ISO/IEC 27001:2013 ISMS LEAD AUDITOR

I mean, I kinda earned that title so let me bask in the glory 😎

The course was held in Bangsar South, a place that was/is formerly known as Kerinchi though at the rate they are going, I don't know what this hood's called anymore. All I can say is if you value your life, don't work here.

Course books. Given the amount paid, it was surprising that they didn't let us take them (all) home -_- Btw, it was an open book examination. Like every other open book tests, that didn't make much of a difference 😂

It was a 5day long course with the exam held on the last day. So technically, it was a full 4day course. Did we finish all of these? Heck, no. Sometimes, we deviated quite faraway (like 1MDB) that we don't know where we were 😏

In case if you're interested, this is the jist of it. Just don't take it seriously because this was one of our practice 😁We were probably wrong... somewhere. This was back in March 2018. The reason for the delay was the results took awhile as it had to be double checked. My last previous course with an exam was circa 2011 for ITIL Foundation v3. That was slightly better than this as it was something I had been doing for the past decade. My very last exam was actually for 6Sigma Green Belt. That is a nightmare which I don't wish to relive. Not only was it a truly dead and dry subject, when your trainer is the same, you're only headed for doom.

With this particular course, it was a whole different ball game altogether. My few experiences with audits are mostly as a participant and not the auditor so really no guessing it on past experience. As such, it was a struggle and nightmare for that week. So much so that I was afraid that I would fail it. As luck would have it, I passed 😀 Not sure how but yea, I did.

Hence, if you're looking for a 6Sigma Green Belt-er who can also double up as an ISMS lead auditor in an ITIL environment, hit me up 😋 Not sure what those could do but I'm all for more 💰💰

Anyway, lets not bore you any further with my professional (or lack of) qualifications and move on to the good stuff: Food.

The best thing about the training (center) was their coffee machine. Touch screen with proper coffee, nothing like a freshly brewed cup of joe to muddle through hours of audit topics. I really don't know how I could have survived otherwise. Of which, my (Cert) acceptance speech includes this machine.

Although there's the Kerinchi KL Gateway LRT station, it was still about 10mins walk away that I decided to drive and claim instead. Good in the morning as there's an uphill walk. Bad in the evening because it's a frigging gridlock all the way to Federal Highway. Yup, that's the very same CTOS. There were few mornings when I was there early & decided to go the other floor's washroom. The training center tends to lock theirs up & they don't open early enough.

Bangsar Nexus. That's where tg and I had our first coffee 😊 He first struck me as someone who was aloft and certainly wasn't expecting a followup after all that talking (from me).

Bumped into this little fella on the way one morning. Like a little pick-me-up for the disastrous day ahead.

Class starts at 9am. Food is served throughout the day: breakfast/morning break at 10.30am, lunch at noon, tea time at 3.30pm. The amount of food they served in a day is just mind boggling. It could last me for half a week. It is quite a full spread that it's almost impossible to stay away without the coffee.

For the first day, I decided to go easy on the breakfast as I didn't want to risk the coffee running me to the loo. Lunch was a very hearty affair. Mostly carbs but with some proteins as well. They didn't go too easy on tea with some mini finger food.

Day#2 was a feast. Probably because they know we need something to look forward to after all that brain crunching. These were catered from a cafe downstairs so the food was still warm. Most of them were quite good, not bland at all. It would have been more enjoyable if not for the fear of failing the course & having to redo it. No amount of food would be worth that pain.

The menu varies from day to day. But they do keep it simple enough to have something for everyone. My class of about 10 (or 15) were mainly Malays with few Indians and possibly me, the only Chinese. So the food do have more of that local touch with some days, we had pasta and chops.

The funny thing is sometimes we would be so demotivated that we didn't eat much that there was enough left behind for the staff themselves to eat. I can only imagine how much of takeaways one could have. Actually, one of my classmates did take away from the second day onward. Yea, it was very tempting 😓

They catered for about 15 pax but obviously some ate lesser than the rest. As we had breakfast, we would usually still be a wee bit full for lunch. If there's one thing I truly enjoyed during that week, it's never feeling hungry during any hour of the day.
Which is why I was quite sad when it ended as it meant no more food and feeling hungry every other hour 😔

For the last day, we didn't have much of any lessons, merely revising and going back to our notes, praying fervently to the gods of ISO that we would pass. Sure, we were all working adults and know what's right but you trust a bunch of lost souls enough not to copy when no one's invigilating the room? 😅 It was obvious some had given up entirely when all they do is just write their name and scribble some sentences here & there (it was a full subjective paper, NO choices).
We were still provided with lunch to either congratulate us on the job well done or as a form of consolation for failing.

My personal take on this course: only if you're prepared to be accountable for what might be the wrong decision. You know like those people who signed off the audit reports? Yea....