From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Jan 6 07:50:34 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id HAA12608 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 6 Jan 1997 07:50:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from labs.usn.blaze.net.au (labs.usn.blaze.net.au [203.17.53.30]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id HAA12602 for ; Mon, 6 Jan 1997 07:50:28 -0800 (PST) Received: (from davidn@localhost) by labs.usn.blaze.net.au (8.8.4/8.8.4) id CAA20728; Tue, 7 Jan 1997 02:50:26 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 02:50:25 +1100 From: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Humor Break (fwd) X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56 Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Sorry, I just couldn't resist. :-) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 00:16:25 PST From: Humor Break Dispatch Subject: Humor Break CHAPTER 12: MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS _____________________________________ If the employees of your company are incompetent you might want to get some consultants. A consultant is a person who takes your money and annoys your employees while tirelessly searching for the best way to extend the consulting contract. Consultants will hold a seemingly endless series of meetings to test various hypotheses and assumptions. These exercises are a vital step toward tricking managers into revealing the recommendation that is most likely to generate repeat consulting business. After the "correct" recommendation is discovered, it must be justified by a lengthy analysis. The consultants begin working like crazed beavers in a coffee lake. Reams of paper will disappear. You'll actually be able to hear the screams of old-growth forests dying as the consultants churn out page after page of backup charts and assumptions. The analysis will be cleverly designed to be as confusing as possible, thus discouraging any second-guessing by sniping staff members who are afraid of appearing dense. When consultants are added to a department, they change the balance and chemistry of the group. You need a new process to take advantage of the consultants' skills. The most efficient process is to use the dullard employees as data gatherers to feed the massive brains of the consultants. This keeps the employees busy and makes them feel involved while the consultants hold meetings with senior managers of the company to complain about the support they're getting and to pitch new projects. Consultants use a standard set of decision tools that involve creating "alternative scenarios" based on different "assumptions." Any pesky assumptions that don't support the predetermined recommendation are quickly discounted as being uneconomical- for the consultants. The remaining assumptions are objectively validated by sending employees off to obtain information that is not available. Later, the assumptions are transformed into near-facts through the process of sitting around arguing about what is "most likely." Consultants will ultimately recommend that you do whatever you're NOT doing now. Centralize whatever is decentralized. Flatten whatever is vertical. Diversify whatever is concentrated and divest everything that is not "core" to the business. You'll hardly ever find a consultant who recommends that you keep everything the same and stop wasting money on consultants. And consultants will rarely deal with the root cause of your company's problems, since that's probably the person who hired them. Instead, they'll look for ways to improve the "strategy" and the "process." Consultants don't need much experience in an industry in order to be experts. They learn quickly. If your twenty-six-year-old consultant drives past the Egghead software outlet on the way to an assignment, that would qualify as experience in the software industry. If Egghead has a sale on modems that day: hardware experience. This type of experience is unavailable to the regular staff members who have worked in the industry for twenty years but still use yellow sticky notes to identify their various excrementory openings. Aside from their massive intellects, consultants bring many advantages to your company that regular employees can't match. - Consultants have credibility because they are not dumb enough to be regular employees at your company; - Consultants eventually leave, which makes them excellent scapegoats for major management blunders; - Consultants can schedule time on your boss's calendar because they don't have your reputation as a whiny little troublemaker who constantly brings up unsolvable "issues;" - Consultants are often more attractive than your regular employees. This is not always true, but if you get a batch of homely ones, you can always replace them next month; - Consultants will return your phone calls, because it's all billable time to them; AND - Consultants work preposterously long hours, thus making the regular staff feel like worthless toads for working only sixty hours a week. ---------===========================================--------- __ __ ___ __ / // /_ ____ _ ___ ____ / _ )_______ ___ _/ /__ / _ / // / ' \/ _ \/ __/ / _ / __/ -_) _ `/ '_/ /_//_/\_,_/_/_/_/\___/_/ /____/_/ \__/\_,_/_/\_\ A no-cost moderated email joke mailing list See the WWW page referenced below for subscription info morph@voyager.abac.com http://voyager.abac.com/~morph/jokes/ ---------===========================================--------- -----End of forwarded message----- Regards, David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/