April 2023. Sölden. What began as a corporate outing for an audit firm ended up as a slightly surreal balance between Excel and après-ski.
During the day we stood on the slopes, tightly dressed in ski helmets and sunglasses, as if we were calculating a moving average of snow and sunlight. Some colleagues carved as if they had been applying IFRS on black slopes for years, others employed a slightly more creative interpretation of “internal control” and relied mostly on luck and wide turns. Between runs, audits were conducted on Kaiserschmarrn, Glühwein and muscle soreness: all findings were material, but acceptable.
By evening, Sölden transformed. Where daytime numbers were verified, Electric Mountain Festival took over. DJs, beats and light shows at altitude, as if someone had decided that compliance could also dance. Colleagues who normally only nodded at management meetings suddenly found themselves moving in sync to techno, with the mountains as silent, approving supervisors. The only real deviation? The next morning, when the audit trail led mostly to coffee.
Conclusion of the outing: the team spirit was strengthened, the memories permanently captured, and proof provided that even an audit office at high altitude can party surprisingly well, if properly underpinned with snow, music and a little bit of Austrian magic.