Auditor Passed Away From Overworking

There was a report in international newspapers that a lady who is an auditor with PwC Shanghai passing away from acute cerebral meningitis infection. Cerebral meningitis is defined as the inflammation of the meninges which is the thin outer layer of the brain. And like all other inflammation, the section of the meninges that is inflamed will swell and be damaged when the cells are pressed against the skull. Based on some of the reports that I have read, it appears that the symptoms of cerebral meningitis is headache / migraine and fever

[Source: http://shanghaiist.com/2011/04/15/25-year-old_shanghai_auditor_worked_to_death.php]

At another report that I read, it is reported that auditors working 100 hours per week is very common considering the peak period for reporting. And it is reported that this girl has worked more than 110 hours per week. I have to admit that this is a little bit too much considering that you only have 168 hours per week for everything (including sleep)

My thoughts
I have always had the belief that auditors in Malaysia should be paid higher than what they are paid now. I can't speak on behalf of other auditors who are not in Malaysia because I don't know how their pay scale is like. An auditor in a medium or small firm will be paid between RM2,000 to RM2,500 (smaller firms pay even less).

This is even lower than Engineers and commercial accountant by a lot. A simple comparison between Big 4 accounting firms and MNC Engineers will tell the whole story. Auditors in Big 4 accounting firms are paid approximately RM2,700 at current market rate whereas Engineers in MNCs are paid at least RM3,000. Some are paid even more. And all this is despite the fact that Auditors and Engineers are both professionals. And both Auditors and Engineers are knowledge workers

It is high time that we reward knowledge workers more handsomely than non-knowledge workers e.g. administrative staff. My rationale that we should pay knowledge workers more handsomely is because knowledge has value-add but administrative work does not have value-add. Considering that the Malaysian government is always talking about Vision 2020, all I can say is "You have to pay for the best brains". Without breaking free from this trend, Malaysia will never become a high-income nation

Recently, my friend said a very interesting quote:

"You pay Peanuts

You get Monkeys"

Disclaimer: This is not a shot at auditors being lowly-paid people. The author strongly feels that auditors should be paid for the amount of work that they are doing, not just paid what their bosses think they should be paid