When I was a field auditor, we conducted our work covertly in order to surprise a salesman and perform an on-the-spot cash audit. They followed a regular schedule based on area assignment, and in order to locate them, we first had to seek out their truck van using the license plate number. The sales personnel details, including their names, were already provided to us prior to audit deployment. The audit is the company’s preventive measure against fraud, which the salesman may accrue over time.
I was given the assignment to a small, secluded town in Mindanao. I arrived early in the day and wandered the town, but the salesman’s truck van was nowhere to be found. I looked in all the nooks and crannies of the town because it was rather small, but the salesperson and his truck van were nowhere to be seen. I was already feeling nervous, but the oversized house-high tarpaulin for the religious organization that reads, “Jesus is the Way,” seemed to offer me hope.
I circled the town a few times, but to no result. As it was already getting dark, I was desperate and had given up hope of ever finding the salesman. Because it was my second job assignment and we had a strict deadline for the next area to cover, I was worried. I made the decision to look for a pension house for the night as I made my way through the unknown town’s dark streets, and as I did, I came across the same large tarpaulin banner that read “Jesus is the Way.” Next to it was a bar with some blinking lights, and it operated only at night. I did not notice the establishment during the daytime.
Before calling it a day, I made the decision to have a pop drink, so I entered the bar. Jesus was there, sipping beer, alas, I discovered. Jesus Montilla was the salesperson I had been searching for all day. I asked where their truck van was after presenting my company ID. In response, he said, “It’s just behind the big religious tarpaulin banner.”