A shepherd
was tending his flock one fine afternoon when up drove a consultant in
his Lincoln Navigator with the LL Bean leather interior. The consultant
sprung forth, strode up to the shepherd and queried him: "I bet you
I can tell you precisely how many sheep you have. And if I
can do so will you give me one? " The shepherd, after mulling this
proposition over and surveying his vast flock spread over many acres replied
succinctly. " Sure."
The consultant ran back to
his car and retrieved his cell phone, his laptop computer, his Palm organizer,
dialed up, logged on, downloaded, uploaded, synchronized, e-mailed,
faxed, excelled, powerpointed, spreadsheeted, databased, internetted, satellite
phoned, extrapolated, compared, contrasted and concluded that the answer
was exactly one thousand seven hundred and eight nine.
The shepherd replied succinctly:"
Yep."
So the consultant strode over
to the nearest animal picked him up and placed him in the back of the Lincoln
Navigator with the LL Bean leather interior, glanced at his Rolex Oyster
Perpetual with the gold band and diamond encrusted face and bid his good-byes.
The shepherd asked the consultant
before he was able to drive off in the Lincoln Navigator with the LL Bean
leather interior if he would be willing to make another small wager.
The consultant said not so succinctly: " Sure name your wager and I'll
give you back what I have won from you plus a thousand dollars."
The shepherd wagered that he could tell the consultant, now sitting in
the idling Lincoln Navigator with the LL Bean leather interior, what he
did for a living to have such a nice automobile. The consultant answered
succinctly, and I am sure that was a first, "OK."
The shepherd looked into the
sky for just a moment and then said: "You're a consultant."
The consultant was flabbergasted.
" How did you know that?" Stammered the consultant.
" It was quite simple," stated
the shepherd. " You came here uninvited, told me information I already
knew, and extracted your price. And it is obvious you know nothing
about my business because we bet a sheep and you have my dog in your car."
The consultant after giving the shepherd his dog and a thousand dollars, drove off slowly in the Lincoln Navigator with the LL Bean leather interior, to enroll in law school.
Consultants become consultants because they are not bright enough to get the Mass Communications places in college.
Find me a consultant who only doubles my work and I will kiss his feet.
If both the consultant and the Partner see a problem there can indeed not possibly be a problem.
• You have a constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing
about.
• You use the word PARADIGM in conversation and expect not to get odd
stares.
• You use the term win-win too much.
• You can expense lunch, at home, on the weekend, by yourself.
• You think spread sheet is a verb.
• You can not explain simple concepts such as tying your shoes or turning
on a computer.
• You think reading a two column article in Business Week makes you
an expert on something.
• Power Point slides are more interesting than sex.
• You think that it's actually efficient to write a ten page paper
with six other people you don't know.
• You believe you never have any problems in your life, just "issues"
and "improvement opportunities".
• You give constructive feedback to your dog.
• Everything must have bullet points.
Are you a consultant or a prostitute?
You work very odd hours.
You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
You charge by the hour but your time can be extended.
You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.
People ask you, "What do you do?" and you can't explain it.
Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they
get for the money.
The first consultant finishes and walks over to the sink to wash his hands. He then proceeds to dry his hands very carefully. He uses paper towel after paper towel and ensures that every single spot of water on his hands is dried. Turning to the other 2 consultants, he says "At Andersen consulting, we are trained to be extremely thorough". The second consultant finishes his task at the urinal and he proceeds to wash his hands. He uses a single paper towel and makes sure that he dries every drop of water from his hands using every available portion of the paper towel. He turns and says - "At Ernst and Young not only are we trained to be extremely thorough but we are also trained to be extremely efficient". The third consultant finishes and walks straight for the door. "At PwC we learn not to piss on our hands."
How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?
Possible answers :
It depends -- how much money is in your budget...?
None. A consultant would recommend replacing the light fixture.
None. Consultants don't know how to do anything; they can just tell you how you should do it.
One partner. He holds on to the bulb and the whole world revolves around him.
The correct answer:
That's difficult to say. First, we need to do a study to see if you really need light in that area, determine historically why the light burned out, and an analysis to determine whether it's the right kind of light anyway. Then, maybe, we can recommend appropriate action -- although we may need to do additional studies to determine the light sensitivity of employees visiting the area. After that, we can: develop RFPs and RFQs, evaluate the abilities of various maintenance workers to perform the task, recommend personnel selection, and supervise the activity.
A consultant is...
... a man who knows 99 ways to make love but doesn't know any women.
The grand finale, A consultant's nightmare:
He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time
of his
life. ...at least for awhile. A hurricane came unexpectedly. The ship went
down
and was lost instantly. The man found himself swept up on the shore of
an island
with no other people, no supplies, nothing. Only bananas and coconuts.
Used to
4-star hotels, this guy had no idea what to do. So for the next four months
he
ate bananas, drank coconut juice, longed for his old life, and fixed his
gaze on
the sea, hoping to spot a rescue ship.
One day, as he was lying on the beach, he spotted movement out of the corner
of his eye. It was a rowboat, and in it was the most gorgeous woman he
had
ever seen. She rowed up to him.
In disbelief, he asked her: "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
"I rowed from the other side of the island," she said, "I landed here when
my
cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of
you
are there? You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."
"It's only me," she said, "and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing did."
He was confused, "Then how did you get the rowboat?"
"Oh, simple." replied the woman "I made the rowboat out of raw material
that I
found on the island. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches, I wove
the
bottom from Palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus
tree."
"But-- but, that's impossible," stuttered the man, "you had no tools or
hardware,
how did you manage?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman, "on the south side of the
island
there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if
I fired it to a
certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron.
I used that
for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But, enough of that,"
she
said. "Where do you live?"
Sheepishly he confessed that he had been sleeping on the beach the whole
time.
"Well, let's row over to my place, then," she said. After a few minutes
of rowing,
she docked the boat at a small wharf. As the man looked onto shore he nearly
fell out of the boat. Before him was a stone walk leading to an exquisite
bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman tied up the rowboat
with
an expertly woven hemp rope, the man could only stare ahead, dumbstruck.
As
they walked into the house, she said casually "It's not much, but I call
it home.
Sit down please; would you like to have a drink?"
"No, no thank you" he said, still dazed, "can't take any more coconut juice."
"It's not coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have a still. How about
a Pina
Colada?"
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat
down
on her couch to talk. After they had exchanged their stories, the woman
announced, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you
like
to take a shower and shave, there is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in
the
bathroom."
No longer questioning anything, the man went into the bathroom. There in
the
cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow
ground edge were fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. "This
woman is amazing," he mused, "what next?" When he returned, she greeted
him
wearing nothing but vines --strategically positioned-- and smelling faintly
of
gardenias. She beckoned for him to sit down next to her. "Tell me," she
began,
suggestively, slithering closer to him, "we've been out here for a very
long time.
You've been lonely. There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing
right
now, something you've been longing for all these months? You know... "
She
stared into his eyes. He couldn't believe what he was hearing: "You mean...
?",
he replied, "...I can check my e-mail from here?"