Corporate Whore

A new week begins with a new project. I’m still nursing a hangover from the project sign-off gig on Friday night. It was truly a monumental night; six colleagues consuming £800+ worth of alcohol is bound to end in chaos. I would have an “Inebriated Quotes” posting, but I don’t remember much of the evening.

Anyway, Monday morning and I’m travelling to the client site. I take my seat, and as the train pulls off, I shut my eyes to get a power nap before the next stop. My nap lasts slightly longer than expected; I awake to the train pulling out of the next stop. As I fully awaken from my slumber, I turn to see a pair of eyes watching me intently. At first I thought I was looking into the eyes of a very masculine woman, I adjust my gaze and realise my initial thought was incorrect. I was actually looking at a transsexual. Now this is a very strange sight (no shit!) as the only people I expect to see on these early morning journeys are consultants, rail staff and miscellaneous students.

After a few moments I come to my senses. It’s a transsexual, no big deal. At least she’s dressed appropriately (blouse and I assume trousers). By now, I’m fully awake and about to dissect the brief I was given on Friday regarding the client we’re supposed to be helping in just over 3 hours.

As I settle down going over the 30+ page report I hear a voice, it’s very soft, but it’s masculine. I pictured Michael Jackson sounding like this if he had a pair of balls. Something isn’t right. There is only myself and the transsexual at my end of the carriage. I turn slightly to see if I’m mistaken and someone else had taken a seat without me noticing; this end of the carriage is empty.

It was at this point I realise that this wasn’t a transsexual, but what appeared to be a metrosexual. This realisation was almost as shocking as realising a I was being watched by a cross dresser. I’ve read plenty about metrosexual men; I even thought a few colleagues might be metrosexual as they wear facial masks and spend more time in front of a mirror than they do in front of their laptops.

However, what I was looking at was a new breed. He was wearing what appeared to be eye make up (ladies forgive me, I don’t know the name of your products as they don’t concern me), foundation (well, I know this much) and lip gloss. FUCKING LIP GLOSS?!

I couldn’t contain my laughter. I called a friend of mine who I know would be on a similar train journey to a different part of the country. I should have known better and held my tongue. The thought did cross my mind, but I reasoned that the chances of me crossing paths with this guy would be near 0. I made sure he heard as I mocked him for his ensemble. This lasted for at least fifteen minutes. A constant barrage of mockery.

I chuckled silently as I stepped into the lobby of the client office. When the rest of the team arrived, the engagement manager warned us that the director who we would be dealing with was a “wanker” but a good friend of a partner at our firm, so we had to what we do best and turn bullshit into gold bricks.

At approximately 9.30am, the director walked into the meeting room we were stationed. My heart missed about 5 beats. The director was the masculine woman/transsexual/metrosexual man on the train. FCUK!

My current project requires me to travel to Hertfordshire everyday. It’s close enough to commute, yet far enough that I have to rise at 5.30am every day. I am not pleased. I was offered the opportunity to stay at a local hotel; however after arriving on the first day, I swiftly declined. I’m sure there is more action at a hospice for geriatric patients.

On one of my sleep deprived morning journeys to the wasteland, I noticed a secondary school student attempting to balance his text book on one knee and his exercise book on the other. I can only assume that he was attempting to complete some homework that had been set by a teacher. The young student, seemingly decided he did not wish to be held captive by the shackles of GCSE studies. The scene was all too familiar as memories of bus journeys to school copying Mark Wilkins’ homework came flooding back.

Not only did that incident cause me to reminisce about my youthful days, it also got me thinking about consulting. There are many parallels between consulting projects and school kids rushing to complete their homework on the way to school the day it’s due or even the night before it’s due.

• School kids expend alot of energy in completing the work in order to avoid punishment. The work may have been set a few weeks in advance, yet they leave it ’til the last minute to begin work in earnest.

The length of a consulting project can vary, and it would make sense to attempt to evenly distribute the workload of the project team in order to avoid working 24+ hours when the deadline is approaching. In all my (relatively few) years in consulting, taking into account the (almost) 20 projects I’ve worked on, my schedule has never been managed as described. There is always a mad rush to sign off the project (thus avoiding penalty fees) and a hedonistic congratulatory party afterwards. I suppose without the mad push, managers would feel less of a need to splash out on the party. With the drinks bill running into the thousands, I’ll try not to complain the next time I’m working at 4.30am to get a document complete in 3.5 hours.

• School kids will try at all costs to copy the homework instead of completing using their own brainpower.

In approximately 90% of the projects I’ve worked on, I’ve always heard the engagement manager say “find out if [company xyz] have done something similar. If so, find out all you can to plagiarise”. I’ve even heard the following mentioned “plagiarism is the way forward in this company. If you can’t plagiarise it, you’re not looking hard enough. We’ll leave new stuff to the research guys from IT”. I guess university did not prepare me for the professional world, where we are penalised for discovering efficient methods to complete a task (plagiarism). However, you can argue that universities exist to promote learning. To that I’ll say; try explaining to a partner that you think the project should take twice as long, costing more, just so that you don’t copy another firm, who copied a different firm, who probably copied someone else etc. At best you’ll get laughed at. At worst (depending on the sanity of the partner), you may be hung drawn and quartered.

• Kids get an undeserved feeling of satisfaction when submitting a piece of substandard work 10 minutes before it’s due.

Ditto for consulting, see comments about the hedonistic party above. The firm knows it’s substandard, yet promises are made (and broken) that the next project will have better management. HA!

Monday morning. The alarm goes off at 5am. In 90 minutes I will be on the train to Halifax. What joy!

I go through the motions of preparing myself for the coming week. I try and remember what bullshit I have to spew at the client meeting at 10am. I also have to get back to my assigned buddy. Fortunately this one appears to have his mind in the right place.

6.20am arrive at Kings Cross. I’m walking down the platform when I overhear an argument between a passenger and the guard.

Passenger [Thick African accent]: AH-AH! I don’t undastaand.
Guard: Sir, your ticket is for the 6:35am train. This train is the delayed 6am train.
Passenger: But it’s now 6:27 and you say the train will be leaving in tree [3] minutes. Which will make it closer to 6:35am, and that is the correct time for my train.
Guard: But it’s the wrong train.
Passenger: How can it be the wrong train? I’m looking at it now. This is the train that takes me to Leeds isn’t it?
Guard: Yes, but …
Passenger: So how can it be wrong to get on the train? This is madness.
Guard: They are two different trains.
Passenger: So it should fit me.

At this point I had to conceal the uncontrollable laughter that was building up.