international criminal mastermind

To be clear, this is not atypical---working in-house, most of your job involves risk assessment. Law firms have the benefit of stating The Law in black and white; the rest of us flounder around trying to triangulate what we want (complete 100% compliance with all laws ever) with what the business wants (to meet deliverables, hit their various targets, and make money) and what your customers want (a product that does what it's supposed to do, and doesn't violate laws or cost too much). Most of the time, you can figure this out! It's a negotiation, internally, externally, and while I wouldn't say it's a happy or painless process, you can get there.

(Strangely, my "negotiations" class in law school was extremely helpful---I never go into a conversation without knowing what I want, what I will accept, and what I will accept under duress, if necessary. That professor was a dry stick, but I learned his lessons very well.)

However, in my opinion? the great enemy of this whole process is Internal Audit. Because Internal Audit never went to law school in any capacity. Internal Audit knows that there are laws, and might have even read a summary of such laws, but they don't understand risk at all. They don't know that a law means nothing if there's no aggressive legal enforcement to worry about; that even aggressive enforcement doesn't mean it will touch our organization when there is much bigger, more attractive prey; that even if it does touch our organization, we are working on things in the background that will demonstrate our desire to comply and we could absolutely mount a full-throated defense if needed, even if Audit doesn't have visibility to such.

(................especially when such visibility would ruin the camaraderie I've built up between myself and the teams implementing my recommendations. I want them to rely on me, and that means not throwing them under the bus because they haven't managed "100% compliance with all laws" yet.)

Which leads to extremely stupid conversations like those I've had over the past few days, where I try to educate Internal Audit about the complicated legal framework I operate under while also assuring them that it's fine, don't worry about it, it's so, so fine. No, don't write that down! It's fine. It's cool, it's copacetic.

Hozier perfoming 'The Fairytale Of New York' on SNL

Matzo ball soup

Kugel

Kreplach

Black and white cookies

Pastrami sandwiches

Rugelach

Hamantaschen

Knishes

Tzimmes

LATKES