Monday, February 7 12:00 AM ET

Heaven Fails ISO 9000 Audit

Vatican City - Quality Assurance auditors from Alpha & Omega Consultants announced today that Heaven has failed in its quest to become an ISO 9000 compliant engineering organization. Citing Creation's complete dependence on the unpredictable whims of an omnipotent deity, auditors determined that Heaven is sorely lacking in several key quality management process areas.

According to senior auditor Tom Aquinas, Heaven's most egregious offense was its lack of customer focus. "Customers feel that their needs and expectations should be addressed, at least superficially," said Aquinas. "Ask any mortal schmuck on the street and they'll tell you that all they want is just an inkling of absolute truth -- some modest beacon to guide them as they stumble timidly through the dark back alleys of existence. But Heaven prefers a blind faith approach to salvation instead -- a choice that didn't even register with marketing surveys."

Other quality key process areas were found to be lacking as well. "Involvement of people was erratic and inconsistent," said Aquinas. "First, omnipotent deities are usually micromanagers who are reluctant to delegate tasks to middle management. Second, there's still that whole free will versus determinism controversy, so the impact that a single individual can make on Heaven's lumbering bureaucracy is the subject of intense theological debate."

"Heaven has failed to embrace a process-based approach," lamented consultant Marty Luther. "Instead, the quality of their products is dependent on the heroic efforts of a single individual...or divinity in this case. Unfortunately, this results in inconsistent output stemming from a ship-it-then-fix it attitude. How else would you account for the design flaws inherent in the platypus, the San Andreas Fault, or British cuisine? Those severely flawed items just never should have made it into production."

"If Heaven had conducted business according to a defined and repeatable process with proper checks and balances from the quality assurance department, then they never would have had to issue that devastating global recall in the time of Noah's flood," added Aquinas.