Consultant's page

 


    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 know that you are a consultant when:

• 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.



Three consultants are in an airport men's room using the urinals.

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?"