Faithless Paranoia

Andy Grove wrote "Only the Paranoid Survive."  I have not read it. Perhaps his meaning is more subtle.  With wolves nipping at his gem-encrusted slippers, Grove must banish sleep, keep moving across the boggy moor.

The paranoid are tortured and lonely. Paranoia quietly drives others away. You might have glimpsed another in the baleful light of false suspicion.  They may have overheard you ascribe intention to a rock.  So easy to see wicked agency.  So hard to realize the plotting is in your head.  As I write this piece, clues pop up pointing to the truth, I would prefer to be paranoid, probably am, I cannot let the question rest. I have mislaid Ockham's razor, the statistics of parsimony lie mute. I am without tools and lacking faith. 

                                                    -0-

Until this very moment it had not occurred to me that something slightly irregular may be going on with <nonprofit>’s finances.

It could be that people are busy or don't understand.  But normal places will fall all over themselves to help someone with responsibility to understand any detail that bears on their fiduciary duty.  They will at least try.  But this has gone on nearly a year and no one seems concerned.  We all gonna do the right thing and make the books look perfect.  It's like I'm not here.  Silence.

I understand that people get paid late to cover a cash shortage.  Who hasn't when there was no other choice.  But it must be a conspiracy and someone could leak.  I don't care about proof here, I just want to know how far I can trust everyone involved.

If you fool around with people's pay to cover lack of money you must do something technically illegal to cover your tracks.  Probably cut checks and then make pretty sure they don't get presented until you can cover them. We can all wink and say "no foul" if we choose.  This cannot be simply my fervent imagination.  How could I make up something like "late pay" when I'm sitting next to <knowledgeable person>?

If I'm going to misunderstand then I do not need the numbers.  I could make numbers up myself.  I could lie and accuse people, much scandal would result, and no one would ever know if I were correct or just making it up.  Like Joe McCarthy or Fox News. Beneath me, not worth my time.

I pray this is only a cluster-fuck.  I do not spell "clusterfuck" with a hyphen, but the computer likes the hyphen better.   Too few well intentioned people not paying really close attention.  You get that with a volunteer labor force.

So now I really want to know.  It is my responsibility.  No one on <governing body> gives evidence of understanding finance, any better than I do.  I do not need this to be a problem.  I want to be proven completely wrong, utterly paranoid.  Someone has to pony up and explain me.

The budget process last fall was so painful.  I have come to agree with the best assessment of <person>.  She may understand finances when she sees them, but she does not get completely what is supposed to add up to what well enough to create budgets without help.  Mercifully, some one must have helped, finally.

Not impressed by the "<income> did not get mailed" explanation for last Summer's liquidity crisis.  Very simply, when you bump along at the very bottom in finances, statistics says you will get caught fairly frequently.  Are we too stupid to have that explained to us?  Maybe someone did not send in their check, but that does not make it the cause.  It was going to happen anyway and it will happen again unless we look at the problem squarely and fix it.

Again, probably we are just doing the best we can.  But a few of the <people around> have claimed statistics expertise.  Oh well, statistics is not intuitive and everyone fucks up.  Being too hard, I know.  Probably nobody's fault, just collective ignorance.  We did have a tax problem a while back, so bad stuff has happened and could happen again.

Lord, let me be an old fool worked up over nothing.  I am willing to be a thorough public fool, but idiot not so much.  So much for my reasonable paranoia, my false suspicion.