The Auditor

[ted]

Once upon a time there was a shepherd looking after his sheep on the side
of
a deserted road. Suddenly a brand new Porsche screeches to a halt.
The driver, a man dressed in an Armani suit, Cerutti shoes, Ray-Ban
sunglasses, TAG-Heuer wrist-watch, and a Pierre Cardin tie gets out and
asks
the shepherd, "If I can tell you how many sheep you have, will you give me
one of them?"


The shepherd looks at the young man, then looks at the large flock of
grazing sheep and plies, "Okay."
The young man parks the car, connects his laptop to the mobile-fax, enters
a
NASA Website, scans the ground using his GPS, opens a database and 60 Excel

tables filled with algorithms and pivot tables. He then prints out a
150-page report on his high-tech mini-printer, turns to the shepherd and
says, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep ."


The shepherd cheers, "That's correct, you can have your sheep."
The young man takes an animal and puts it in the back of his Porsche.
The shepherd looks at him and asks, "If I guess your profession, will you
return my animal to me?"
The young man answers, "Yes, why not?"
The shepherd says, "You are an auditor."
"How did you know?" asks the young man.


"Very simple," answers the shepherd.
"Firstly, you came here without being wanted. Secondly, you charged me a
fee to tell me something I already knew, and thirdly, you don't understand
anything about my business..."


".....now can I have my dog back?"