you understand that most of us auditors pay a dear price for what we do.\u00a0 We\u00a0 basically don\u2019t have much of\u00a0 social life, family life, no time for hobbies, no \u2018easy-street\u2019 life exists for us. \u00a0Travel is hard and sometimes dangerous.\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019re very engaged and committed to our clients and work hard for their best interest.\u00a0 Integrity, fairness, and professionalism are important to us.<\/p>\n
Hopefully someday your opinion will change and you\u2019ll give us a break a little bit. \u00a0You don\u2019t have to like us but just see that we\u2019re not all grub-worms.\u00a0 Best regards \u2013Scott Morrison<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s a pretty weird argument, and Morrison actually believes that consultants and certification bodies are not only linked financially, but that that financial link obligates<\/strong> <\/em>consultants to be nice to auditors like him. Obviously, the actual accreditation rules say that consultants and auditors should be entirely firewalled, especially financially, but Morrison — who’s been auditing for SAI for a very, very long time — must have fallen asleep during that part of the Auditing For Beginners 101 course. Morrison demands consultants “respect third-party auditors<\/em>,” hilariously unaware that his very demand proves that he deserves no respect at all, since he doesn’t respect the basic conflict of interest firewall.<\/p>\n
I then wrote Morrison back and explained that it was not my<\/strong> <\/em>“esteemed criteria” that I expected auditors to comply with, it was the rules as codified in ISO 17021-1<\/strong><\/em>. I told him that when they auditors stick to that, the problems go away.<\/p>\n
Morrison didn’t like that much, either, and again reiterated — without any proof — that I was somehow making money by reporting on the waste, fraud and abuse within the CB scheme:<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have and most of my auditor counter-parts don\u2019t have any \u201cproblems\u201d to go away, except un-fair comments by consultants, who mostly have a $$ agenda to maintain. \u00a0\u00a0We\u2019ve been and still are following 17021, nothing new there.\u00a0 Our clients, \u2026who are our real critics, rate us highly. \u00a0Enough said about that.\u00a0 Just not clear on your \u201cjob\u201d.\u00a0 You put out a lot of valuable info that I even agree with, for the most part, \u2026just have trouble with the sour grapes toward CB\u2019s and AB\u2019s.\u00a0 Not sure where that comes from?, but it is what it is I guess, I assume it sells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At which point I just outright asked him “WTF?” I told him he didn’t get to assign a cynical profit motive to my actions. I furthermore pointed out that his own employer — SAI Global — had been de-accredited a few months prior, and that they were involved in a damning Dept. of Defense report. I also suggested he not use his SAI Global email address to send harassing emails.<\/p>\n
So then Morrison did what any well-adjusted, professional would do, and started down an increasingly disgusting, borderline homophobic rant, being nice enough to put it all in writing, again while using his Scott.Morrison@saiglobal.com email address:<\/p>\n
Wow, corrective action\/OFI here may include some \u201canger management\u201d for you Mr. Paris.\u00a0 I think I now have a clearer picture of your true personality.\u00a0 \u201cSmug, ignorant, self-important, clueless, \u2026and I must add arrogant\u201d \u2026an assessment by you?, the self-proclaimed certification genius?, that\u2019s a riot!! J\u00a0 You\u2019re a troll. \u00a0BTW, SAI Global wasn\u2019t de-accredited you dim-wit, \u2026it was temporary suspension only, just like other CB\u2019s experienced, and it was lifted recently.\u00a0 Also,\u00a0 SAI Global has nothing to do with me making a subjective comment toward a blow-hard, trolling, consultant. There\u2019s not an implication of anything here, except that I may somewhat imply that you\u2019re a jerk with a hard-on for CB\u2019s and AB\u2019s.\u00a0 That\u2019s all.\u00a0 You deal with fake-news too much, bright-boy. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So don\u2019t throw the BS out and hope it sticks. \u00a0It won\u2019t. \u00a0\u00a0You have a great evening and keep on trolling. \u00a0We have nothing more to discuss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Because he used the SAI email address, he thus implicated his employer. So I began forwarding his emails to the SAI execs in my contact list — something he apparently didn’t think I had. It’s also stunning that a so-called business expert like Morrison doesn’t know you shouldn’t implicate your employer in your hate mail. So I then told him he had “poked the bear,” to which he just doubled down with more harassment, again falsely suggesting that some childhood sexual violation was behind my CB reporting.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not looking to work out anything for myself, \u2026and I\u2019m not bear-poking here either, \u2026that would be demeaning to bears in this case.\u00a0 I\u2019m not looking for conflict with you.\u00a0 If you noticed, I didn\u2019t attack you publically on a post somewhere on some social media or post negative crap on a web-site somewhere.\u00a0 It was just a quite email.<\/p>\n
I was just curious why someone who has profited from the Certification Industry would continuously attach the establishments of certification?\u00a0 It\u2019s like you are biting the hand that feeds you. \u00a0Yeah, I know there are problems, but damn, sounding like a broken record, on and on, is not the solution. \u00a0\u00a0But as I read your material, articles, posts, \u00a0(I\u2019m not buying your books), my hard-earned money has better things to do, but I think I see a pattern, similar to one that Donald J. Trump used to get elected, \u2026target the establishments, attack and attack, make them look stupid and corrupt, and then profess \u201cI, \u2026C. Paris, \u2026I alone only can save you from the corrupt CB\u2019s, AB\u2019, F-up auditors, and the evil ISO organization\u201d. \u00a0You get customers to buy into that mantra of fear and anger, \u2026kinda makes sense, it worked for that idiot Trump.\u00a0 Some folks out there may get goo-goo over the rants and raves and look for a savior.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure you have a fan club of sorts.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019d bet a month\u2019s pay that you\u2019re a Trump supporter, \u2026am I right?\u00a0 I think so. \u00a0\u00a0Great minds think alike, eh?\u00a0 I will give you this Chris Paris, you\u2019re one of the best self-promoters I\u2019ve ever run into.\u00a0 You\u2019re good, damn good.\u00a0 You\u2019re talented, just wish you would channel that talent away from your vendetta you hold against part of the industry that you know so much about.\u00a0 Odd.\u00a0 Did a CB auditor traumatize you when you were young?\u00a0 Maybe touch you in an inappropriate manner?\u00a0 Bound to be some RC for this.<\/p>\n
I wish now that I didn\u2019t \u00a0chime in on this, I regret trying to reason with an opposing view that will never change.\u00a0 But we kept it private anyway, not out in the public.\u00a0 Not my MO. \u00a0\u00a0Our opinions will never change, that\u2019s obvious.\u00a0 I guess we can agree to disagree and just let this go.\u00a0 Keep in mind, this is just from someone who feels pride in this profession, I feel I give value to clients, I work hard at it, clients benefit from 3rd<\/sup> party certification, millions of dollars of contract award and revenue have been awarded to clients because of their certification and having an effective QMS that in return benefits their customer needs and expectations.\u00a0 The system works, despite what you spew. \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m done.\u00a0 Got to do my job tomorrow, and I\u2019ll feel good about it at the end of the day.\u00a0\u00a0 -SM<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Notice how despite his alleged loathing for Trump, he still borrows the tactic of labeling any negative news as “fake” even when it’s supported by facts. It’s a fact<\/strong><\/em> that SAI Global lost its accreditation for months. It’s a fact<\/strong> <\/em>that SAI Global issued an AS9100 certificate to a company that the US Dept. of Defense found had over 40 major nonconformities, and it’s a fact that SAI Global is still certifying that same company despite the DOD report. In Morrison’s mind, I not only made up these “fake news” stories, I must have engaged in a massive conspiracy that involved the participation of the entire DOD, IAQG, ANAB and SAI Global itself!\u00a0\u00a0That<\/strong> <\/em>makes more sense than actual facts.<\/p>\n
Things got weirder still. After his last email, I then received two voicemails from an Ohio number about two hours away from Morrison’s home. The first just called me a “fake,” but the second one was really, really creepy. Have a listen, and remember this is a grown man:<\/p>\n