The Case of the Missing Evidence

He came into the office shabbily dressed dirty and smelling like leftover meatloaf that had been in the icebox too long. He was mumbling as he sat in the chair across my desk. Something about finding something...

“What,” I asked, “Do you need to find?”

“Are you MacArthur Chanute? The Detective?” he looked me in the eyes.

“Yeah, but call me Mac..” I replied. “What can I help you with?”

“The evidence... I thought I had it... they want it... But I don't have what they want...” he rambled.

“What evidence?”

“The objective evidence...”

They were the last words he said as he slumped over in the chair.

As a Private Eye I avoid the cops like the ring baloney blue plate special at Rosie’s diner, but a body in my office wouldn't be good for business. So, I called Lieutenant Theodora Wilcox, a friend of mine at homicide.

After the cops took the body away they grilled me like a cheese sandwich. When they realized my story was on the up and up Wilcox came over.

“He was a training manager at LBU industries. Seems like they had some type of audit about a month ago... he wasn't the same since. Why was he here?” the Lieutenant asked.

I explained, “He said on the phone he needed to hire me to find something.”

“What?”

“Evidence... objective evidence. That’s all he said.” I explained.

“Well,” the Lieutenant stated, “looks like this is one client that won't be paying you to solve anything.”

Wilcox was partially right. He wouldn't be my client, but I hate a mystery, can't sleep with something hanging over my head. That's why I became a private dick… so I wasn't about to let this go.

The admin assistant at LBU had the kind of smile that made you reach for sunglasses... big and bright. I presented my card as an insurance adjuster taking care of the estate of the recently departed manager. The mention of that shut her smile down real quick.

“He was a good man. It was a shame what happened to him.”

“I just know he's departed us... but nothing more. Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.

“They drove him to his grave... they...” She began to sob softly, and I knew I wasn't going to get anymore from her. I left for his office.

The police had come and gone, but as usual, they didn't know what to look for, or just didn't care. To them, it was just another body. To me, it was somebody who needed help. I began to root around.

The files uncovered the recent audit. It was a regulatory compliance audit. A government agency had come to LBU to ensure they were following the laws, policies, and regulations in place. Overall LBU had some major issues, but the training department was in pretty good shape. The only finding in the audit was lack of objective evidence of training. This was puzzling. LBU had one of the latest state-of-the-art learning management systems. Tracking training and providing evidence should be as easy as slicing through my mother's Angel food cake. So, what was the problem?

Digging a bit more, I found it. It wasn't with the training LBU offered as part of their various corporate training programs. The problem was during the initial hiring of people and training taking outside of LBU. When LBU hired people, they looked at their resume, maybe ran a background check on it, and if all looked good, they were hired. The trouble was that LBU considered the resume “evidence” of past training and education. Also, when an employee took a course at a local college or did some on-the-job training, it might get mentioned in an annual performance review, or in some memo stuck in an HR file, but nothing else. In both cases, in hiring and continuing education, there was no “objective evidence” being collected and archived. Copies of diplomas, signed statements of OJT training, and certificates of completion are the things needed to satisfy the requirements of objective evidence.

I brought my findings to the proper authorities of LBU. From there it was a simple matter of developing and implementing a few simple processes to ensure the required documents were recorded from that point on. It was as simple as my Aunt Edna's recipe for boiled water soup...

The?case was closed, and I went out to treat myself to a steak at Delmonico’s.

Have you had any issues with training records, compliance audits, or similar issue?

Or, better yet, any good recipes to share? As you may have deduced, I was rather hungry while writing this piece…

Please comment on either…