Accounting and office politics.

Two people that I used to work with gave me the same warning when they left the company. Both told me that if a particular coworker gave me a journal entry to upload, not to do it. This coworker tries to hand off journal entries to other people if she isn't absolutely certain that they're correct. That way, if the entry is questioned, she's out of the loop.

So this very coworker has done exactly that twice this month. In both cases, I couldn't understand what exactly she was trying to do. Basically, she knew that a particular account balance was wrong and what it should be, but she didn't know why it was incorrect or how to fix it. She asked me both times to correct her account and post the offset to one of my accounts. That way, my account would be wrong and hers would be correct.

The first time, I took the entry to the controller and he asked what it was. I immediately pointed to the coworker and dragged her in to explain it. She couldn't do it, so the entry was changed to only what I needed to post to my accounts. 

The second time, I asked the assistant controller why this was being sent to me to post. My coworker can post her own entries, so there's no reason for me to post them for her. I pointed out that I couldn't see where she was getting the number that she was getting and I didn't know where the offset was. (That was a lie. I know exactly what the offset is. That's beside the point. I wanted this little drama to play out to see what she would say.) I told the assistant controller that I didn't want to be responsible for an entry that I didn't understand. He agreed and told me to ask the coworker for more information and if I still couldn't understand it to talk to him. I sent her email back to her, asking her what the entry was supposed to be and where she was getting her number. I even suggested the correct offset account. Several hours later, she replied that she didn't know the offset and suggested an account that was completely incorrect and would have thrown off my OCI account, which is a high profile account in audits.(The correct offset is actually an intercompany P&L account that gets eliminated in consolidation, and is NEVER looked at by the auditors.) 

What this says to me is that my coworker has twice tried to dump work on me that would have corrected her accounts and thrown mine off. I think she knows that. I'm wondering if she knows I know what she's up to. 

This could get unpleasant. Well, you know. More unpleasant.