For comparison, the CEO of Accenture took home $12 M in total compensation last year.

Bankers: You win!
Nation: You lose.

Dear MBA students focused on finance and now beginning the job search: Welcome to consulting.  Yes, we are still hiring strong.

Upgrading my late grandfather’s golf clubs is the first order of business. I can’t show up with “PGA Tour” irons from 1984 and a beater bag straight out of Caddy Shack. I have to invest in some new Pings and maybe slick Talyor Made drivers everyone keeps talking about in first class (upgraded first; not paid, naturally).

I am decent at golf and I know that the MP that invited me has, at best, a 10 handicap. While not bad in and of itself, I actually come close to that if I were to register with the PGA and get my handicap calculated. In all honesty, I would like to kick his ass and maybe even take home some of his money. I know these bozos toss around thousands betting on the green over stupid pet tricks and skins games. I’m certain I can play the ignorant analyst and stack the odds in my favor; the MP will never quite know what hit him; hey, he thinks I’m playing for maybe the second time in my life.

I figure if my “average” firm isn’t going to pay me an annual bonus, I just have to go out and get it, eh? Why the fuck not? Get it on the damn golf course.

Having been a caddy at a country club back when I was still shooting blanks and schlepping bags for rich Jews and their prize wives, I know what these places are like. They are filled with guys like this managing partner; guys that make hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, and can’t find any better way to spend it. Sure, there’s first class travel to Madrid or Bali or Cape Town and beyond but with so much cash, why not drop $50k on a membership initiation fee plus $30k+ per year + greens fees? It is amazing what these clubs are able to do with that kind of funding. I shouldn’t complain, after all, I want to be these guys.

Alas, I am the lowly analyst invited for a single round of golf. I have to upgrade my shitty clubs, conspire with myself to stack the odds and swindle some cash out of the managing partner and move on; Sounds slightly similar to what I do for a living.

Now presenting the 20th Anniversary Presentation from Mars & Co.:

Update - Missing Video

Looks like Dominique got a little pissed off and pulled the video. We’ve searched high and low for it on the web but couldn’t find it. If you have a copy of the video send it to use at editor@gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com and we’ll post it somwhere where Mr. Mars can’t get at it!

But once I realize the scope implied by term “contracted employees,” I suddenly become nervous. Apparently it encompasses everyone from the Indians who run the IT desk (dots, not feathers) to the Indians who run on-site security (feathers, not dots). And although the former group’s offshore location affords the appearance of 24/7 coverage (while the latter group tends not try), as a management consultant I rely on less wholesome measures.

I can understand drug testing your own employees. After all, if they were in any way capable of what they were hired to do, there would be no need for consulting firms. I wouldn’t be surprised to find any number of blue collar drugs coursing through their collective veins. But why a company would want to design policies that discourage productivity in the most valuable (or at least most expensive) component of their workforce I cannot fathom. You can’t ask Bonds to break a homerun record without HGH; you can’t ask Lance to win the Tour without doping his blood; and you can’t ask a consultant to revise a 20-slide deck for the fifth consecutive night without an 8 ball.

While my colleagues were out enjoying the powder in Vail last March, I was enjoying it in my room at the W. By the end of the year, we were both out a few grand and I had been promoted for the second time in as many years. I put that substance on an exclusive list of things I hold dear: champagne, foie gras, airline upgrades, and Shakira albums, played quietly in the privacy of my own apartment. I could go on for hours (believe me). However, the last thing I want to do is turn this piece into rant on the joys of cocaine; time constraints, word count limits and my own impatience prevent it. My real focus is the emergence of a dangerous and startling revelation: clients are systematically trying to ruin our once glorious profession by removing the very pillars that sustain it.

It can hardly be called a trend: clients have traditionally harbored a tenuous, love-hate relationship with their consultants. They invite us into their offices only to sabotage our work; they ask for our opinions and then shit all over them; they agree to expense write-offs at 20% of billings and then complain when the alcohol portion of our receipts exceed food and gratuity. And we’ve always given it right back: we fly halfway across the world to condescend, laugh behind their backs and glad-hand with their superiors; we insist on reserving corner office space and then spend all our time by the cubicles, hitting on their admins. To put it simply, we’ve always met each other half way. In the end, everyone gets a binder.

This balance has been delicate but always maintained, and only lately has it begun to slip. What precipitated this step-wise increase in scrutiny, I can hardly say; maybe it’s professional jealously, or maybe one too many compliance auditors lost their laptops last year. But as I understand it, our profession has stood firmly upon three pillars since the 1980’s: basic sanity, lavish expense accounts, and recreational drug habits. Let us refer to this construct as the Consulting Trinity (ref. to Figure A). Much like the Holy Trinity, these three staples both support and reinforce each other.

Figure A: The Consulting Trinity

Chipping away at any one is liable to disrupt the other two; cutting out two at once leaves little hope for the third.** Much to my dismay, I sensed all three crumbling down around me when I tried to make travel reservations for an upcoming meeting:

“I’d like to book the 7:30 shuttle for this Tuesday please.”
“Are you aware that there’s a cheaper flight available on American?”
[profound silence]
“Should I book you on that flight instead?”
[strained breathe; phone drops]
“Would you like hotel accommodations while staying in the city, sir?”
“I shudder to think at what you might suggest.”

I refuse to provide month-long, interest-free loans to a Fortune 50 company that wants me to stay at the Pickwick Arms. It took three glasses of Bushmills to settle my nerves. But I digress: it’s getting late, I have work to do, my mirror is running dry and I fear all of this is discoverable because it’s being captured on my work computer.

I’ll cut right to the point: am I angered by being lumped in with IT consultants and staff augmentation? Somewhat. With facilities workers and offshore support? Incredibly. But what really bothers me is the lack of respect. Does this client honestly believe the same people who orchestrated a spin-off with scant data, scotch and a burning need to sell follow-on are going to be leveled by a urine test? Given a light week and a little will power, I could have the CEO’s urine in a bottle with my name on it. Rebuilding trust is not accomplished so easily, particularly in relationships based on greed and mutual reliance. After all, how can you accept free meals, travel, and millions of dollars in annual billings from an organization that doesn’t respect you? It’s the only thing that separates us from investment bankers.

In the end, advanced notice is a lifesaver. Unless they test my handkerchief, our summer intern’s inner thigh, or virtually any flat surface in my apartment, my employment will be secure through the next fiscal year. I weep only for future generations of Ivy League hopefuls who’ll sign their lives over for the stuff of dreams and a fistful of magic beans: airline miles, hotel points, and less boring trips to the bathroom.

**Survey data and scenario modeling have largely validated these conclusions. While the effects of dramatic increases in any single input have not been studied sufficiently, preliminary (albeit anecdotal) evidence from BCG suggest unhealthy increases in recreational drug activity may carry proportional increases in expense activity. This effect is unrelated to client behavior and, when controlling for blank cab receipts, appears to be limited.

This article was submitted by a guest author by the name of “Matt.” Matt reminds us he too has taken pleasure in cleaning out the first class cabin of all the cognac on transcontinental flights. Way to go, Matt; Way to go.

It’s been one hell of a month. My new client, John, was helpful and full of data. In our fact-finding sessions he didn’t respond with the usual feigned concern and oft-repeated “I really have no idea,” that comes with most client interviews. See, John returned my calls the same day. He sent me spreadsheets that nobody else could find. He used my name when talking to me and his attire playbook was a step up from Client+Kohls=Khakis. I was starting to develop a professional man-crush on John when he asked if he could see a draft of the final assessment, so I said “sure.” This was the presentation that I had told the Diversity Intern she could drive,

“…which means you get to create it, I’ll give it some cycles, and then when the big day comes you get to press the next-slide key while I deliver an unrelated narration.”

Two days later our team gave the big presentation. For fun, I introduced the Diversity Intern as a senior leader in our life sciences practice (biology minor, I guess). I dive in, but for some reason John’s boss, like a teenager playing Asteroids, starts ripping every concept and dazzling waterfall chart apart with contradicting facts; facts that John did not provide me. When I defended our fast-track strategy, John himself flipped on me and pitched cheeky remarks in front of the crowd like, “Why do you keep using the word, ‘value’?” and “apparently Gartner disagrees,” and “Nine women can’t make a baby in a month.” Fuck, John. Really, what the Fuck?

And this is where I return to, “Do you mind if I stand on your desk?” because after the meeting I stood on John’s mousepad to tape the hard copy of the presentation he had raped high on his office wall. I told him we needed to re-storyboard the whole thing and get it right[, you backstabbing slut]. The mousepad was a picture of his kids, which was, I think, a big part of why the Partner told me I would be leaving the case that Friday.

What I didn’t know at the time was that John was ex-BCG. He had outmaneuvered me to look good in front of his boss, playing on my profession’s Achilles’ heel, the idea of a client who likes their consultant. My next few days were full of ill-sentiment, especially the trip home. The worst part of a normal week is any flight attendant on a PA system. When the announcement came, “blah blah We have a very full flight blah blah,” I turned around from first class to address the half-full economy cabin and blurted out, “She always says that bullshit!” and then kept all my electronic devices on but hidden and reclined my seat back just slightly so as to not be noticed. Since they don’t serve Hendricks on UA, I brought my own. When interrogated about it, I answered the flight attendant’s question with an utterly meaningless “Do YOUR Duty for Free.” I slurred something to my neighbor about this blog, and then blacked out until we landed in Chicago for a connection.

I fired off a thumb rant on my BB to the McKinsey Global Institute concluding that O’Hare is the most likely cause of the impending US recession. I spent my time seething in the terminal. I read this article in the WSJ about how great consulting is: “Maybe it is time to let go of the jokes portraying consultants as glib, clueless apostles of PowerPoint, who have yet to hold “real” jobs. Lots of onetime consultants are getting the last laugh, landing posts as CEOs of sizable corporations.”

To make sure John had a hard time making it to CEO, I posted Craigslist personals in his name with stuff like:

• I WILL PAY FOR WOMAN’S….ESSENCE
• WASPY M SEEKS ASIAN F BIKE RIDING PARTNER MUST BE VERY SHORT
• DO YOU LIKE GAGGING?

When my week couldn’t really get any worse, I received a call from the expense compliance ‘bots while waiting in the terminal. How does it make sense to employ these people in exchange for brilliant insights like, “The policy is that you cannot expense more than two dollars per stay for maid service tips.” Or, “We noticed that last week you connected through Atlanta instead of flying direct, can I ask why?” Or, “Sir, just as in the last four instances, we do not accept highlighted credit card statements anymore.” Every time they call me on something, I upgrade my mythical weekly taxi cab cost by $5. And when my next flight finally landed and the cab delivered me home at 3AM, I had no more cares: This is not an exit.

“I will give you exactly $50 for your entire pad of receipts.”

“Sir, no, why you need so many?”

“$70 for no more questions.”

“I am not supposed to and you people always ask for two but this is redic-”

“$80 for no more talking.”

He passed me the receipt pad; I passed him the fare, $80, and John’s mousepad.

(This was submitted by a guest author who we shall call “Chris”)

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach
with the Partner.
Many scenes from my project flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.
This bothered me because I noticed
that during the crunch times of my project,
when we were suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.
So I said to the Partner,
“You promised me Martin,
that if I hired you,
you would walk with us always.
But I have noticed
that during the most trying periods of my project
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when we needed you most,
have you not been there for us?”

The Partner replied,
“The times when you have seen
only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I backed out our expenses
because things got out of control
at a team outing.” ]]> http://www.gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com/2007/11/13/footprints-in-the-sand/feed/ http://www.gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com/2007/11/13/footprints-in-the-sand/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gettingdrunkinfirstclass/uMIQ/~3/n_QcujAzSlc/ http://www.gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com/2007/10/28/receipts-round-one/#comments Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:30:30 +0000 totaldickhead http://www.gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com/2007/10/28/receipts-round-one/ A few brash, young, Type A consultants (are there any other kind?) sent us a few of their receipts and I’d like to share a couple that we’ve received thus far. We generally reply to any editor submission we receive since billing 60+ client hours per week cannot practically be 60+ actual hours of work so we have the free time for that sort of thing. Free time is being used in a loose sense, of course; suffice it to say that it just means when we aren’t banging out 2×2’s and “nudging” shit around in PowerPoint.

“One of the consultants on my team was rolling off because they sucked ass, but why pass up an opportunity to ring up some bills on someone else’s dime?

After cleaning out the open bar at an all-team meeting that afternoon, we moved onto a favorite local bar for the ‘roll-off party,’ and proceeded to run up the attached tab. The best part is, we frequented the place so much, the bartender didn’t even charge us for about half of what we drank.”

I occasionally worry about some of our young consultants out there. Has anyone ever died from alcohol poisoning on these things? I’ve always wondered but never witnessed it myself. It’s easy to imagine some fresh-off-the-street-mutt analyst getting totally fucked out of his mind and heading to the porcelain god but never returning to the known world. Let us have a moment of silence for the imaginative fallen that I believe may have walked this earth…

Next on our list:

Okay, so this is just teeming with possibilities: Were they eating shit or sushi? And, Whole Foods? I don’t know how long this receipt is or how much but it better be a lot deeper than the $60 shown here. Whatever happened to the classic expense receipts from Craft restaurant at over $200+ per head? I actually owe my project team a solid night out; they have been pulling 4 weekends now on a short, 6-week strategy assessment at a real estate development client (they’re pretty desperate, you know) and I’m fairly certain they’re on the verge of assassinating me (perhaps even expensing the fee to the hitman).

We’re still looking for submissions so if you think you can top some of these (it shouldn’t be that hard, really) then please be sure to forward them on to us (editor@gettingdrunkinfirstclass.com).

I’ll bet that pig was delicious! But where is the cowpigturducken at? God knows how long this receipt was, but I hear it was about 4 feet long. Surely somebody has a receipt that at least rivals the length of Bubble Tape; 6 feet of gum!

Send in a pic of your most outrageous receipt to editor [at] gettingdrunkinfirstclass [.] com and maybe we’ll post it.

Main Entry: ¹bane
Function: noun
1 a : KILLER, SLAYER b : POISON c : DEATH, DESTRUCTION d : WOE
2 : a source of harm or ruin : CURSE  

Now here is a company who understands consulting!  Bain knows how to mislead with statistics.  Some version of the following graphic is always the bain.com hood ornament:

And the accompanying tagline is:

“Companies that outperform the market like to work with us; we are as passionate about their results as they are.”

And what they meant was:

“Companies with excess cash like to hire us; we are as passionate about their thick billfolds as they are.”

WORK WITH : HIRE :: RESULTS : THICK BILLFOLDS

The first time I pulled up the Bain homepage, I knew I couldn’t have been the first to notice this misleading, salacious, sexy bitch of a graph.  Sure enough, a search for “Bain claim outperform” shows that this marketing maneuver is now a poster child for the correlation vs. causation logical fallacy.  If you’ve ever been swayed by the compelling evidence that global warming is actually caused by the global decline in modern sea pirates (http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/), then you should strongly consider hiring Bain to analyze your operations data.  They might just find that your recent profit windfall is due to the periodic alignment of menstrual cycles in your firm.

Right after deciding that Bain’s marketing department was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, I realized that this marketing might be brilliantly effective in its use of a selection bias.  Consider the pitch they made to Bain management:

“Leaders dumb enough to be impressed by this pseudo-statistic will hire us.  Since they have flagged themselves as retarded, we can clearly boost their valuation with balance sheet tricks.  And if this fails?  Then we will not pitch any more work to any client who doesn’t outperform the market enough to prop up our far-flung claims.  After all, the claim doesn’t say, ‘outperform the market 4-to-1 after working with us’.”

Here’s another bullshit quote from a recent bain.com homepage:

Creating Unstoppable Growth
Chris Zook’s book shows managers how to find hidden assets in their company to help renew their core and fuel profitable business growth.

Yes, the book examines how to conceive a profit Godzilla chud-baby using hidden intangible elusive contra-assets. Fucking Unstoppable. Yes, this is possible.  Chris Zook studied Unstoppable at http://www.unstoppable.com/ and learned it had something to do with your “core”.  You like fuel?  How about growth?  Controversial: Yes.  Hell yes.  Fuel the fire.  Grow the fire.  Fire the assets.  Renew the assets.  shhhhhhh - grow. 

What?

Bain’s marketing department needs to watch There’s Something About Mary and learn from the 6 Minute Abs Case Study (© HBS Press) because tomorrow, readers, we will form the Infinite Growth consultancy called Kurse.  At Kurse, our clients outperform the market 16 to 1.  Our dicks out-measure the average by two standard deviations.  Kurse works on the world’s most challenging problems by serving clients including Jack Welch, all of the Fortune 100, the United Nations, all companies working on the cure for cancer, and many of the universal laws of physics.  Kurse and Kompany has no need for marketing campaigns because Kurse’s deliverables are sprinkled with pixie dust.