That was why I was so annoyed last week...I have been busting my tail off to get prepared for this audit because we didn't know when they would show up (they give you a three month time frame but no specific dates...they just show up) and she is acting like a damn fool over an Outlook calendar entry. On a funnier note, the auditor I worked with today was complaining that he didn't get lunch yesterday...guess who was responsible for ordering food?
I'm an auditor, and I deal with external auditors as well. Escalate this. Seriously. If you promise me food, and don't provide it, you make me crabby. Trust me, you do NOT want to make your auditor crabby. I can make your life so much harder. I can decide to write the finding when it could go either way. There can be serious consequences to pissing off your auditors, and you do not know these people. This one person could significantly hurt the company by pulling those types of stunts.
One of our problems in this world: People can be petty.
The problem is that people can be influenced by things subconsciously. An adult relative will start getting really argumentative and upset with everyone whenever he is short on sleep.
"[Relative], you're tired! Stop arguing with people and go take a nap!"
"I'm not tired! You're just wrong about [some stupid thing]!"
...but then he's back to normal once he's had a nap.
At OldJob, we always made a point of feeding the external auditors well and giving them as much decent coffee as they wanted.
Daisy, congratulations on whatever you may or may not have arranged or negotiated!
With the auditors/examiners/whomever, it is a fine line. Take care of them with good coffee, a big room, be very friendly, do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, etc. But you don't want them to be too comfortable--don't give them the best chairs, try to keep them in a room without a window--things that will subconsciously make them want to get out of there, but aren't blatant.
I saw some analysis, the longer time that an auditor (broad term there) spent at a place, the more issues that were written up. The biggest predictor that an auditor would spend more time in a place? The location itself. For instance, a pharmaceutical plant in Nebraska has less scrutiny than one in San Diego or Chicago. Nobody from the FDA wants to hang out in Lincoln Nebraska; they want to get in and get out. But if they're in Chicago or San Diego (or insert place with reasonable tourism), then they'll extend their trip and find reasons to stay a little longer. "Yeah, I think I'll have to wrap this up on Tuesday instead of Friday; I'll have to stay the weekend--might as well take a trip to Tijuana!"