Elated

Today my office passed its ISO14001 audit!

... And? you say.

And? And! I wrote the management system. I managed it into existence. I'm responsible for it. It's a thing that I've made. Truth to tell, I cobbled it together from parts from other jobs, but it's my baby, all of it.

Here's the thing. I've been doing management systems for clients for about a year and a half, since I had the job dropped on me because our principal consultant quit rather than go with the new masters (whom I for one still wholeheartedly welcome, except when they piss me off). I've had some successes, and some of them have been spectacular achievements for major clients or spectacular saves from the hands of incompetents. But I've never before from beginning to end put a system in place and seen it through to certification.

And I've never been the one being audited. And ISO14001 is the environmental management standard, and me being an environmental management consultant it's something that I'm supposed to actually know something about.

So today was a major professional vindication; I'm actually good at the job that I do (not just competent, that was a glowing audit report), as verified by an external assessor, and it's not a result of taking over the job of someone more qualified and taking the credit for seeing it to completion.

And I did it for my own office. I was mentioned in despatches to the MD and the chairman (whose name is on the company), both of whom got a copy of the audit report, and various other directors.

So, I've got a major confidence boost, a major professional credit and two significant learning experiences all in the one day.

Then I went out for a steak and several beers and came up with a new story. Today has been a good day.