Top 10 Signs You Work in Consulting
- Think a half-day means leaving at 5 o'clock
- You think Einstein would have been more effective had he put his ideas into a matrix.
- Ask your friends to "think out of the box" when making Friday night plans.
- Know the people at the airport and hotel better than your next door neighbors.
- Wear gray to work instead of navy blue to make a bold fashion statement.
- Normally eat out of vending machines and at the most expensive restaurant in town within the same week.
- Find you really need PowerPoint to explain what you do for a living.
- Refer to the tomatoes grown in your garden as deliverables.
- You get all excited it's Saturday so you can wear casual clothes to work.
- You lecture the neighborhood kids selling lemonade on ways to improve their process.
Top Ten Ways to Know You've Got the Consulting Bug
- Firmly believe that an objective viewpoint means more than any real work experience.
- A two-page story in Business Week is all it takes to make you an expert.
- Tired of having a social life beyond work.
- Can fit the thematic undercurrents of War and Peace into a two-by-two matrix.
- Keep seeing bullet points everywhere.
- Always-hyphenating-words-that-don't-need-to-be-hyphenated.
- Constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing about.
- Use so much jargon in conversation, friends think you're speaking a foreign language.
- Worried that he who dies with the most frequent-flyer miles wins.
- Can't stop using words that don't exist.
Top Ten Things a Consultant Shouldn't Tell a Client
- What are you, stupid?
- I could just tell you the answer, but we're committed to a three month project.
- Of course it's right; the spreadsheet says so.
- So what do you need me to tell you?
- Sure it'll work; I learned it in business school.
- My rental car looks nicer than that you're driving.
- I like this office space. I'll have them put me in here when you're gone.
- Hey, I just realized that I was in junior high when you started working here.
- You should see the hotel I'm staying at.
- That was my first guess as well, but then I really thought about it.
Top Ten Things You'll Never Hear from a Consultant
- Everything looks okay to me.
- The problem is, you have too much work for too few people.
- I can't take the credit. It was Ed in your marketing department.
- Implementation? I only care about writing long reports.
- I don't know enough to speak intelligently about that.
- Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do.
- This whole strategy is based on a Harvard business case I read.
- How about paying us based on the success of the project?
- Bet you I can go a week without saying "synergy" or "value-added".
- You're right; we're billing way too much for this.
Warnings for Consultants: ……You know it is time to get out of consulting when...
- You ask the waiter what the restaurant's core competencies are.
- You decide to re-org your family into a 'team-based organization.'
- You refer to dating as test marketing.
- You can spell 'paradigm.'
- You actually know what a paradigm is.
- You understand your airline's fare structure.
- You write executive summaries on your love letters.
- You think that it's actually efficient to write a ten page paper with six other people you don't know.
- You believe every company is 'a traditional functional organization, with promotion based on tenure, but one that needs to change as it is facing ever increasing competition...'
- You believe that a company's problems are never caused by an 'ineffective handling of an administrative situation.'
- You believe you never have any problems in your life, just 'issues' and 'improvement opportunities.
- You know every single piece of clip art in PowerPoint.
- You calculate your own personal cost of capital.
- You explain to your bank manager that you prefer to think of yourself as 'highly leveraged' as opposed to 'in debt.'
- You ask your bank manager if she has heard of 'Modigliani-Miller,' and then you ask her if she has a pizza so you can show her.
- You can explain to somebody the difference between 're-engineering,' 'down-sizing,' 'right-sizing,' and 'firing peoples' arses.'
- You actually believe your explanation in number 15.
- You start doing your kid's math equations in reverse Polish notation.
- You enjoy using an HP-12C.
- You refer to your previous life as 'my sunk cost.'
- Your three meals a day are a morning consumption function, a noontime consumption function, and an evening consumption function.
- You refer to your significant other as 'my co-CEO.'
- Your favorite stories begin "Bob Jones, VP of marketing, sat at his desk and stared out his window..."
- You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey.
- You believe CAPM is just as important as the Theory of Relativity
- You believe CAPM.
- You start to feel sorry for Dilbert's boss.
- You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend
- You refer to divorce as 'divestiture.'
- Your favorite artist is the one who does the dot drawings for the Wall Street Journal.
- None of your favorite publications have cartoons
- You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
- You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child.
- At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity.
- You always call your mechanic before you start your car to see if it will blow up given the day's weather conditions...
...and expect him to use a decision tree to work it out.
- You've decided the only way to afford a house is to call your fellow alumni and offer to name a room after them, if they'll help with the down payment.
- Your 'deliverable' for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills
- You use the term 'value-added' without falling down laughing
- You ask the car salesman if the car comes with a whiteboard and Internet connection.
- You give constructive feedback to your dog.
|
