BOFH: All hail the job cuts consultant BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns So the PFY and I are hanging around the boardroom because the Board's Zoom call keeps cutting out. London skyline, beer on windowsill Looks like the Zoom call's over The Board members themselves aren't overly happy that we're here, but as this is our third time coming up to restart …
You mean someone who's read the same books then?
I remember when one of the management team kept posting little aphorisms from his favourite business guru on the intranet.
One of these was along the lines of how, while the bumblebee couldn't fly, it didn't know that and just did it anyway.
I pointed out that anyone who's basing their business advice on a pre-war French botanist's piss-poor knowledge of aerodynamics probably wasn't worth listening to. Particularly when they didn't at least cross-check their homespun wisdom with the Wikipedia "List of common misconceptions".
The "motivational" waste of paper that was hung at our companies billboard concerned a bunch of frogs trying to climb a tower. Only one frog succeeded because he was deaf, unable to hear the constant unspecified but likely demotivational comments by unspecified onlookers.
I made "friends" by reinterpreting that "motivational" story.
All the frogs except one reconsidered the utterly useless task to climb a tower while the one unwilling or unable to actually think before climbing up (and, as management allegories go, unable to listen to reason) ended up in a harsh, dry place with no food or shelter, as the top of a tower is usually a lot less moist than those little amphibics are used to and somewhat lacks the presence of insects a frog usually feeds on.
A top example that, before beginning a task, the mandatory questions along the line of "what for" or "why" should be asked.
I've been (un)fortunate to be crossed several times by Management Consultants during my career(s). I've always felt that any management that needs to call in a set of consultants to tell them how to run their business are advertising the fact that they don't know what they are doing. And are easy cost-savings. The main weapon in consultant's armoury is 'reduce the number of staff'.
I've also had 'experts' introducing 'new' systems which were in fact re-worded versions of established systems, widely known. One guy was devastated when asked why he was claiming his revolutionary new process was actually 'Management by Objectives'. He could not fathom that anyone else might have read the same books. Devastated to the point that he went from being a consultant, about to be employed permanently, to not turning up the next day. Or ever again. A win there for us, I think.
"The main weapon in consultant's armoury is 'reduce the number of staff'."
I thought the main weapon was to go and talk to the staff who are doing the job and know what really happens. Then write that up and present it with a large bill. Because it comes with a large bill it's worth much more than the same information coming from somebody who's paid a pittance.
Their two main weapons are talking to the staff while giving the impression of listening to them, telling upper management to reduce head count and a fanatical devotion to McKinsey.
Among their main weapons are such things as, um, sorry, I'll come in again.
That three-piece purple robe, thanks.
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"Does it apply also to governments that call in external consultancy firms like McKinsey?"
Who knows ? Do you talk about the renamed Arbeitsamt/Jobcenter (formerly public, now part private work agency) in germany that wasted around 60 million euros a few years ago to a search engine thats even worse that the likes of stepstone and unable to show "anything within the region" ?
Not to mention that my wife, when using that abomination, finally got a free job offer in a call center located in Dublin/ireland. Which somewhat does not match the search criteria "in or 25 kilometers around hamelin (germany)".
Or may we talk about the millions wasted for the consultants, why the job agency as unable to gain a good reputation and why employers in germany rarely waste resources to mention vacant positions to the agency. The study cost around 22 million euros and can be reduced to "because your service sucks".
There also might be a dishonourable mention, Ursula von der Leyen, concerning the excessive spending for consultants while she was occupying the ministery of defense. I am unable to remember the total sum as there where several mentions over several months thtat would have to add up but i am quite sure thats in the several hundred million euros range altogether.
There was even some kind of investigation started but as sarcastic as i am from experience thats just another place on the pork roll for the "investigators" not something i expect to have a useful outcome.
The one time I encountered one of these blights, I made a point out of being deemed redundant. Needless to say, they let me go. Firstly I collected unemployment which devastated the consultancy I had been the Director of Operations at, as they hated losing money the old-fashioned way. Then they lost a massive amount of income as my contacts left that company when I went private after a month's vacation; the group of them went with me over into my own consultancy (as an individual consultant working on a by contract basis, I still collected unemployment on the days I wasn't working). I remember when San Francisco was fun (circa 1991). I think word of that may have circulated as I've never encountered the phenomenon again. I'm now happily retired just North of S.F., plumb amazed at the decline of what was once a wonderful place to play.
I particularly like the way they set it up so they both had to be called up to the boardroom and be present and witnessed in the same room as Gerard, albeit live by video link, at the exact same time, thus neatly quenching any smouldering suspicions that this might be a set up.
Once the ink is dry on that contract (which I've paid top lawyers to insure is totally ironclad) I don't need to waste time on interviews, I'm recommending closing the company down to "reduce costs" by the maximum amount!
Gerard wasn't an AI invention of Simon's? Properly programmed to do the "dirty work" that really needed to be done (in a much more "clean" way)? Maybe all those shell companies and memes are just a figment of someones imagination.
We may never know, but if it were, Simon might end up running the company (it has happened, you know).
"What's a perceptive stress question?"
You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lies on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping. Why is that Leon?
Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
I worked at a place that employed a new manager.
When she walked in dragging a pull along suitcase she looked like one of the Hobbit dwarfs she just didn't have the axe at the time.
I pointed out to the permanent members of staff that trouble had arrived.
Over the next 8 weeks she slowly decapitated the staff numbers in the dept, followed by the number of servers allowed to run the company.
Finally she altered the terms of employment, notice period, redundancy payments & pension contributions.
The staff left were to scared to object and then she was gone.
It really felt like "walked with the devil in the pale moonlight" moment.
From my experience - these so-called consultants are actually gunning for a job in the outfit they are consulting. Numerous times a consultant has come in with grandiose plans and lots of bells && whistles - which culminated in their receiving a senior (aka high paying) position in said company.
>> Numerous times a consultant has come in with grandiose plans and lots of bells && whistles - which culminated in their receiving a senior (aka high paying) position in said company.
Saw this more than once; they come in as a senior exec, get their plans started with great announcements of good things Coming Real Soon, then get out before the issues start to show up and the Grand Plan runs into reality and craters.
They notch another firm on their CV, and move on to some other firm; lather rinse repeat...
I believe there are different kinds of consultants (all except one variety redundant and malicious,though) with different personal targets.
Here is a small list of what types of CONsultants i have met in my life:
(and i do not really care wether you read the CON in french or in american english. ;) )
- Leeches of overly inflated systems. Like those ISO9000 paperpushers, completely irrelevant and of no use at all. If a company really needs something vague, imprecise and useless like the ISO9000 rituals to construct an illusion of "quality" control, they already implicitly admit that they have no clue whats happening.
- Those with a customer defined intent. Union busting accomplices to specifically target union representatives and other workers in related fields (like the not necessarily unionized "Betriebsräte", elected representatives for the workforce in germany). Of course their "analysis" has the predefined outcome.
- The aforementioned infiltrators with the intent to "kill" for the victims job.
- The sadly useless ones. Actually the only kind of consultant i ever saw that are really trying to document issues and always fall on the same deaf ears the rest of the company has already experienced too often. Intelligent enough to actually make reports that show real issues but dumb enough to believe that those reports will change anything if the fault lies with management. Or maybe they know and just do it for the money. Either way, nothing comes from their visits.
- The simple parasites, causing damage like in the old saying:"Those who can, do. Those who cant, teach. Those who cant even teach, consult."
- Last but not least, the paid excuses. Their predefined analysis will blame anyone and his dog, the weather, "the market situation", of course the lazy, incompetent workers for any and all shortcomings that are actually management faults.
So, yeah, pretty much the well known bullshit jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Reminds me of the number of times we have had company wide team building exercises yet none of the Manglement team did them...until last year.
One of the exercises was to to throw objects of various sizes into a box. There were two teams, each with two teams, one to guard the box and return whatever fell out and one to collect the returned objects to the throwers. And there was a line midway neither team could cross.
So the Manglers thinking they knew better went first and more than 5 minutes later they finished.
Now one thing the presenters said was you could use everything around you to help, so we folded three desks over and put them around the box so nothing would bounce out from the sides and back and then we threw the smallest objects in first and worked our way up, because when the bigger items went in first, everything else would bounce off them and out of the box.
36 seconds later we were finished and the looks on the Manglers faces ware priceless.
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